Brief History

BCS: Yesterday and Today

The Bansalan Cooperative Society (BCS) is a medium sized Cooperative whose total assets and annual profits experienced unprecedented growth starting FY 1997 to date.

BCS was formally organized on July 30, 1967. Through the initiation of the Parish Priest, 35 people banded together and contributed a total of P650.00 in share capital to form the Bansalan Parochial Cooperative Credit Union (BANPACCU). This new cooperative was registered by the Cooperative Administration Office on November 7, 1967 as an Agricultural Cooperative pursuant to Republic Act No. 2023. The Parish convent administration offered a small space for an office to enable the Cooperative to start its operations.

On the fourth year of its existence the leaders decided to practice self-reliance by moving to a new location outside the Church compound. A small building was offered by one of its members to accommodate the non-catholic sectors of the community. Subsequently, the word “Parochial” was dropped out from its name, thus changing it to BANSALAN COOPERATIVE CREDIT UNION, INC. (BANCOCU).

In compliance with the government policy in 1977, the name was again changed, this time to BANSALAN KILUSANG BAYAN FOR CREDIT, INC., pursuant to Presidential Decree No. 175 and Letter of Implementation No. 23. Encouraged by the Government policy allowing cooperatives to engage in other lines of business in addition to their original single line operation, in 1979 BCS became a Multi-purpose Cooperative and the name of the Cooperative was changed to BANSALAN COOPERATIVE SOCIETY, INC., under BACOD. This name was confirmed officially on March 21, 1991 upon registration with the Cooperative Development Authority (CDA).

BCS remained stagnant during the first 30 years of its existence. Its membership did not grow beyond 750 and its image was very poor. It was located on the second floor of the public market building and it occupied a very small office space. The borrowers had to wait for days for loan releases due to insufficient funds. BCS also operated a small copra buying business to accommodate the copra production of its members.

In 1997 BCS was invited to join the CUES System. CUES Philippines was a project of the World Council of Credit Unions. This project was funded by the USAID. The objective of CUES was to develop existing cooperatives into Model Credit Unions through the implementation of the Model Credit Union Building methodology. When CUES came the cooperative had just closed its supermarket and its palay trading and milling business due to unprofitable operations.

CUES emphasized that it did not have the capability to help BCS in its copra business because they only had the technology for Model Credit Union Building (MCUB). CUES recommended to phase out the copra trading but when this proposal was submitted to the General Assembly the members appealed for the continuation of the copra buying operation to enable them to pay their loans. The clamor of the members was upheld and it was decided to spin-off the credit operation from the multipurpose operation.

The BOD and other officers of the BCS Multipurpose Cooperative automatically became the BOD and officers of the BCS Credit Cooperative. This arrangement was approved by the General Assembly. For purposes of economy BCS decided to have only one set of BOD and officers. As a result, all transactions with outside partners and funding agencies were made in the name of the BCS Credit Cooperative.