How and Why COSE Started?
The Coalition of Services of the Elderly, Inc. (COSE) is a non-government organization (NGO) working with older persons in the Philippines since 1989 through the formation and strengthening of older persons’ organizations, partnership building, and advocacy.
In that time, Graeme Jackson of the HelpAge International traveled on a whim from Hong Kong to the Philippines, coordinated with Dennis Murphy of Sama-Sama (now the Urban Poor Associates) – his only contact in the Philippines, and initiated a three-day workshop and consultation meeting with different organizations. Denis Murphy then invited many NGO people from his network. One of those who responded was Edward Gerlock, who was working with a street children program called Bahay Tuluyan and teaching at the time. This consultation was facilitated by Lita Domingo, a brilliant demographer from the University of the Philippines Population Center.
It was also at that time when they have foreseen the possible demographic shift in the country – that the Philippines would not be exempted from the aging of the world’s population in the coming years. Although the Philippines is known for its culture of respect for older women and men, the country is facing different structural problems relating to older persons. Assessing the current policies and practices to protect older persons, they arrived at the conclusion that there is a need to advocate for better and appropriate policies/laws for the older person sector.
Out of these realizations, COSE was founded composing of different non-government and private organizations that would help make the vision possible. Initially, COSE was called the “Coalition of Services for the Elderly.” However, as time passed by, only one lead organization has remained and continued the functions of COSE. The name was later on changed to Coalition of Services of the Elderly, as we would like to highlight the practice or culture of working with beneficiaries – the older persons, rather than FOR older persons, which implies that beneficiaries are mere recipients of support.
COSE considers older women and men as partners in the development of a better society for all ages or where older persons can live with dignity and security. Thus, we highlight the formation or strengthening of Older Person Organizations (OPOs) in whatever programs or projects we implement. Also, we always aim to enhance the capacity – knowledge, skills, and attitude of older persons so they can develop and lead their own programs, which we call the Community-Based Programs of the Elderly (CBPE).
Old people are honored in the Philippines but aging is not. Beyond all the good programs (health care, advocacy ,etc) my deepest wish is that both older people and society look at aging differently and older people become who they are supposed to be… at the peak and not end of a lifetime of growth and hence invaluable to themselves and others.