The Use of Public Relations in Advocating Cooperativism Among the Publics of Tayabas Community Multi-Purpose Cooperative

Abstract

As a controversial field of communication, PR has been associated with an organization’s dishonest tricks to deceive the people inside and outside it. One of the reasons of this negative connotation about PR is the insufficient knowledge about this vital field of communication. Practitioners define it as a management function that aims for mutual understanding between the organization and its publics to build the organization’s positive image through the process of communication (Cutlip, Center & Broom 1; Jefkins 1-2 & Wilcox, Ault and Agee 5). Every organization uses PR as a way of gaining its publics’ advocacy or active support but every organization’s PR differs from one another because each organization has different cultures and goals. One organization that reflects a distinct culture is a cooperative commonly termed by the supporters of the cooperative movement as cooperativism that regards the value of cooperation as its core value. As stated in the Republic Act 6938 entitled, The Cooperative Code of the Philippines, a cooperative is an association of people who voluntarily come together for a common lawful, social and economic end—the development of its members who are also its owners. A few studies made about PR showed that only some people and organizations are aware of its meaning and importance (Marquez 1995), and that only some organizations use it without being aware that they are already practicing it (Esguerra 1999). This small number of studies made about PR mainly deal with its use in corporate organizations and only some studied its application to public and people-oriented organizations. None was made about how it is applied in a cooperative. Considering that the distinct culture of a cooperative that is cooperativism, strictly influences how a cooperative communicates with its publics, a study of this nature becomes a worthwhile task. Given this gap in knowledge this study aims to answer the question: “How does Tayabas Community Multi-Purpose Cooperative (TCMC) use public relations to advocate cooperativism among its publics?”. To answer this problem these sub-problems were posed: (1) What is the profile of Tayabas Community Multi- Purpose Cooperative and its concept of cooperativism?; (2) What is its organizational structure?; (3) Who are the people and the groups of people it deals with outside the organization?; and (4) What PR strategies does it use to gain active support on the concept of cooperativism from its internal and external publics? The researcher used documentary research and field research and employed an inter/iew schedule to obtain the answers to the problems. A total of twenty-one (21) participants were interviewed, seven (7) of them came from the management team (Board of Directors, committee members and management officers) while thirteen (13) were all members in good standing. They were all chosen according to their geographical distribution, performance and length of stay in the cooperative. The data gathered were analyzed according to themes in the sub-problems. This study revealed that TCMC is primarily an agricultural multi-purpose cooperative in Tayabas, Quezon is an ideal example which operates under the principles of cooperativism through engaging in programs and activities promoting trust and cooperation among the members for their social and economic ends. TCMC’s internal publics are defined in its organizational structure as the General Assembly, which is composed of the members, the members of the Board of Directors, the committee members, the management officers, the employees and the critics. The external publics of TCMC are the people and groups of people outside the organization affecting and are being affected by its operation, which are the general publics, the community publics, the government publics and the media publics. Considering the background of these publics from the market research TCMC employs, it uses different public relations (PR) strategies and makes use of various tools to gain and maintain the publics’ active support. Among these tools TCMC uses primarily the specialized tools (e.g. seminars and educational tour, events, benefit programs and services, social programs and services, publicity and even the members’ own ways of promoting TCMC to its publics) which provides a more direct and face-to-face interaction with its publics. Secondly, it uses the written and visual tools (e.g. TCMC’s publication; Sandigan, brochures, handouts, bulletins, bulletin boards and info racks) and the spoken tools (e.g. word-of-mouth, stories and speeches) and thirdly, the written and visual tools (e.g. flyers, posters, tarpaulins, banners, newly acquired structures and exhibits) and the new technologies, which contain shorter messages and are delivered through media. It is therefore concluded that TCMC is using different public relations strategies—primarily, the specialized tools, secondly, the written tools and visual tools, and the spoken tools, and thirdly, other written and visual tools and new technologies to advocate cooperativism among its publics.