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Casting Away the Myth of Filipino Opportunism
(A Journey from Puhunang Laway to Co-op Member Economic Participation)
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Puhunang Laway is Filipino idiom for the way shrewd middlemen practice their trade and earn their commission, laway lang ang puhunan (no cash capital involved, only sales talk).
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Member Economic Participation - Members contribute equitably to, and democratically control, the capital of their co-operative. At least part of that capital is usually the common property of the co-operative. Members usually receive limited compensation, if any, on capital subscribed as a condition of membership. Members allocate surpluses for any or all of the following purposes: developing their co-operative, possibly by setting up reserves, part of which at least would be indivisible; benefiting members in proportion to their transactions with the co-operative; and supporting other activities approved by the membership.
– Third Co-op Principle, ICA Statement on the Co-operative Identity
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Laway lang ang puhunan is a most serious affront to the Filipino character. As popularly understood, it is shrewdness beyond compare. Many a PROMDI (from the province) would go home fuming mad after being duped into buying overpriced and/or fake merchandise by some negosyanteng laway (middlemen) plying their trade along Avenida Rizal (now Rizal Avenue) and Calle Azcarraga (now Claro M. Recto Avenue) streets. Charge it to experience would be the consoling words of relatives and town mates and the shock from such a costly experience could not be easily shaken off.
The negosyanteng laway could be victims themselves of a system that forces those of lesser means and of little education to practice such a craft in order to survive. No one frowns upon the crafts of real estate and insurance brokering today. The only difference it seems is the practitioner’s use of a calling card with the title ‘Account Executive’ to glamorize the same craft of laway lang ang puhunan.
Visit Rizal Avenue and C.M. Recto these days and do not be surprised to find some negosyanteng laway of old now managing their own legitimate enterprises. They will tell you that with a little help from some Co-op friends they were able to join the Journey from Puhunang Laway to Co-op Member Economic Participation. Promoting the Co-op Idea requires a great amount of laway too.
The Co-op principle of Member Economic Participation is the organization’s supreme test of economic emancipation. The ICA report describes it as follows: Co-operatives operate so that capital is the servant, not the master of the organization. Co-operatives exist to meet the needs of people, and this principle describes how members both invest in their co-operatives and decide how to allocate surpluses (ICA Report, 1995, p.19).
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A rich people impoverished by a system that favors foreign products and capital more than its own native products and capital should find a way back to dignified business production and distribution through this Co-op principle of member economic participation.
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