Thomec brief profile

The Thomasian Multi-purpose Employees’ Cooperative (ThoMEC) was registered as a Multi-Purpose Cooperative on August 25, 2006, with an authorized share capital of 25 million pesos. The cooperative was established to provide legal personality to the Employees' Provident fund (EPF), an informal savings and credit association cum additional retirement plan for the UST non-academic employees.

The EPF assets have grown so big over the years of its operation that it was time to separate it from the structure of the University and have its legal personality. In its last year before the change to cooperative, the EPF has a total asset of 60 million pesos. The main purpose for having its legal personality is for the organization to "spread its wings and soar even higher." In other words, the organization will have a legal personality to engage in other kinds of businesses, thus greatly improving its growth potential and better serving the needs of its members.

It is worthy of mentioning that the Cooperative was set up with the full support and help from the University to have an organization for the employees to help themselves, augment their income, encourage savings, and an organization that they can run to in times of financial needs or borrow some amount to tide them over until the next payday. The people behind the organization of the Cooperative were the following: Rev. Fr. Juan V. Ponce, O.P., the Vice-Rector at that time, Atty. Manuel B. Beaniza, Jr., the former HRD Director. Ms. Shirley Ireneo, the former Auditor, Ms. Marissa Gonzales, Asst. Chief Accountant, Ms. Tina Corpuz, Accounting supervisor, and Mr. Cesar Atienza, Asst. Cashier. Although almost all the employees numbering about 500, were members of the former EPF, only about 165 employees remained to become members of the Cooperative.

The ThoMEC was then registered as a multi-purpose from the start with businesses in credit, manpower service providers, and consumers and merchandising. The articles of cooperation and by-laws were amended in September 2008, increasing its Capitalization to Php 50M, but no new business activities were added. After four years, in March 2012, its Articles of Cooperation and By-laws were amended and increased its Authorized Share Capital to Php150M. Then in 2019, Authorized Share Capital was increased to 800M upon approving its amended Articles of Incorporation and By-laws. Moreover, through the years, the business of the cooperative has been focused on credit cooperatives; hence in accordance with the guidelines of the Cooperative Development Authority, the name and activity of the cooperative through the approval of its amendments in February 2022, the cooperative has changed its bearer name to Thomasian Employees Credit Cooperative (ThomECC). And as of May 31, 2022, the ThomECC has about 632 regular members and 913 associate members, coming from UST support staff, Faculty members, Alumni, and Dominican families.

ThomECC has been a member of NCRL PFCCO since January 2009 and has been active since by attending the different seminars, training, and conferences, and some Coop Officers becoming officers also of the organization.