Case Study of the NOVADECI Health Care Program
By
Rosa C. Mercado and Ramon A. Certeza

Introduction

This case study focuses on the role of the Novaliches Development Cooperative (NOVADECI) in providing health care and medical services to its members. NOVADECI is a cooperative initiated by market vendors in 1976 in a bustling urban community. It started its operations in the town of Novaliches and has since then widened its scope of operation to include the areas of Caloocan and Quezon City, two highly urbanized and populous cities in the Philippines. Quezon City is home to many government and private offices, shopping malls and public markets, schools and universities and sprawling residential areas for both the rich and the poor.

NOVADECI had a very rocky beginning, borne out of desperation and necessity for a small group of market vendors who were struggling to keep their businesses afloat in the face of changing market conditions, lack of support from or access to government and banking institutions and perennial dependence on usurious money lenders. Over the years they have realized that their margins-of-profit were being eaten away by the high interest rates they have to pay on loans. In 1976, a tipping point came when the slaughterhouse on which they were getting their meat supplies was ordered closed by the city government due to poor sanitation. A small group of 15 market vendors decided to close ranks and put their heads together. They poured out their collective grievances and brainstormed on alternative solutions. Through the assistance of leaders from a marketing cooperative, The National Market Vendors Cooperative (NAMVESCO), they seized upon the idea of forming a cooperative. Thus NOVADECI was born. In the beginning NOVADECI assumed the primarily role of a credit cooperative to meet the financial needs of its members. But