GMA appoints Moncupa acting CDA chief

President Arroyo has appointed Efren Moncupa as acting chairman of the Board of Administrators of the Cooperative Development Authority (CDA). The President said Moncupa holds the rank of secretary.

Moncupa, until his recent designation, was Undersecretary for Field Operations of the Department of Agrarian Reform where he helped former DAR Secretary — now Press Secretary Hernani Braganza carry out the Bayan Anihan program. Bayan Anihan has become the DAR’s centerpiece program to hasten the implementation of the government’s Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP), to spur rural growth and promote the welfare of agrarian reform beneficiaries and stakeholders.

Moncupa helped establish the Farmers Bayanihan Center for Rural Development and the People’s Council for Agrarian Reform and Rural Development as mechanisms of grassroots participation in DAR projects. He also negotiated and implemented multilateral and bilateral cooperation projects for the DAR. He distinguished himself as a respected leader of non-government organizations and civil society groups from 1974 to 2000.

Moncupa’s contributions to these groups came in the form of legal aid, cooperative development, rural reconstruction and adult education.