On December 17, 2021, St. Martin Coop’s CEO Serafin M. Celestino, Jr. signed the Memorandum of Understanding with the Development Academy of the Philippines (DAP), as represented by Ms. Joanne Liezl Q. Nuque, Officer in Charge for the Institutional Marketing Center, during the online Ceremonial Signing of MOU with a theme “Forging Partnerships Towards a Data Literate Philippines”. Mr. Raymond M. Cardenas, COO of St. Martin Coop, stood as witness in the MOU signing. Present as well were the other new partners of DAP in this endeavor: Department of Trade and Industry, Bangsamoro Planning and Development Authority, Department of Science and Technology-Region XII, and Visayas State University.
The partnership is geared towards the implementation of DAP’s Smarter Philippines Through Data Analytics, R&D, Training and Adoption (SPARTA) Project in democratizing knowledge on Data Science and Analytics and in fostering smart governance practices in St. Martin Coop’s organization in pursuit of an integrated and comprehensive services fueled by Data Analytics. Currently, 70 Coop’s employees are enrolled in SPARTA.
CEO Celestino, Jr. quipped “It is said that data is the new oil. And oil, as we know it, is one of the important resources that fuels the economy. No wonder governments around the world are very keen on protecting data through their respective versions of Data Privacy laws. I also believe that data are just summaries of thousands of stories –that’s why through Project SPARTA, we hope that we can reveal a few of those stories to make our data meaningful and valuable to help sustain the long-term business success of St. Martin Coop.” He also stressed that St. Martin Coop is one with the government in its drive to promote good governance thru data science and analytics.