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Part V of “A Socioeconomic Co-optopia” Series
Author’s Note: The series is renamed “A Socioeconomic Co-optopia”. Why? Because the Philippines is experiencing political turmoil, the United States has allegedly temporarily stopped issuing student visas. Ergo, Filipino and Overseas-Filipino nursing and other medical students may have to avail themselves of educational opportunities in Jalisco, State of the Mexican Federation, Canada, and Spain. And forming cooperatives — with international stakeholders — may be better socioeconomic vehicles. On August 25, 2021, this columnist penned “North America Is the Biggest ‘New Frontier’ for Filipinos.”
Here are the opening paragraphs of the alleged classic (as some peers opined) essay: QUOTE. On November 23, 2020, this column was born with its first op-ed piece, “Time to finally ‘reinvent’ the Filipino presence in New York and North America”.
On December 2, 2020, this writer wrote a follow-up article, “Our Failure to Build Monumental Projects or Hold Great Events, in North America.” Yes, after 44 years since I made several proposals in the Big Apple about doing monumental projects or holding meaningful events, we, OFWs and Filipino-American community leaders, have not done anything significant. But as I mentioned, we held (as exceptions) the first couple of Filipino-American Community Nights at the Dodgers Stadium in July of 2006 and 2007. The events — the first in Major League Baseball — were made possible by my chairmanship of the Kalayaan Philippine-Independence Committee of Southern California in 2006. UNQUOTE.
” … a cooperative is the nearly-perfect format for entrepreneurs and small businesses. Yes, the ideal utopian situations even for educational institutions. And it is far superior to “crony capitalism” and even to Christian socialism.”
This instant column article is about a visionary socioeconomic “Co-optopia”, which this wordsmith coined by combining “cooperative (co-op)” and “Utopia”. This writer was a member of the “Utopia Fraternity” at the Jesuit-run Ateneo de Manila College of Law (AdMCL), where he belonged to Class 1970 but dropped out in his senior year. And as nearly everybody knows, Utopia is an imaginary place or state of things in which everything is perfect. But then, as this journalism graduate cum senior law student always maintains, a cooperative is the nearly-perfect format for entrepreneurs and small businesses. Yes, the ideal utopian situations even for educational institutions. And it is far superior to “crony capitalism” and even to Christian socialism.
Benedictine monks run San Beda College (SBC) of the City of Manila. It is the alma mater of this author, who finished college (majoring in journalism) in 1966 and began first-year law in 1967. Some of his monk-professors shook their heads when this then-student opined that Catholic schools like the SBC ought to be run as cooperatives. They thought that he was losing his mind. Some officials of the AdMCL made the same retort about the same idea.
In May 2023, this journalist began a series of articles on efforts to save the 155-year-old Holy Names University (HNU) in Oakland, CA. This author and his wife, their only son (who flew in from North Carolina), attended the last HNU graduation ceremony, where their granddaughter, Cesyl, was a member of the last nursing graduating class. She majored in kinesiology and then pursued a master’s degree in Fitness Medicine at another Catholic college in Northern California. But the HNU closed two days after its last graduation exercise. Why? HNU was financially insolvent due to the recent pandemic and frequent forest fires near its campus. By the way, this journalist calculated in 2023 that the number of HNU alumni, undergraduate students, faculty, non-teaching workers, their kin, and in-laws might exceed one million individuals.
This journalist reached out to the Oakland City Council for any possible help. He also asked the city officials to seek assistance from Alameda County and the state Capitol. And even from then, Vice President Kamala Harris, who grew up in the City of Oakland. But no help came, as one Oakland official told this writer that public offices could not violate the separation between church and state. And the HNU was a Catholic educational institution. This journalist retorted: Why not turn the HNU into a cooperative and thus do away with its status as a religious institution? But he never heard from them again.
A draft proposal for Los Angeles County (CA) to host “Co-optopia” is being studied by one of its commissioners before he submits it to the Board of County Supervisors. The commissioner and this journalist are drafting a second version that incorporates the suggested changes.
Nevertheless, this columnist has contacted one of the poorest counties in the Golden State as a backup venue to do the “Co-optopia” suggested ventures. That is, if the County of Los Angeles declines the invitation to serve as the venue for the proposed cooperative operations, as it is currently busy preparing for the 2028 Summer Olympics to be held in its cities. More developments and details in Part VI of this series by next Wednesday.
