The Shot Story

Christ in tears

2008-12-10T14:07:00.012+08:00

Have you seen Christ in tears? I have. And I know the exact date, 03 December 2008 Manila, and I know the exact place, 4th Floor, Shangri-La Plaza at EDSA-Shaw Blvd, Mandaluyong City, the Philippines. It was a moment of grace. It was through the intercession of one of the Mandaluyong residents, and I thank him.

‘Christ in Tears’ is what I call Tony Meer’s painting of Christ that I saw on the opening evening of his 3rd 1-man show at the Shangri-La on Wednesday. This is a long-haired, bearded and moustachioed Messiah crying.

‘This is my Christ,’ Tony Meer says. ‘He’s not suffering. These are tears of joy. He is happy to sacrifice himself.’

I’ve never seen anything like it, I tell Tony Meer, in awe. Christ in tears. I’ll be damned!

Here are images of Tony Meer's other paintings in exhibit - photos by Tony Meer's boys.

Look at cool Looc guys celebrating

2008-11-19T12:51:00.012+08:00

Happy Birthday, Roman Romeo Nagpala!

18 November 2008. Your age is a great number, 69, and very significant, very meaningful, and very graphic. Here are some of your friends celebrating - you can't see me because I'm the one shooting all you guys. Later, when we meet again, you can identify the faces and I'll type in the names. The sinigang sa hipon was great. The broiled tilapia was great. The skin of the lechon was great - at first. The evening was great. Actually, I took about 150 shots.

Wanted: A New Chancellor for a Cash Cow College

2008-08-22T09:23:00.000+08:00

The image is apt: You see a modern-day building of the 100-year old University of the Philippines Los Baños, and beside it a gnarled at-least-50-year old acacia tree growing – the old alongside the new. I took that photograph on Valentine’s Day last year in a moment of admiration. The old sheltering the new. One typhoon and that tree toppled to the ground, roots up; it's gone now. For everything, there is a season, a time for the old and a time for the new. Tree today, gone tomorrow.

For the last 50 years, I’ve been in and out and around the University of the Philippines Los Baños; notwithstanding, for the last 36 years, since 1972, when this Cow College became a University, I’ve never had any avid interest in who becomes the UPLB Chancellor. I also have not been interested in answering the question, ‘Quo Vadis, UP Los Baños?’ Until now. Today, I think of them as one question and one question only: ‘Quo Vadis, under Who?’ When choosing a leader, the chooser is the master.

In her August 20 column, ‘Choosing the next UPLB Chancellor’ (At Large, inquirer.net), Rina Jimenez-David of the Philippine Daily Inquirer brings out the questions and answers in the current competition for the position of being the next Chancellor of UP Los Baños. She names two candidates (lady first):

Candida ‘Ayds’ B Adalla, Professor of Entomology, 2-time and 1st woman Dean of the College of Agriculture of this great University.

Luis Rey ‘Rey’ I Velasco, Professor of Entomology, ending his first term as Chancellor of UP Los Baños.

Actually, there is one other candidate (uplb.edu.ph):

Felino ‘Fel’ P Lansigan, Professor of Statistics, Research Fellow of the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA).

Discussing, Rina did not mention Fel and I won’t either. From where I sit, this is a classic battle of the sexes, the lady on one hand and the gentleman on the other, Ayds versus Rey. And I feel privileged that I have known them both personally. Both have strong personalities.

Rey was only that high when I was boarding at the Velasco’s Dorm in the middle 1960s, when P50 was good enough for a whole month of meals (except breakfast). His father, Jose Velasco, a good man, already a name in our Cow College at that time, didn’t mind me, a boarder, eating with the rest of the family, and I wasn’t a relative either. He had a scholarly mind, and I minded that. Many years later, I remember Rey favoring the Philippine Agricultural Scientist (Philippine Agriculturist) with much-needed funds for producing the journal, for the purchase of computers, if I remember right, in that office where at that time I was an associate editor helping out Editor in Chief Ofelia K Bautista work for the journal’s ISI-accreditation by producing, at my end, well-edited, (almost) letter-perfect camera-ready copy. ISI is the Good Housekeeping seal of approval for technical journals. We succeeded in getting the journal to be ISI within a year, I think, thanks also to Rey’s assistance – that journal is heavily reliant on computers for editing, reviewing and desktop publishing the manuscripts.

Ayds was one of my students in Horticulture at the Cow College in the late 1960s when she was First Year. I gave her a grade of 1, as I did Vic Ladlad. Many years later, I was pleasantly surprised as well as intrigued no end to learn that Ayds had become Dean of the College of Agriculture and Vic had become an NPA commander. One chose academic freedom, the other political freedom.

Did I as instructor do something right – and something wrong? My wife says each one of us chooses his/her own path of life. Did not Ayds Adalla and Vic Ladlad choose theirs and differently? I remember only that I was teaching the class of Ayds and Vic how to think for themselves even as I showed and told the young minds via the lab exercises in the field about methods sexual and non-sexual – yes, I am referring to the multiplication of the species.

So, what else is new? In case you don’t know, I must explain that in the propagation of plants, sexual refers to the use of seeds for planting and non-sexual (technically, asexual) refers to the use of grafts, buds, marcots, stems or leaves to multiply the tree, vegetable, or ornamental. Sex of those species is not that interesting, no.

Now then I can say that this time the battle for the next UP Los Baños Chancellor is also sexual – The Battle of the Sexes. This is exciting!

In her Inquirer column, Rina chooses to pit the male against the female on two different aspects (my reading of Rina): leadership potential and a record of (alleged) wrongs and rights, and Ayds wins hands down – I will let it be. Rina is entitled to her views, and I am entitled to mine. While no longer a young man, I would rather dream dreams and see visions.

Now then, I will judge the two better candidates on the basis of a vision: UP Los Baños as The Great Asian University of the rich, for the rich and by the rich – rich in ideas, rich in innovation, rich in opportunities for the poor (and inarticulate) to transform science not only into a piece of paper to get an employment but more so into an entrepreneurial system for the small man with a family, that which is not necessarily a small family. As a Roman Catholic, this is the only family planning I believe in – a father, mother, children all together planning for a family-size enterprise. (I’m much interested, because I’m not very good at this.)

The way I see it, UP Los Baños should be the Asian leader for education not simply for employment but more so for entrepreneurship and not simply in agriculture but also in food. I’m dreaming of the Asian Center of Knowledge in Food and Agriculture – for employment and entrepreneurship: I can dream, can’t I? In fact, what is wrong with UP education is what is wrong with the whole Philippine educational system: as a horse on a saddle, it is blindly led towards employment and almost totally ignores entrepreneurship.

I have learned by email from my good friend Jerry Quibilan that Senate President Manuel Villar once had a dream for one million entrepreneurs – what happened to that dream, Mr Senator? Did you suddenly wake up and realize that it is an impossible dream? Precisely! That’s why we must dream – what is the value and excitement of dreaming if we dream only the possible? UP Los Baños used to be called, in derision, a Cow College. I say, let us make UP Los Baños a Cash Cow College – where everyone learns to be an entrepreneur and not simply a job-seeker, a higher-class seller of wares or, worse, a be-degreed intellectual mendicant. Why do 3,000 Filipinos leave for abroad everyday? It is a measure of our success as educators! Our universities have successfully trained them to look for jobs, and when they can’t find them here, they look elsewhere. So, if we consider OFWs modern-day heroes, then heroism begins in the classrooms of our universities. Me, I’ll look for my heroes elsewhere.

Rina Jimenez-David writes that under Chancellor Velasco, the UPLB Chancellor has frozen the delights of students to hold their own student body elections, that is, ‘students rights have been curtailed.’ Actually, rights can be curtailed only if they are not exercised, if nobody dares to exercise them. Who was it who said? ‘There are no tyrants where there are no slaves.’ Jose Rizal, the national hero of the Philippines. The exercise of a right comes not from the law but from the one who exercises such a right. As far as the executive is concerned, a human must be respected – but, when it comes to human rights, first of all, as far as the human is concerned, a right must be exercised.

Have there been ‘demoralizing events’ in UP Los Baños under Velasco as Rina reports? Of course there are. The whole country has been suffering from one demoralizing event after another – so, what else is new? We Filipinos are the ones who demoralize ourselves. If there is a ‘continuing suppression of labor rights,’ that only means there is a continuing non-exercise of labor rights by labor. A right is not a gift; rather, it is an exercise.

If there is at UP Los Baños ‘a prevalent atmosphere of cynicism and frustration,’ that is because we cultivate it. In any University, it is not the Chancellor who cultivates cynicism, not to mention elitism – it is the constituents who do. If the leader is bad, why should the followers follow?

Will the selection of Ayds Adalla as the new Chancellor signal ‘a new direction for the University’ – a new beginning? Only if the UP Los Baños staff and students see the wisdom of a new beginning. Also, that depends on what kind of new beginning. I have yet to see a Chancellor of this University come up with new ideas on how to make UP Los Baños relevant to the needs of the times – as dictated by the needs of the people, and not as dictated by the needs of the professors in their chosen, respected, tightly guarded disciplines. As in the whole of UP and indeed of all the kingdom of science, the approach to science for development has always been top-down – I am the top, I tell those of you at the bottom what to do because I know better. I know my discipline right side up; I am up-to-date in my knowledge bank; I am the one with the postgraduate study from a prestigious university abroad, not you, got it?

And the ladies and gentlemen of Congress who don’t have a PhD either? On the subject of which way out of poverty, they also have the belief that they know better. The Battle of the Sexes goes on. Their proposed law on reproductive health in fact looks at marriage as a battle of the sexes, the wife having as much right to her body as the husband. Family is family; if you equate poverty with the number of children in the family, you have reduced matrimony to a matter of money, downgraded an institution much valued by our society if not by your belief.

Is man-made family planning your best law? That’s the problem with man-made laws.

I know Ayds Adalla is a Roman Catholic, Couples for Christ; she and her husband were pioneers in Laguna in propagating Gawad Kalinga (‘Give Kingly’ is my translation) - in those good old days, they had to bake cakes and biscuits to sell in order to raise funds. GK is telling us: Pay good attention, people. Build up communities, not build down families. Even as I am a Roman Catholic with 12 children and only 1 wife and no extra-marital affairs of any kind, and I own neither a house nor a car nor a motorcycle, I have no quarrel with science – but I do have a quarrel with scientists who think they know better. In a public forum this year organized by UP Los Baños (with Rey Velasco as Chancellor) at the height of the rice crisis (with Ayds Adalla attending), one of the scientists’ main proposed solutions to poverty is to control population, aka reproductive health, and that’s when I publicly asked a rhetorical question, which was also a challenge to all scientists and scholars who thought mostly in terms of economics:

Is man-made family planning your best science?

UP’s Choice.

2008-07-25T11:38:00.000+08:00

The Blue Ocean, Or As You Like It

The first time I heard it, it was a bolt out of the blue. Director General William Dar, Team Captain of top-performing ICRISAT, the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics based in India, had suddenly asked us while we were enjoying a lull during the April 2008 National Dryland Agriculture RDE Conference held at the Clark Special Economic Zone in Pampanga (for a report, see my ‘The Drylanders’ in my blog), ‘Do you know what a Blue Ocean is?’ No Sir. ‘Then you don’t know what a Red Ocean is either.’ No Sir. William Dar had been reading, learning; he was a graduate of UP, the University of the Philippines. He was trying to teach us something. As for you, what you don’t know can hurt you. As for me, another UP grad, sometimes I don’t know everything.

Four months later, here comes the story of still another UP grad, Johnlu Koa, a Chinese Filipino who hit upon a Blue Ocean idea of selling hot pandesal (the favorite Filipino bread roll) in the unholy hour of midnight – and that was 16 years before the concept now called ‘Blue Ocean Strategy’ was broadcast to the world and made popular by a book researched for, brainstormed & written by W Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne with the title Blue Ocean Strategy and the subtitle How To Create Uncontested Market Space And Make The Competition Irrelevant (2005, Harvard Business School Press). Johnlu’s midnight-snack strategy made him a local millionaire; Kim & Mauborgne’s Blue Ocean strategy made them international millionaires – the book sold 1 million copies in its first year and has been published in 41 languages (blueoceanstrategy.com). It's an idea whose time has come.

Johnlu’s pandesal strategy and Kim & Mauborgne’s Blue Ocean Strategy have exactly the same idea: Create a new or different market. Blue Ocean comes with Red Ocean. Perfect, pretty metaphors. A Red Ocean is where competition is bloody, where the waters turn turbulent and crimson; a Blue Ocean is where you are your own competitor, where the waters turn pacific and sapphire and gold. The only difference is that in Johnlu’s case, the innovation is in the market niche, not the product, pandesal, which is already of proven value. In the case of the Blue Ocean Strategy, the product may be an innovation itself, like CSI, the stunningly successful TV 3-series series that is in a class by itself. I know because I watch all 3; I am part of the market niche that CSI Miami targets best. This is TV marketing at its best.

No, the Blue Ocean Strategy is not ‘finding the hole in dough of opportunities’ as Margie Quimpo-Espino puts it in her article in the Philippine Daily Inquirer issue of July 20, page B1 – from the same dough, it’s either baking a different bread, or baking the same bread but finding a different market niche, which is what Johnlu did. (In the electronic version of her story dated July 19, MQE has it right right in the title, 'How The French Baker started by creating his own market,' inquirer.net. That tells me something about editors of broadsheets and electronic sheets.) Unless there's quality control, like consumer goods, not all stories are created equal. On the other hand, stories not being equal can bring out a Blue Ocean story. (And in this case, not all editors are created equal.)

Johnlu had approached the management of the canteen at the Meralco headquarters in Pasig City, and he was told that somebody else was already supplying them pandesal for breakfast. Oh. If you can’t solve a problem, change the problem. For breakfast? The usual. Johnlu thought: How about if I supplied them bread in the dead of night for the midnight shift? The canteen owner said Yes and to deliver the bread a little after midnight, at 0130 hours. Sold!

At that time, Johnlu was his own driver and delivery man, earning from himself a monthly salary of P750. That’s why he created the job in the first place, to earn money from his labors. The only difference was that in creating his job, he created jobs for others. That is the multiplier effect of entrepreneurship. May Johnlu’s tribe increase!

Did Johnlu enter that market niche because no one wanted to serve it? No. It was that only he saw that market niche; it was that only he was the innovator, the Blue Ocean strategist of the midnight hour. He made himself competitive by not competing.

Pandesal is a popular early morning and mid-afternoon snack in the Philippines, and always comes with coffee. The name ‘pandesal’ or ‘pan de sal,’ which means literally ‘bread with salt,’ suggests a Hispanic origin of this bread roll. If so, this is one Spanish legacy we Filipinos can thank God for.

With the market cornered at Meralco, Johnlu took his midnight pandesal to other institutional clients near his Honey Bread bakeshop: Mercury Drugstore, Unilab and Abbott Lab who had their own breadless midnight-hour shifts. Man can live by bread alone when it’s midnight and he has to stay awake and work.

And with that, he was on his way to becoming a young millionaire in a Blue Ocean he himself created from out of the chaos of bakers, suppliers, delivery boys and hungry mouths.

In 1989, when Chinese Filipino billionaire Henry Sy was building another megamall, the SM North Edsa mall, he invited Johnlu Koa to put up a branch of his Honey Bread bakeshop and at the same time come up with something new. That is to say, Henry Sy himself had been thinking Blue Ocean Strategy even if he didn’t have a name for it. Johnlu came up with The French Baker. He had been visiting Paris a few times and become enamored with French baking. Johnlu’s French Baker did the baking right in the shop, where the smell of fresh bread was coming from somewhere, so you could be sure your bread was hot from the oven. In the afternoon, they would offer the unsold bread at bargain prices, so that there would be no stale bread the next day. All the innovations made Johnlu Koa a Blue Ocean millionaire at 28.

Today, The French Baker has 36 shops. And today, Johnlu Koa is thinking Blue Ocean Strategy again – baking up in his mind the idea of a 3-times-more-expensive-than-usual kind of the bread, which he calls Lartizan. He already has one shop recently opened, the Lartizan Boulangerie Francaise along Jupiter Street in Makati City. He’s going after the Triple A market, which is under-served. If I understand Johnlu, Lartizan has something to do with the popular notion of a return to nature, a return to wellness as a proactive choice and not simply having one’s disease treated as a reactive non-choice. A Blue Ocean innovation of a product in another under-served market.

A Blue Ocean you create is where you are lord and master, where if you told the waves to be quiet, they will obey you.

Johnlu Koa credits part of his huge success to his alma mater UP for his knowledge – he graduated cum laude from UP Diliman with a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration in 1979 – and for giving him his network of friends and acquaintances. Johnlu is only being diplomatic. UP teaches a student neither to be an entrepreneur nor to create a new market where there was none before. UP has and can teach only what it enjoys: academic freedom, not economic freedom, not financial intelligence.

Credit must go (no pun intended) to Johnlu’s father, who loaned him P 50,000 in 1989, with which he set up Honey Bread in Kapitolyo, Pasig City. Aside from pandesal, Honey Bread made hamburger buns, hotdog buns and other bakery stuff. His parents had wished to put up a bakeshop, having attended several baking classes.

And he was inspired by a bakery in Cubao, Quezon City, near where the Koas lived before, where young Johnlu would buy bread as baon (take school) and who noted that the bakery was always buzzing with activity. The friendly neighborhood baker must be doing something right!

And no, Johnlu Koa didn’t stop with his midnight pandesal success; during the day, he would work in a little conference room that he transformed into his R&D workplace, experimenting, baking new things from his own dough. ‘One dough can do so many, and it’s fun!’ he says. The Blue Ocean Strategy calls that value innovation. I call it creativity. Creativity is making dough while you’re having fun.

When Johnlu was already earning ‘hundreds of thousands,’ his alma mater UP invited him to teach marketing. He accepted. ‘I had a chance to practice what I had been teaching. I experienced how to work for somebody – a school.’ A graduate of Business Ad teaching Marketing? Sometimes UP makes a great mistake. He had started his own business because he didn’t want to study first and then look for a job later; what he did was create himself the job, and then he went back to school – as a teacher. That’s funny, because almost everything UP teaches you is employeeship, the mentality of a hired hand, which is not very intelligent. So, yes, whoever hired Johnlu did one right thing – UP could learn from the genius of its own students!

Then now-UP President Emerlinda Roman hired him as College Secretary. Nobody knows what was going on in the mind of Roman, but we know what was in Johnlu’s. ‘I was a young instructor dealing with 60-year-olds. It was an opportunity to learn how to run an organization.’ He was in charge of 2,500 students, 80 faculty and 100 staff. No Blue Ocean strategy came out of this experience – not from Johnlu, not from UP.

Johnlu profited from the experience. Now, did UP learn from Johnlu’s lesson of the midnight pandesal? I think not. UP officials weren’t sitting in class when Johnlu was teaching.

One thing I have learned from all this is that the Blue Ocean Strategy, which is creative thinking and doing the doable that is not being done, is applicable outside of business, such as inside science, inside journalism, inside university.

In any case, is UP interested in using its head and teaching students the Blue Ocean Strategy? Ah, if its Centennial history serves me right, I see my alma mater UP is interested in teaching its students only one thing; I see Red Ocean – where the business is defined and the territory is confined and therefore over-populated, where everybody is trying to steal the market from everybody else, where there is fierce rivalry, where the rule is Survival of the Fittest, where there is fighting, where there is blood.

Will UP ever learn?

Avoidance of Relevance.

2008-06-20T14:30:00.000+08:00

Did you know UP is as American as apple pie?

UP, the University of the Philippines got its new Charter in April 29 and celebrated its Centennial in June 18, Manila time. Too young to matter much, too old to matter more.

A loyal UP graduate, I did not attend the celebration of the Centennial of my alma mater at UP Diliman in Quezon City. I forgot. You can’t blame me: I’m 68. A fool too old to mind. Now that UP is 100 years old, is it any wiser, or is it just another old fool?

Inadvertently, my absence at the Centennial celebration turned out to be a case of my avoidance of irrelevance. And so still I feel good, as otherwise I, graduate of UP Los Baños, would have had to witness those 100 naked UP Diliman play boys running the gauntlet of male and female starers and see-and-tellers gathered on campus. Flights of flesh, flights of fancy. The flesh was willing, the flesh was weak. They called it the ‘Oblation Run’ (Marlon Ramos, inquirer.net). Were the 100 play boys all from UP? Nobody could tell, as they all wore masks. For sure they were all boys.

I say to those play boys: You show your physical attributes and yet are ashamed to show your face? To display one’s physical attributes has never been part of the UP Mystique; it’s not a mistake, as smart UP sculptor Guillermo Tolentino showed in his original UP Oblation, those genitals showing – those which UP President Jorge Bocobo put the fig leaf on (Wikipedia), that which was a mistake. But, as UP Law scholars should know, nudity is irrelevant and immaterial to the UP case.

And so I feel better, as the Inquirer report says the Oblation Run ‘steals the show in UP Centennial activities.’ I never approved of scene stealers.

If naked this way comes is the way scholars celebrate the founding of a University and make a spectacle of themselves, I question the intellectual credentials not of the scholars but of that University. If the students have not learned, the school has not taught.

The UP Centennial? Stateside, what else! Made in the United States of America. It was on June 18 of 1908 when Yankee Governor General William Cameron Forbes signed the ‘Philippine Bill,’ as recommended by the American-dominated Philippine Commission, into Act 1870, officially creating the University of the Philippines. So you see, the Americans did not create Jose Rizal as the National Hero of the Filipinos: they created UP as the national university of the Philippines. It was Yankee W Morgan Shuster, Secretary of Instruction, who in February 1908 presented the ‘Philippine University Bill’ to the Philippine Commission, who readily approved it (Fernando A Bernardo, 2007, UPLB: A Century Of Challenges And Achievements, Los Baños: UPLB Alumni Association). So, UP is as American as apple pie! We Filipinos owe the Americans our democratic ideals; we even owe them our education. Thank you, Yankees!

So, my missing out on the UP Centennial celebration wasn’t really a big deal, even if it happens only once in a lifetime. The University of the Philippines has become irrelevant – the UP intellectuals have seen to that. (Since the Americans designed UP, you can blame the avoidance of relevance to the American intellectuals too. Note also that the Americans are avoiding the relevance of climate change.)

And the new UP Charter makes sure relevance does not matter to this University at all! From the title ‘An Act To Strengthen The University Of The Philippines ...’ to the ‘Effectivity’ clause (Section 31), it’s all of 5,341 (Word 2003 count) – and there’s not a whisper of the word relevance. Since the UP Charter reflects the mindset of its authors and their associates, allies, advocates, I say they all suffer from a fright of identifying with the people. ‘Relevance,’ according to the American Heritage Dictionary, is ‘pertinence to the matter at hand’ and ‘applicability to social issues.’ Do I take it that from now on UP is to avoid social issues lest its theory become pertinent and its practice become applicable?

If naked UP Diliman comes, can UP Los Baños be far behind? The uplb.edu.ph website shows a bare title ‘University of the Philippines Los Baños: UPLB’ and displays the naked slogan, white text exposed against a nude red background: ‘Iskolar ng Bayan: Tunay, Palaban, Makabayan!’ Scholar of the State: True, Militant, Nationalist! This webpage alone is a study in relationship, if not in communication, if I’m not mistaken. Consider the following:

UP Los Baños is a University spoken for by students? That’s not news to me. All UP is spoken for by students, period. It happened in my time too, when we students thought we knew better than our professors. For instance, I was the boy who cried wolf, the one who wrote the open letter ‘What did you do in the war, Daddy?’ that mocked the celebration of Loyalty Day (in that Cow College then) and declared it to be loyalty to the Americans during World War I – and I signed my name. My (double) mistake. That open letter made me persona non grata to UP Los Baños alumni and their allies. I have forgiven myself, thank God, if some people will never ever forgive me. Like so, many of the young are brash and foolish. Old hat. Been there, done that. Sorry.

The UP Los Baños homepage is telling me that Truth, Militancy, Nationalism are the bedrocks of this UP campus? I always thought the 3 pillars of UP Los Baños were Instruction, Research, Extension. So what’s the relevance of the 3 new pillars to the old 3 pillars? In this campus, I majored in education; I suppose I need more education on this.

So, okay: Is Truth a proper study of Science? Of course. ‘Science is the search for Truth,’ says Linus Pauling, a (double) Nobel Prize winner, for Chemistry in 1954 and Peace in 1963 (Thomas Blair, harvardsquarelibrary.org). And I say Religion is also the search for Truth. Albert Einstein did not profess to any religious faith either. I admire Pauling and Einstein, but if I have to choose, I’ll pick Science and Religion anytime.

What about militancy? ‘Militancy is having a combative character; (being) aggressive, especially in the service of a cause’ (American Heritage). You can be relevant and militant at the same time, but it all depends on your cause. My causes are Truth, Beauty, Goodness.

What about nationalism? ‘Nationalism is devotion to the interests or culture of a particular nation’ (American Heritage). That’s fine with me; I have no quarrel with that. Still, globalization is upon us all, not to mention global climate change – all that renders nationalism relevant but narrow. It’s territorial imperative all over again. That’s why I admire Ateneo University and the National Hero of my country, as the Jesuits never taught Jose Rizal love of country; instead, they taught him love of people; they taught him not nationalism but internationalism.

The problem with nationalism is: Your nationalism or mine? The University of the Philippines has 7 campuses – UP Baguio (located in Baguio City), UP Diliman (Quezon City), UP Los Baños (Los Baños, Laguna), UP Manila (City of Manila), UP Mindanao (Davao City), UP Open University (Los Baños, Laguna), UP Visayas (Iloilo City). The new UP Charter was signed by Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo April 29 this year at the UP Visayas Cebu College campus. Why the strange location? Because Diliman, Quezon City is hostile environment to GMA while Cebu City is friendly territory. Birds of a feather flock together; some birds just peck on the others.

Now that UP has its own Charter Change, will the noisy half of UP intellectuals advocate for and stop opposing a national Charter Change? I half-expect it.

Of the UP Charter, I have a pdf copy that I downloaded from the UP Los Baños website and transformed into a Word 2003 document. And why did I do that when our Core Two Duo desktop PC with 2 GB of RAM is good enough for Adobe Reader 8 that is good in what it does? Because Word 2003 is a better reader to a writer who wants to work directly with the text. After I transform the pdf into a doc file using Word 2003 tricks, Microsoft’s Bill Gates counts the words for me. With Word 2003, I can zoom into the text say 500% with a single mouse click; I can split the window into 2 or more; I can easily copy text. I enjoy what I’m doing, researching and writing, and Word 2003 is a genius to my genius.

What’s more, when you enjoy what you’re doing, Serendipity surreptitiously walks in the door and you discover things you never expected. And that’s how I have come to know that the UP Charter is, would you believe, half serious and half funny! Consider these:

The Charter says ‘The University of the Philippines is hereby declared as the national university’ (Section 2). In my view, that is because UP itself has failed to assert its role as The National University in fact if not in name – it has failed to provide ‘distinctive leadership in higher education and development’ (quote from the Charter, Section 3). Now UP can claim the title it deserves in theory but not in practice.

The Charter says UP is ‘a community of scholars dedicated to the search for truth and knowledge as well as the development of future leaders’ (Section 3). Truth is there for all to admire, but not a word about Beauty and Goodness, my goodness! I must blame Jun Lozada for this; for all his crusading, he has made his claim for truth stick in the minds of priests and preachers, senators and scholars alike. Jun Lozada must be a good non-preacher preacher, not that his truth agrees with me.

Missing out on the 3 universal ideals – Truth, Beauty, Goodness – what’s the matter, ladies and gentlemen of the Philippine Congress, as well as activists for the UP Charter: You don’t appreciate that Holy Trinity? Or, nearer home, you never heard of Rotary International? The Rotarians know that truth is not enough. In any case, that’s what I told the Rotarians the Rotarians knew when I was invited in by Jerry Quibilan as a guest speaker last May 19, Monday, of the mother club Quezon City Rotary, where Dante Liban is President. I told the distinguished gentlemen that I noticed the Rotary 4-Way Test talks not only about Truth (‘Is it the truth?’) but also Goodness (‘Is it fair to all concerned? Will it build goodwill and better friendships? Will it be beneficial to all concerned?’) – and, I said, if you combine truth and goodness, isn’t that Beauty?

Unlike Jun Lozada from many a captive audience of his, I didn’t get the applause I expected from my captive audience, so it shows that Truth, Beauty and Goodness are appreciated only half the time.

I don’t have a problem with that. But I have a problem when the UP Charter speaks of the search for truth and knowledge. Unlike the wise guys who authored the UP Charter, I can’t separate truth from knowledge. I can’t separate chaff from grain either – you can’t have rice without one of the other. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Actually, there’s more where that comes from. Consider that the Charter mandates that

The University shall lead in setting academic standards and initiating innovations in teaching, research and faculty development in philosophy, the arts and humanities, the social sciences, the professions and engineering, natural sciences, mathematics, and technology; and maintain centers of excellence in such disciplines and professions. Section 3 (a)

Whew! Can you read that in one breath? You can avoid relevance by being wordy. The quote, this essential part of the UP Charter, does not pass Frankenstein’s 4-C Test; I give it 1 star out of 4 stars possible. It is Concise, but it is not Comprehensive, not Clear, not Coherent. I’m inspired to give it another C: Chaotic.

There is Instruction (Teaching) as well as Research – but where is Extension as the University’s 3rd main function? Has the UP Charter reinvented the University and cut off its Outreach duty and responsibility? Starting with UP President Emerlinda Roman, do I understand that from now on UP is giving scant attention to public service? That UP is not supposed to extend the truth and knowledge that it discovers ‘to enrich the lives of all citizens’ (quote from extension.uiuc.edu)? I am unhappy to note that the Charter enumeration that begins with ‘the arts and humanities’ and ends with ‘and technology’ is a laundry list. I didn’t know Philippine legislators are henpecked.

There’s more. Note the Charter emphasis: ‘maintain centers of excellence in … disciplines and professions.’ This is another avoidance of relevance. In law, it’s called an escape clause. This is setting a dangerous University tradition, a law encouraging the professors to mind their own business, in this case, their disciplines. This must be the territorial imperative, as I remember Robert Ardrey calling it. Attachment to ‘an area of space’ (quote from amazon.com) is animal instinct and, of course, man is an animal. So, while UP knows what it knows, law is on the side of UP as it is not obligated to maintain centers of excellence based on the disciplines or professions that are to totally immerse in collaboration, integration, not obligated to summon synergy. It’s a triumph of mortal law over moral law. When the law is not against you, it’s with you.

‘Maintain centers of excellence in … disciplines and professions’ – by such declaration, the UP Charter minders remind us that the pixels are more important than the Big Picture, the pieces of the puzzle are greater than the Big Puzzle. That is to say, the new UP Law is effectively against the Law of Holism, which states that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Excellence is not in the details; it is in the whole.

And there’s more in all those 5,341 words. The UP Charter ‘recognizes the separation of Church and State’ (Section 9). Since the brains of the Charter separate the physical (Reason) from the metaphysical (Faith), I believe UP is bound to search only for half the truth, because Reason is one avenue to the truth while Faith is another. That is my faith.

One last word. The Charter says UP is dedicated to the ‘development of future leaders’ – but this country can’t wait; it needs the development of present leaders now! Growth is a process, so UP training in leadership must begin in high school and leaders must emerge while in college; after college is too late. By that time, it would not be surprising that the students would have learned to lead only in holding parliaments of the streets, or talking people down, or doing writedowns, not writeups. Been there, done that. Half of UP graduates grow old looking too highly of themselves and you know, if you are a UP Professor, you can teach only half of old dogs half of new tricks.

And by the way, I did notice it was a full moon when UP celebrated its naked American-made Centennial. THAT NIGHT, IF YOU LOOKED UP, YOU WOULD HAVE SEEN A NAKED FOOL’S MOON.

UP Los Baños historical faces

2008-06-06T09:06:00.000+08:00

History to remember, faces to recognize

Buy this coffee-table book
Centennial Panorama: Pictorial History of UPLB
and you get this text book free
UPLB: A Century of Challenges and Achievements

The inspiring past you can see in photographs and stories of these 2 books by an alumnus, Fernando A Bernardo, former Deputy DG of IRRI. You can read the story of UP Los Baños in the stories of the men and women who became pioneers and leaders of this University, one of the finest in the country and in Asia. The many old photographs alone are worth browsing. UP Los Baños is the only University in the

Philippines

that celebrates a Loyalty Day every year, on October 10. It has won the Ramon Magsaysay Award for International Understanding.

Other distinctions of UP Los Baños include:

· High passing rates of graduates

· Originated the concept of ‘development communication’

· Has an AgriPark & Science Park

· Here occurred the most perfect rescue of POWs (1000+ foreigners) in history, with Filipino guerrillas participating

· Studied bioethanol from sugarcane before World War II

Notables among UP Los Baños graduates (past):

· 2 UP Presidents: Bienvenido Ma Gonzales, Emil Q Javier

· 3 Secretaries of Agriculture: Salvador Escudero,
William D Dar and Domingo F Panganiban

· NEDA Secretary: Cielito F Habito

· Commissioner of NIST: Jose R Velasco

· Secretary of Labor: Patricia Santo Tomas

· Civil Service Commissioner: Patricia Santo Tomas

· Secretary of Science and Technology: William Padolina

· President of UP Open University: Cristina Padolina

· President of UP Open University: Felix Librero

Notables among UP Los Baños graduates (current):

· UP President: Emerlinda R Roman

· Chancellor of UPLB: Luis Rey I Velasco

· Director of SEARCA: Arsenio M Balisacan

UP Los Baños, a center of scientific journals:

UPLB has the highest number of world-class (ISI Web of Knowledge-accredited) journals in the Philippines, 5 out of 7:
Philippine Agricultural Scientist (with OK Bautista as Editor)
Philippine Entomologist
Asia Life Science
Philippine Journal of Veterinary Medicine
Philippine Journal of Crop Science (Frank A Hilario as Editor)

UPLB Alumni Association to the rescue

2008-05-23T16:03:00.000+08:00

When Fernando A Bernardo was about ready to write the 100-year history of UP Los Baños, he came to the realization that it would be ‘doubtless a monumental undertaking,’ considering the number of years covered. It was such a challenge to the writer

because researching, reviewing and appreciating 100 years of written and unwritten accounts of the problems and tasks, the hardships and vicissitudes of life in a remote area, and the travails and triumphs of the leaders and faculty of this institution in spite of all odds is doubtless a monumental undertaking. With libraries and archives that were burned during World War II, one would expect old but important publications and documents missing.

He decided he needed external assistance. So he approached Pids Rosario, President of the UPLB Alumni Association, for support. Rosario asked that a coffee table book be also produced in the same breath, a pictorial history of UP Los Baños. Agreed. That is how 2 books came about from one historical research:

(1) UPLB: A Century Of Challenges And Achievements
(2) Centennial Panorama: A Pictorial History Of UPLB

The first book is mostly text, the second many old and rare photographs and text. Both books are for learning from the past.

Most interesting task and challenge

2008-05-20T06:30:00.000+08:00

'A most interesting task and challenge!' That's what Fernando A Bernardo thought before he began to write the history of UP Los Baños for the past almost 100 years. He recognized that there were

problems and difficulties faced by the pioneer leaders, faculty and students in carving an institution of higher learning from the wilderness at the foot of Mt Makiling and amidst the dearth of knowledge and educational materials on tropical agriculture and forestry.

Bernardo also reports the burning of libraries and archives during World War II for no reason at all except that the enemies hate the Filipinos who were fighting for their freedom.

You expect the dearth of materials when it comes to history. I myself look at history as mostly challenges to society as may be embodied in an individual’s – say, a leader – personal history.

Writing history is needing people

2008-05-20T05:50:00.000+08:00

In writing the history of UP Los Baños, UPLB: A Century Of Challenges And Opportunities (2007), thanked the following friends, colleagues and alumni-supporters who 'greatly helped me by providing important information through their recall of unforgettable memories, or through written materials they shared with me.'

Dean Gregorio Zamuco
Dean Faustino T. Orillo
Dr. Celestino P. Habito
Dr. Rosendo K. Palis
Dr. Emil Q. Javier
Chancellor Ruben L. Villareal
Dean Cledualdo B. Perez, Jr.
Dr. Romulo A. del Castillo
Dr. Gloria Diokno
Ms. Filma Calalo
Ms. Lilia Tolentino
Mr. Daniel Anciano

The author also thanked other Deans of Colleges and Directors of Research Institutes and Centers of the University for sending him materials on R&D and Extension activities through Ms Donna T Depositario, who assisted him in gathering historical materials. 'To all of them, including Donna, I am very grateful,' he wrote.

He also thanked the many librarains of UP Diliman, UPLB, the Colleges, Centers, Research Institutes of UPLB, the National Archives, National Library, library of the Philippine Normal University, including the UPLB Records Management Division. He also thanked his two sons, Dan N and Rex N Bernardo, for providing him 'valuable information from libraries of USA universities.'

Two ladies, Nida E Reyes and Emiliana N Bernardo, were worthy of special mention. Nida typed 'almost all the materials' for the book; his wife Emiliana, whom he referred to as 'my roommate' had 'patiently and carefully edited all drafts' as well as 'gave valuable suggestions for improvement of the manuscripts.'

Also meriting special mention was Frank A Hilario, whom he hired as his final editor and layout artist, who 'did a splendid job.' He also wrote the timeline and created the index.

Not the least of those he wished to thank were Elpidio L Rosario, President of the UPLB Alumni Association, and Francisco C Cornejo, Vice President.

UP Los Baños: The Complete Story?

2008-05-16T00:01:00.000+08:00

Will the complete history of the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB) ever be told? Maybe. But I don't want to be the one to do it. I don't think I have what it takes to write history. Says Fernando Bernardo, who has written the book UPLB: A Century Of Challenges And Achievements published 2007 by the UPLB Alumni Association (UPLBAA):

I consider writing this history book as one of the most challenging and difficult undertakings I ever had, because searching for various sources of historical materials, and reading old and crumbling pages of historical documents, require a lot of persistence and patience. Moreover, important library materials covering 100 years are numerous - and even voluminous as one would expect from a dynamic science and technology university.

I edited and desktop-published that one, that which I call text book, because it’s largely text (the title given above), and so I have a good idea how difficult it is to write history. In the first place, you start with a boring subject: History. I don’t remember having read exciting history, and I’m a wide, wide reader. Because I had to read the manuscript at least 5 times to reduce the number if not eliminate all the grammatical and other English errors, I realize the gargantuan task that a historian must take in order to fulfill his duty to his readers.

I think that the first problem with writing history is that first the historian has to tell the story to himself before he can successfully tell it to the rest of the world. What happens when the historian is listening only to himself and not to the rest of the world?

Rice becomes GMA - Photos become her

2008-05-05T08:17:00.023+08:00

This new blog and the series of photographs all taken by me begins my new exciting journey on telling little stories through big & small digital images. I’m not a professional photographer but, you know, the journey is the reward. (You can use my photographs as you wish. If you give me credit for them, thank you very much; if not, shame on you!)

In case you didn’t notice, with this blog, I officially differentiate a short story by L Frank Baum from a shot story by Frank A Hilario. Frank Baum is of course the Wizard of Oz, while Frank A Hilario is the Wizard of Prose of his own making – and in his own images!

This new shot story of mine continues but is independent of my earlier essay on GMA’S May 2 (Manila time) visit to IRRI (see my ‘Wars of the World,’ theserendipityman.blogspot.com). ‘Wars of the World?’ Of course! She is a Warrior Queen, if you didn’t know.

‘White-on-Blue Down!’ – May 02, on the campus of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), Los Baños, Laguna, the Philippines, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo touched down on a white-blue government helicopter from a white-blue sky. I was shooting from near the fence near the railway, under a mango tree, my back turned against the legendary, beautiful Mount Makiling. It was about 10:12 in the morning. The landing zone was an all-grass court actually, for IRRI staff playing ball games. Makiling watches them as the hours go by. All work and no play make Bob a dull boy.

‘Laugh And The World Laughs With You’ – Under a tent in the almost-noonday very bright sun, officials of institutions that had anything to do with rice were with GMA enjoying a light moment. I caught the scene but I didn’t catch the joke, if joke it was. From left, Robert Zeigler (DG, IRRI), Leo S Sebastian (Director, PhilRice), Fernando A Bernardo (past Deputy Director, IRRI), GMA, Arthur C Yap (Secretary of Agriculture), Darshan Brar (biotech, IRRI). American, Filipinos, Chinese, Indian: Seriously, they were going to collaborate on something that is no joke: Make the Philippines self-sufficient in rice by 2010, in 24 short months. Tall Order? No, Short Order by The Lady.

‘Rice becomes GMA’ – She had the full attentions of Sebastian (PhilRice, left), Brar (IRRI, background left) and Zeigler (IRRI, right). Farther back shows the rice variety IDSA77, tolerant of flooding in the field. She was a good student. I noticed she was listening intently. I heard her asking a question or two about varieties of tolerance. I was thinking of her tolerance for political noise. And another kind of tolerance (for more details on this, see my ‘Wars of the World’).

‘A Smile Becomes GMA’ – IRRI Deputy Director William Padolina and a smiling GMA with their own identifying hats before farmers in their authentic hats, if new. In those 1 hour or so that she was being told or shown about rice right in the experimental fields of IRRI, I noticed that GMA didn’t smile often. Former IRRI Deputy Director Fernando Bernardo said it was because the weather is hot. He meant both kinds: the physical weather and the political weather. That is because some politicians think they’re hot, when in fact they are only hot in the collar.

‘I can’t see!’ – In my excitement, I probably pressed the camera shutter too soon or the man (or woman) with the white back passed in front of my camera at the right time, which was the wrong time. It happens to the best man.

By the way, I was using my own Canon SuperShot A540, 6 MP camera – the model held by model Maria Sharapova? I like that girl’s spunk – and looks. As a photographer, I am always on the lookout for good looks. I learned to shoot 40 years ago - so many years looking for good looks.

Since this blog makes extensive & exclusive use of my own photographs, the better to be an outlet of my creative clicks, every now and then I shall give you some tips, tricks, techniques in taking pictures. So now, does this mean I’m a master in photography? No, it only means that I’m willing to share what I know. And no, it doesn’t mean my photography is perfect – but with my digital camera, I don’t have to scrimp on shots. In this instance, I have 100 shots of the GMA visit to IRRI – many of them GMA, of course.

‘Zeigler cuts GMA’ – Zeigler is emphasizing something bigger than his fist in fact. It must be IRRI rice technology, ‘the golden rice’ maybe? Should be interesting – a rice that has vitamin A. But right now, it’s ‘vaporice’ – not yet there. That’s Bob’s problem; he said fund support for IRRI science has been dwindling for years. If that trend is not reversed, it will not be a golden rice rising but a golden sun setting – and no promise of a bright tomorrow. (For more details on fund cuts, see my ‘Wars of the World,’ theserendipityman.blogspot.com).

‘Yap on the Noose’ – In terms of the rice price crisis and the aim to make the Philippines self-sufficient in rice by 2010, or 2 years from now, Philippine Agriculture Secretary Arthur C Yap’s head is really on the noose, if not on the chopping block. (That must be from GMA/Channel 7’s TV camera sling. I saw their mobile at the IRRI gate; GMA is so anti-GMA that I was reminded of the biblical story of barbarians at the gate.)

Do I deliberately shoot funny pictures? Nope. The main participants were moving so fast and they were being (literally) surrounded by many photographers that it was difficult to find an opening. (But I shoot almost as fast as I write.) You have to shoot without looking first. (You have to write without looking, first.) My Canon doesn’t have a viewfinder that swivels to the angle you want, or need. (Now I know what my next camera will be. Insatiable human desire.)

‘Field Men & Blind Mice’ – This is a more appealing scene than the way mass media – print, radio, TV, Internet – in the Philippines describe GMA’s tenure or performance. What’s the matter: Are the mass media people so blind they can’t differentiate the greens from the reds and the browns and the yellows and the blues and the whites? I wouldn’t think they deliberate distance themselves from the reality – or turn their backs, or refuse to do what is right. Unless of course I'm blind.

‘That’s The One’ – With these photographs, you don’t have to guess that I support GMA, President. If not I, who? If not now, when? I would support you if you were President, equity of the incumbent, you might say, unless of course you are as an obvious dubious as the joker from San Juan. Here, Zeigler is pointing not so much as to an IRRI variety (Wonderful) as to a sunnier future (Excellent). You have to believe!

My Flickr invents 'shot story'

2008-05-04T18:14:00.006+08:00

My Flickr name is Worp. My website at Flickr has this address:
http://flickr.com/photos/the_shot_story/

From the URL, if you will note, my Flickr domain contains the words ‘the shot story’ and the date I uploaded the first set – which I called the 2-shot story – is June 25, 2006. In other words, I invented ‘the shot story’ almost 2 years ago today. This was immediately followed by the 3-shot story the next day, June 26.

When I decided to jump on the bandwagon of Flickr, I thought of being different, and was inspired to come up with the idea of a ‘short story’ told in images. A pun that I grew very fond of.

The images shown here are those of the first sets of 2-shot stories and 3-shot stories I uploaded to Flickr starting June 2006. My very first set has this story:

2-shot story, background. All wives to the Reynoso Brothers; I married a Reynoso, girl of course (not shown, not the shy type either). * My first short story in 2 shots, from my collection of photos taken at the Reynoso Family Reunion, Villa Letty, Calamba, Laguna, Philippines 13 February 2005

The reason I created this new blog is that I want to post shot stories without the limitation that Flickr imposes on a free account: 200 photographs. Not only that, I want to tell stories using my photographs, beyond the limited space that Flickr makes available. I'm a writer first, an editor second, a publisher third, a photographer fourth, a blogger fifth - but I have loved photography since 1968. All the more that on my birthday last September, my children gave me what I had always wanted: a camera of my own. So now I have a Canon PowerShot A540 at 6 megapixels, along with 1 GB memory card. The best and highest compliment so far of my photography is from a new acquaintance, a doctor, who said: 'Great shots!'

As of today, May 4, 2008, I already have about 3,500 original images of my own photography, 3.5 GB, and counting – so you can imagine how many shot stories I can make out of them. Too many sad stories to tell of my country, the Philippines? I prefer the glad stories. Never say die till you're dead.

Atlas Blogged!

2007-11-19T11:07:00.000+08:00

Climate Change In UK,
Then In UP, Then In US?

Almost simultaneously last week, the Parliament of the United Kingdom (UK) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) of the United Nations (UN) published their official statements on global warming. November 15 UK, a bill to be debated by Members of the Parliament. November 17 IPCC, a synthesis report to be acted upon by every Government in the world. Except the US? The full essay

Science Parks, Stops.

2007-10-17T11:06:00.000+08:00

Being A Proposal For Innovation Teams

No, no, no! Science parks? The concept is all wrong. Science parks not, Science stops not. If it doesn’t change, if it stays as is, it’s not Science – it’s Status Quo. Or Art. That goes whether you are in Los Alamos (a nuclear weapons town), Los Baños (a university town), or Las Vegas (a gambling town). You will find science in all those towns furiously working, not hibernating. Science goes on! ¶ My conclusion? Whoever thought of ‘science park’ was thinking with his mind adumbrating, dictionary out of sight. The American Heritage Dictionary tells me a science park is an industrial zone, a manufacturing quarter. Science doesn’t stop there – it produces, reproduces, multiplies goods, industrial or consumer goods, things to eat, employ, experiment with, exploit, exhaust. Consider: a park is an area of land set aside for public use; reconsider, a science park is not The full essay

Academe as anti-poor.

2007-10-16T11:05:00.000+08:00

The University Of The Philippines
A Hundred Years Hence

And so Asiaweek ranked the University of the Philippines Diliman #48 among Asia’s Best Universities in 2000 (asiaweek.com). A very hard slap on a proud face in a very public place. By reputation, UP Diliman is the best of the University of the Philippines; the Asiaweek rank rankled the UP System, but it was true – the whole of UP had sunk below her very own standards. The exercise of academic freedom had turned out to be mostly academic and not instructive, mostly theoretical and not practical. I’m UP ’65, and I’ve been around so long I know: Been there, done that!

This one’s about how two institutions, one in the Philippines and one in India, address the poor. UP being educational should have known more, ICRISAT being developmental would know better.

(1) The University of the Philippines

The University activists had insisted on being the voice of the poor, but the poor needed more than a voice. In the first place, the University needed to be the voice of itself first, as Asiaweek showed it to her face that UP had failed all 5 subjects! In the following list, the lower the number, the higher the rank (UP should be in the Top 10): Academic Reputation rank #18 (Failed), Student Selectivity #44 (Failed), Faculty Resources #61 (Failed), Research #60 (Failed), Financial Resources #67 (Failed). UP’s reputation was undeserved; she selected her students unintelligently; her faculty resources were deficient; her research efforts were insignificant; her financial resources were scarce.

Did the University of the Philippines learn from that and mend her ways? Well, UP is 100 years old next year and you can’t teach old dogs new tricks. Still, UP has to make a paradigm shift in order for her to be able to teach herself. A new University charter is only a makeover, not a fundamental change. It’s the attitude, not the altitude.

Consider: Is UP a champion of the poor? If so, it should be anti-poor. Now, how do we measure whether this University, or any University for that matter, is anti-poor? Allow me to submit my own biased list as follows; so I ask if the University does address:

Poor farmers? Too many farmers are mendicants, sorry to say. I know, been there, done that. I’m a farmer’s son, and I stopped for 2 years before college to work the stone-dry hard clods of soil in our bangkag (rainfed farm for vegetables) by the Agno River in Asingan, Pangasinan, and the weeds and mud in our talon (irrigated field for rice). UP professors talk about self-sufficiency, but talk is not enough.

Poor soils? The wise use of inorganic and organic fertilizers is not enough. The soils have to be conserved, and at little cost to farmers and with little disturbance of the cycle of life and death. If you get from the soil (crops) but don’t give back (crop refuse), you’re a robber, and you know about robbers – only Judas not pay.

Poor access to credit? Why can’t I read of hundreds of UP projects that continue to this day by virtue of well-supervised credit schemes? It’s easy to borrow and difficult to pay.

Poor access to information? The information scientists give to farmers is mostly technical, a language that only the experts understand. If you don’t believe me, click on any Philippine-based website featuring a knowledge bank now.

Poor markets? If I harvest much and get only so much for my labors, what good is farming to me? It’s only a survival kit – for me to survive, not prosper.

Poor distribution of the benefits of labor? A good scheme for this is the farming cooperative. Is UP for cooperatives? I know UP to be un-cooperative!

Poor educational services? Is UP interested in rooting out those who don’t know how to teach and know only to terrorize their students? One or two even brag about failing everyone.

Poor communication services? Does the University computer system work well? We received yesterday the report of grades of our daughter Daphne who graduated 15,552,000 seconds ago (6 months). The system should be faster than turtle slow.

Poor water supply? How do you expect the UP scientist to worry about the water problem of others when he has his own? On campus, the water supply is bad.

Poor leadership? Those from UP get a kick out of demonstrations. Not demonstrations of initiative, entrepreneurship, creativity, leadership. A team is necessary, a leader is paramount.

Poor health services? Why can’t UP develop a model health service system and stop pointing to the Philippine General Hospital as the one and only solution of health-with-a-cash problem of the poor?

Poor Government services? It is not enough that the academics complain of the national Bad Government. Teach by example; show Good Government services within the University itself.

Poor entrepreneurship? UP and all other universities in the Philippines are dedicated to the proposition that students must study first and then seek employment after graduation. There is no degree option for entrepreneurship – UP professors are not enterprising enough.

Poor social contribution? Do you wonder why agriculture in the Philippines is not as vibrant as it can be, given the rich soils, pleasant climate, open export markets for farm produce? That’s because UP Los Baños has abrogated her duty to country to contribute intellectually to policy, procedure, monitoring, evaluation. Been there, not done that.

UP must be able to transcend the mirror of greatness it looks into every morning, un-Harry Potter-like, and ask questions what next needs be done. UP, if you are farmer-centered, and you should be, ask the farmers, all kinds of farmers. Ask the right questions. If you are needs-based, and you should be, ask them and they will tell you their virtual needs – and then go ahead and find out what their real needs are. Do not go there and pretend you know everything, because you don’t; do not assume that you have all the answers, because you don’t even have all the questions. I know; been there, seen that.

Even the Nobel Prize Committee is convinced that human activity is contributory to global warming and can be mitigated if we act now. Global warming is a problem, not a given; to solve a problem, look at it as an opportunity. Gaunt from intellectual nourishment of only one kind, UP Los Baños is a giant half-asleep and half-awake. Bleary-eyed, it refuses to look at climate change as a wide-open horizon for opportunities in instruction and research and extension – the 3 pillars it claims it is built on. There are tons of funds for research for development (R4D) inside and outside the country; all that is needed is a brilliant R4D proposal. Why can’t UP Los Baños make one, and another, and another? Been there, not done that.

(2) The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT)

Can UP in general and UP Los Baños in particular learn from ICRISAT? A learning place.

I see that while the UP Los Baños paradigm derives from the bird’s eye-view (the all-seeing eye), the ICRISAT paradigm derives from the worm’s eye-view (the one-eyed one). ICRISAT is pro-poor – it looks at the problems from the point of view of the poor, not the expert.

I’m not surprised. Only 7 years ago in India, ICRISAT was languishing, its energy spent, its genius discouraged, its will wilted. Along came a man called William Dar from the Philippines, and that made all the difference. He brought with him instincts sharpened by confronting adversities positively, seeking options, pursuing his dream. His dream was to rise from poverty. He knew how it was to be poor, and wanted out. ‘Poverty is not abstract for me. Poverty was there for us,’ he says. So: ‘I challenged myself to be one of the most successful people from my village.’ That’s what he is now.

William Dar comes from Danumán West, a village in Santa Maria, Ilocos Sur, Northern Philippines. Theirs is a farming family of 6 siblings (4 girls); he first learned his agriculture from his father. ‘I’ve done it all – planting, land preparation, harrowing, everything. So farming or agriculture is not abstract for me.’ Rice, onions, sweet potato, corn, peanuts, pigeonpea. You don’t know how cold is cold until you have shivered with your raincoat of a layer of palm leaves in the middle of the field in the middle of a heavy rain and there’s nowhere to hide. I know: Been there, done that.

His maternal uncle helped him through college. He graduated from the Benguet State University (BSU, then Mountain State Agricultural College) in 1973 with a BS in Agricultural Education. His first mentor was BSU Vice-President for Planning and Development Saturnino Ocampo. His other mentors were Fortunato Battad, now President of BSU; Santiago Obien, who became the Founding Director of the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) and built PhilRice into a world-class institution. ‘Battad made a good PR man, specialist at marketing, while Obien was the kind of man who would show you the way, the person with technical knowledge, very focused. These two are honest men,’ he says. ‘This association with stalwarts has given me the professional edge.’

He has always tried to inspire others to work with, not against each other. Team, not steam. Dar says:

I believe in group strength. I remember my father asking us to help out in the household chores. There was division of labor. I would have to feed the dogs in the evening and sometimes cut grass before dusk (to be sold later) while my sister would be cooking. There was one message for all of us. You help one another. Do the task assigned to you responsibly but at the same time help one another. This hard training in the family imbued in us a sense of oneness. It gave us the confidence that together we could achieve something. Wherever I have served I have always laid stress on the gains to be had from working as a team, much more in a public institution. That is the work ethic that I have tried to inculcate in ICRISAT. That’s the genesis of Team ICRISAT.

So, the withering ICRISAT became a challenge to him. ‘I began wondering how to rekindle the enthusiasm of everyone. My past experience made it easy for me, for I had in similar situations created a Team Philippines and a Team Singapore. The slogan served as a platform to unify an institution. All it needed was a leader who could motivate.’

So, as a challenge, ICRISAT was heaven-sent. This poor boy was ready, willing and eager to soil his hands for the poor in the lands of poverty called the semi-arid tropics: 55 countries, 2 billion people, 50% poor, no water, crops devastated by insect pests, people ravaged by disease (HIV/AIDS and malaria), soils degraded, biodiversity endangered.

‘Now I call myself an international public servant who is determined to make a difference in the lives of the poor. My personal mission is to serve with a heart the poor living in the drylands,’ Dar says. The team is necessary, so you have Team ICRISAT. The team still needs a leader with a vision to make true and a mission to make it happen, and ICRISAT has William Dar.

Does UP have anyone like William Dar inside?

Been there, seen that. I know that there happens to be one Dean in UP Los Baños who has that same heart, and she was one of my students: Candida Bernabe Adalla of the College of Agriculture. The art of the academic is useless without the heart; the private science of the researcher is useless without the public service. Until she learns that lesson with a grade of 1, on the whole UP will continue to be half-aware, half-relevant to the affairs in her own country until 2107. Alas, two halves have never been seduced by a genius to become a whole. Never been there, never done that!

Loyalty Day 2007.

2007-10-10T11:01:00.000+08:00

And Independence Day, UP Los Baños?

4 scores and 7 years ago we Filipinos learned the lesson of loyalty to our ideals, the Yankees only 4 years ago. In July 1921, the University of the Philippines declared a Loyalty Day (October 10) (UP, Beloved) 3 years after the act; it was only 87 years later, in April 2003, when President George W Bush proclaimed for the United States a Loyalty Day (May 1) (whitehouse.gov). So, the Yankees don’t have a monopoly of intelligence.

Loyalty is necessary, in the words of GW Bush in his Presidential Proclamation, to ‘reaffirm our allegiance to our country and resolve to uphold the vision of our Forefathers.’ Loyalty cannot be any less than that.

On October 10 of 1921, the College of Agriculture of the University of the Philippines (UP) celebrated the very first Loyalty Day 3 months after the Board of Regents of UP approved a student body resolution to honor 200 staff and students of the College who volunteered to fight the war in Europe in the name of democracy. I had questioned such loyalty myself 40 years ago, my satire of an open letter 'What Did You Do In The War, Daddy?' declaring it subservience (to the Americans), but I've come to realize it was appropriate, it was loyalty to the country (americanchronicle.com).

I’m writing this after an exhausting day, alumni and UP Los Baños celebrating the 89th Loyalty Day. UPLB Alumni Association President Pids Rosario and UPLB Chancellor Luis Rey I Velasco leading the commemoration, with easily 3,000 watching the foot parade and the presentations (at UP Los Baños, that's mass appeal). Toward noon, the UP Los Baños part of the celebration of the UP Centennial (2008) was launched with the unveiling of the logo.

8 groups competed for the Most Colorful, Most Symbolic, Most Creative trophies in the traditional presentations part. At this point in time, I had already walked all over the place shooting the scenes I liked with my Canon PowerShot A540, exhausting 2 sets of batteries (Eveready alkaline) and 2 GB of recording media (Kingston memory card). At this time, I had probably pressed the shutter at least 600 times to take pictures; at the end of my day, past 1500 hr, I had taken 763 shots totaling 1.43 GB. While my first love is writing, self-taught, I began my earnest off-and-on teach-yourself photography in 1968 while I taught at Xavier University; in 1972, I learned much from Pat Laforteza (from Los Baños) of the National Science Development Board; I learned from the one-and-only Mao Chanco (Quezon City), whom I accidentally met when I was Editor of the Forest Research Institute starting 1975 - we were both into conservation, Mother Earth etc. (Both Pat and Boo are gone now, but the happy memories and shared knowledge remain.)

About the competition, the town of Los Baños represented by dancers (boys and girls) from my village of Mayondon was Most Colorful. PhilRice Los Baños’ presentation, conceived by Mar Movillon, Station Manager, was long, comprehensive, imaginative, historical, using mostly local materials, native talents. I heard from another source that Marites Cayton and Helen Dayo, having seen the PhilRice presentation, were both of the opinion that it was ‘No contest.’ PhilRice was a sure winner. Today, my vote for Most Creative went to PhilRice.

Yesterday, my vote for Most Creative went to Fernando Bernardo, who launched his twin books at the UPLB Alumni Awards and Fellowship Night in proper ceremonies at Baker Hall. His first is a coffee-table book, containing some 1,000 photographs, the Centennial Panorama: A Pictorial History Of UPLB, 300+ pages; the second, which I final-edited and desktop-published, I call a text book because it’s mostly narrative, UPLB: A Century of Challenges And Accomplishments, 240+ pages. Both published at Los Baños by the UPLBAA, both just off the press. (It’s a Buy One, Take One unbeatable offer: you buy the coffee-table book, 2.5K pesos, you get the text book free.)

In his 1-year-plus research for his twin books, Bernardo came to realize that the little town of Los Baños in Laguna, some 65 km south of Manila, may be The Most Scienced City in Asia (my coinage); in fact, it may have the highest concentration of scientific expertise and experience in the world. Bernardo based his conclusion on (a) number of staff with higher academic degrees obtained, and (b) number of centers of excellence in research. There are 300+ holders of Master of Science degrees, 500+ of Doctor of Philosophy degrees. At the UPLB campus alone, there are 11 colleges, institutes and schools. Comprising the Los Baños Science Community are 38 national and international research & development institutions. On campus, there are several museums and nature gardens: the International Rice Research Institute’s Rice World, the UP Los Baños’ Museum of Natural History, Makiling Botanic Garden, Science Park, Agri-Park, Makiling National Park.

Also last night, my vote for Most Intelligent went to Senator Juan Miguel ‘Migz’ Zubiri who came to give a beautiful response for the awardees (with beautiful, pregnant wife Audrey Tan). Zubiri was honored as a ‘Most Outstanding Alumnus of UPLB’ – for active advocacy in Congress of laws for the environment; for instance, he is the Father of the Philippines’ Biofuels Act. The other Most Outstanding Alumnus for 2007 was Jaime Aristotle Alip – for his inspired application of micro-finance, successfully assisting so far 300,000+ landless poor women in setting up small enterprises for their families.

In his response, Zubiri acknowledged his cerebral debt to UP Los Baños as his alma mater – he finished Agribusiness. He also shared a little anecdote of when UP senatorial candidates in this year’s elections were being called onstage. He went up; Mike Defensor, of UP Diliman, told him, ‘You’re Los Baños,’ the old put-down, implying that only UP Diliman deserved to be called ‘UP.’ Migz to Mike, this is his punchline: Look who won and look who lost?

Intellectually, Zubiri intrigued me with this proposition: ‘I want UP Los Baños to be the center of excellence in renewable resources.’ Instantly, I wedded it to Bernardo’s proposition (read his books!) that UP Los Baños ought to be a University entire of itself. I await The Declaration of Independence. I predict that within 5 years, we'll have a State University of the Philippines. Because UP Diliman has no monopoly of intelligence.

Knowledge Initiative.

2007-10-05T11:00:00.000+08:00

‘Let knowledge come from everywhere’

There is a new AI emerging in the horizon in Asia. It’s called Agricultural Innovation.

It’s coming from India.
It’s coming from the United States of America.
And, if you’re sleeping, it’s coming to heads near you.

At first it had a long name: ‘The India-US Knowledge Initiative on Agriculture Education, Research, Services and Commercial Linkages.’ The mouthful is now referred to as ‘The US-India Agricultural Knowledge Initiative.’ The first name says it all, defining the areas; the second name says it less, implying that knowledge can come from anywhere and go anywhere.

There has been a subtle shift in emphasis, from ‘The India-US Knowledge Initiative’ to ‘The US-India Knowledge Initiative.’ The first implies that the US is learning from India; the second implies what is the project’s goal – India learning from the United States of America.

There is much to learn from this.

Understandably, quite a number of Indian nationals in India and the US have raised concerns that this is another Yankee capitalist scheme. For instance, Atul Kumar Anjaan (2006 June 2, politicalaffairs.net) declares that the Knowledge Initiative has three main features: agricultural biotechnology, access to biological resources, and intellectual property rights, ‘three areas of crucial interest to the US because though technologically rich it does not have the genetic resources, which is essential for biotechnology products.’ He says that because Wal-Mart, Archer Daniels and Monsanto, three of the world’s biggest multinationals are on the Initiative Board; the three are out ‘to gain access to and retain ownership of the vast bio-resources of the developing countries,’ implying that instead of Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs), it would be Intellectual Property Wrongs.

Like some people I know, AKA is afraid of new knowledge. In the first place, he is wrong about the main features of the Knowledge Initiative. In the second place, the Initiative does not prevent Indian nationals from working for their own IPRs.

There are some Indian nationals who object to the Knowledge Initiative, because it allows the US multinationals to work on the living natural resources of their country. How different are they from those who rejected the man from Nazareth, called Jesus, who brought new knowledge to the world? I thought the Indians were more intelligent than that. It is not knowledge (or in another form, technology) that is the problem – it is how you put it to use, or how you don’t.

Indian MS Swaminathan approves, he who was once Director General of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), one of Time’s ‘20 most influential Asians of the 20th century,’ Father of India’s Green Revolution (irri.org). In an interview with Shobha Warrier (in.rediff.com), he says: ‘Let knowledge come from everywhere.’

The Knowledge Initiative has four focus areas (dare.gov.in):
(1) Education, Learning Resources, Curriculum Development and Training
(2) Food Processing, Use of Byproducts and Biofuels
(3) Biotechnology
(4) Water Management

Why would India be interested in the knowledge that the Yankees have in those areas? ‘They have all the Nobel Prize winners there,’ Swaminathan said. ‘They have invested a lot of money in developing ideas, and they have human resources.’

In other words, Indians could learn much from Yankees about education, be much more knowledgeable in food processing, branch out to biofuels, be very skilled in biotechnology, be highly productive in water management. We Filipinos could too, if only the Government of the Philippines through the University of the Philippines Los Baños got into an agreement like the US-India Knowledge Initiative.

Would not the Knowledge Initiative result in a second Green Revolution that would fail the Indian farmers and spoil the soil again? Swaminathan said: ‘I coined the term Evergreen Revolution, which means improvement of productivity without associated ecological or environmental harm.’ Swaminathan is Indian Adviser to the Initiative, so he has his job cut out for him. The Knowledge Initiative would increase the yields of crops and not decrease the fertility of the soil and not increase water pollution from farm chemicals. That’s for the Knowledge Initiative to say and for you to find out.

I learned and got interested in the Knowledge Initiative when I was trying to research biotechnology – a subject I wanted to appreciate but couldn’t as long as I didn’t understand it – and I saw ‘Making biotechnology work for the poor,’ the welcome address of William Dar, Director General of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), at the ‘International Workshop on Application of Genomics to Chickpea, Pigeonpea and Peanut Improvement’ 2006 March 6-9 at ICRISAT headquarters, Patancheru, Andhra Pradesh, India (2007, Nurturing Life In The Drylands Of Hope, ICRISAT, pages 29-32). Dar said, ‘Dr Mangala Rai had intimated earlier that ICRISAT will be brought into the Knowledge Initiative on Agriculture between India and the USA, which I welcome very much.’ What good would that do?

I am sure that the new Knowledge Initiative on Agriculture that will link universities, technical institutions and businesses in the USA and India to support joint agricultural research and education projects will ultimately benefit the poor in developing countries. We stand ready to be a strategic partner in this initiative.

Put that way, for whatever it’s worth, I myself would like a similar US-Philippine Knowledge Initiative only because my alma mater UP Los Baños is a giant sleeping, our technical institutions could be better, our local businesses couldn’t be bothered about going after new products and enjoying IPRs themselves, and education in my beloved country used to be a sure winner but now is a sore loser. (And yes, you should check out the innovations coming from ICRISAT, in India: building a team, winning awards, marketing technologies, visioning.)

Still, the Knowledge Initiative cannot come from UP Los Baños if all she does is think of academic freedom, which is to serve the University, and not freedom from poverty, which is to serve the People.

Sad to say, the Knowledge Initiative cannot come from anywhere near the University of the Philippines because UP is convinced that Tagalog-based Filipino is the best national language and to use English for education is colonial mentality. Duh!

'Survival of the Fittest' revised?

2007-10-01T10:59:00.000+08:00

To The Breeders, To Make Much Of Time

This time, when I looked at the numbers, lo and behold! I saw Charles Darwin amidst 13 new varieties of sweet sorghum, 13 survivors of selection. Darling, I’m referring to the biologist who revolutionized the world of thought by inventing the concept of evolution, coming out in 1859 with such radical idea in his book The Origin Of The Species By Means Of Natural Selection. Darwin’s works were violently attacked in those days (blupete.com); this article is another attack on another front today.

‘Natural selection’ Darwin says; those who are the fittest to live are the ones who survive. The law of the jungle. Well, today, we’re going to talk about un-natural selection, that is, man-made. The law of the juggle. Let me explain using theoretical, what-if data:

The plant breeders of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) were able to create 13 new varieties of sweet sorghum: AA, BB, CC, DD, EE, FF, GG, HH, II, JJ, KK, LL, MM. Afterwards, the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UP Los Baños) test-planted all 13 varieties in 13 regions of the Philippines. Here are the highest average yielders per hectare:
91 tons, AA, Region 03
69 tons, BB, Region 10
78 tons, CC, Region 04
50 tons, DD, Region 05
55 tons, EE, Region 11
40 tons, FF, Region 08
65 tons, GG, Region 07
70 tons, HH, Region 12
73 tons, II, Region 06
78 tons, JJ, Region 02
78 tons, KK, Region 13
99 tons, LL, Region 01
78 tons, MM, Region 09

The law of the juggle says the highest goes to the top, the lowest to the bottom. So, following ‘survival of the fittest,’ following protocol, we recommend to the Philippine Seed Board (PSB) variety LL (99 tons) for public consumption. LL is the fittest of them all. The PSB approves.

Now, the mean best yield of the 13 ICRISAT sorghums is 71 tons (91 + 69 + 78 + 50 + 55 + 40 + 65 + 70 + 73 + 78 + 78 + 99 + 78 equals 924 divided by 13). That means the top 2 new sorghums yield higher than the average new sorghum by at least 20 tons. I’m happy for the peasants, because I believe sweet sorghum is the single best crop for small Filipino farmers. To the poor tillers of the soil, sweet sorghum yields food from the grains, animal fodder from the stalks, fuel from the bagasse, fertilizer from the crop residue; sweet sorghum can be grown in the worst places. Syrup from sweet sorghum gives us ethanol, a biofuel priced above diamonds now that gasoline and diesel are priced above rubies. In short, sweet sorghum equals hope.

But, I have a problem recommending the top new sorghum variety to farmers in those 13 regions of my country. Why?

Because, looking again, I find the yields in:

Region 03: AA highest, the rest lower;
Region 10: BB highest, the rest lower;
Region 04: CC highest, the rest lower;
Region 05: DD highest, the rest lower;
Region 11: EE highest, the rest lower;
Region 08: FF highest, the rest lower;
Region 07: GG highest, the rest lower;
Region 12: HH highest, the rest lower;
Region 06: II highest, the rest lower;
Region 02: JJ highest, the rest lower;
Region 13: KK highest, the rest lower;
Region 01: LL highest, the rest lower;
Region 09: MM highest, the rest lower.

13 different highest yields. Do you realize what that means? Recommending only 1 to all 13 is recommending to 13 less than the best sweet sorghum in each region – except Region 01.

You see, if the UP Los Baños data is at all accurate and reliable, the most outstanding variety of all, LL, yields 99 tons in Region 01, true – but lower than 78 tons in Region 13, lower than 65 tons in Region 07, lower than 40 tons in Region 08, and so on and so forth. The data means that LL is best suited to Region 01, to the climate prevailing and soil conditions obtaining there; AA is best suited to Region 03, and so on and so forth.

Best fit. I must therefore revise ‘survival of the fittest’ to ‘survival of all the fittest’ – it is fittest that I recommend not just 1 or 2 but a total of 13 highest-yielding varieties (HYVs) – that is, a different HYV fits best a different region. In other words, there are 13 sorghum HYVs all in all for me to recommend, each one the highest for that region. That means I have saved at least 12 generations of sorghum breeding & selection for 12 other new varieties of sorghum. 12 years saved?

I submit that the faulty logic of ‘survival of the fittest’ in testing new crop varieties originated from the concept of the average (or mean). Suppose the average yield for LL was derived from these yields in 9 different sites in that same region: EE 88, NT 93, NF 95, NS 97, NE 98, OH 100, OO 100, OT 100, OX 120 tons. So, we find 99 tons as the mean yield (no site), 98 tons (Site NE) as the median yield, and 100 tons (Sites OH, OO, OT) as the mode yield. The difference between mean and median and mode is a significant 1 ton. Since there’s no such thing as an average sorghum; the median is an arbitrary figure – I’ll pick the mode yield, reflecting the trend of the yields of LL in that region – there are 3 sites with 100 tons. LL’s best yield is 100, not 99 tons. 120 tons (Site OX) is a fluke.

Don’t forget that a crop variety is site-specific, growing best in one place and not another. Therefore, in un-natural selection, ‘the survival of the fittest’ fits best the Site in the Region, not the Country. That's the fittest I can say, right?

Below are two reactions to my theoretical excursion above:

Belum Reddy, the Sweet Sorghum Man of ICRISAT, tells me: ‘Frank! You are right; sweet sorghums are site/season specific. So we need to test them in the target area before we recommend.’

Santiago R Obien, the one I have called in the pages of American Chronicle ‘Wizard of Rice,’ has an interesting story:

Take a rice line that eventually was named variety ‘Angelica,’ for example – in the national coordinated test, it gave the highest yield in PhilRice Agusan (Norte) but its national average yield was one of the lowest among several ‘lines’ tested in 7 or 9 locations nationwide. If we followed the usual procedure, this line (now named ‘Angelica’) would have been discarded. But I told my staff in PhilRice Agusan, ‘grow that line in Agusan and develop it as a variety for the Caraga Region. (Caraga is cloudy most of the days, hardly any distinct dry season …) Thus, ‘Angelica’ was most adopted in the Region. It became popular, and was popularized by the lady Governor of Agusan del Norte at that time: Angelica Amante.

What can I say? All’s well that tests well.

Also published by the American Chronicle in a slightly different version.
Copyright 2007 October 1 by Frank A Hilario

The De Sotto Lesson.

2007-09-15T10:57:00.000+08:00

Also published by the American Chronicle in a slightly different version.
Copyright 2007 September 15 by Frank A Hilario

Bernardo’s PowerPoint
History of UP Los Baños

He reminds Filipinos – me first – that the Americans came to the Philippines with their colonial curriculum. He deserves a University of the Philippines Los Baños Alumni Association (UPLBAA) Presidential Award for teaching us history. Fernando A Bernardo is The Gray Historian of UP Los Baños, having succeeded in capturing between 4 covers the UP Los Baños Story from the early 20^th century to the early 21^st while tackling areas as gray as his head, writing in long hand. There had been previous attempts to write such history, but only he has turned dream to reality. Here come the UPLB Alumni Fellowship Night (October 9), UPLB Loyalty Day (October 10). Twin books, twin celebrations – no I don’t drink, yes I’ll drink to that!

I say ‘FA Bernardo’ to (artfully) separate him from wife (Emiliana) ‘EN Bernardo’ who is (almost) equally known, who helped him tremendously in this gargantuan labor of love – she helped in the repetitious line-by-line editing. Didn’t someone say behind the success of a man is a woman? The historian has written of 100 years of UP Los Baños in his unique style I call PowerPoint history. I invented the term as a double entendre, of which I’m fond constructing. The first and obvious meaning is that it refers to Microsoft PowerPoint, the software that everybody uses to make presentations during seminars, lectures, conferences, workshops, times when occasion or presentor demands – I don’t, I don’t make presentations; I just present myself. The second meaning is that our historian has written history in the manner of PowerPoint, which is grouping and presenting important points with Bullets and Numbering. Sometimes it helps.

There is a third meaning I want to point out in my use of the Microsoft-invented term PowerPoint: FA Bernardo’s twin books are written in the manner of Milestones (deserving Bullets) and their Mix of Meanings and Materials (deserving Numbers). This is not your usual history, but then again, the history of UP Los Baños is highly unusual – it’s American. You don’t agree with Bernardo’s view of UPLB history? Just look for power in his own storytelling.

If I heard him right, our historian started with the idea of writing the history of the University as consisting of 100 milestones, which are, literally, landmarks (as in kilometer posts), and figuratively, important events in the story of a person, nation, or knowledge itself (I’m borrowing from American Heritage Dictionary). 100 milestones they were going to be. Or 101, to indicate that there were really more than 100. As he checked and revised the manuscript (checked again, revised again), he noted that there were probably 200 milestones, or even more. So he dropped ‘milestones’ from the titles. It had become difficult to count them. I’ll add to the count and say his twin books are twin milestones in UPLB history.

Yes, they are twin books. I refer to the one I helped edit as the text book (UPLB: A Century Of Challenges And Achievements) as distinguished (no pun intended) from the coffee-table book (Centennial Panorama: A Pictorial History Of UPLB), the first being mostly text, the second being mostly photographs. The text book is 249 pages text (with chapter breaker photographs); the coffee-table version is 314 pages, both big-sized tomes.

UPLBAA, Publisher. They make one package: pre-Loyalty Day, you pay P2K for the coffee-table book and get the text book as bonus. (Suppose you want only the text book? You pay P2K and get the coffee-table book as extra! I mean, the text book is not for sale separate from the coffee-table version.) Please send check to UPLBAA.

The question you may be asking is: Why should I pay P2K at all for Bernardo’s twin books? Good question! Now, let me answer it this way, by way of Bullets & Numbering:

#1: You will be learning from the past merely looking at the pictures.
#2: You will be looking at the past while learning from the story.

It doesn’t come any better than that! Want to prove me wrong? You have to read the books; to review both, I had to.

#1: Centennial Panorama –
Learning from the past, looking at the pictures.

The coffee-table book is UP Los Baños history in images, most of which you have not seen, even if you happen to be older than the first College gate (1933). FA Bernardo collected his materials and images over the course of a year from many and diverse sources here and there. Anyone can collect photographs, even old photographs, but the images do not tell a story by themselves, that which his book does. The images add authenticity and credibility to the story being told, no matter that only a few words are used. Not only that, they remind us of our past, whether we are UPLB alumni or not, the bygone days that are now part of us all, the events that shaped the alma mater if not the alumni, the challenges and considerations that confronted individuals and institutions, the trials they underwent and the triumphs they experienced. If you did not live that history, here is your chance to relish it a little.

The photographs are legion, such as of the first College gate, Charles Fuller Baker, Edwin Bingham Copeland (first Dean), ‘farm pest monitoring sites’ from an international project, aerial view of the campus in those early years. My favorite image is that of an Ilocana girl smoking a big cigar, a status symbol of those early years of the 20^th century.

A coffee-table book is usually a collection of stunning photographs, pages designed for maximum impact of color and composition. Not this, since no one was commissioned to take photographs while 100 years rolled by. Yet, some photographs are dramatic, being so historical, as that ethanol road test – yes, College of Agriculture engineers ran a 1929 De Sotto de Luxe sedan on 10% ethanol for 50,000 km about 70 years ago! We should have learned the De Sotto lesson decades before Brazil thought of sugarcane ethanol, before Al Gore came up with his Inconvenient Truth.

Why should you be interested in a new book of photographs that tell old stories? If you or any of your loved ones has been part of UP Los Baños in its 100-year history, you may find more meaning in your past and present if you knew this University’s past; you may even be able to get a glimpse of an exciting future.

#2: A Century of Challenges & Achievements –
Looking at the past, learning from the story.

Naturally, the text book contains much more of the story in words. I know because, as the historian puts it by way of acknowledgment, I final-edited the manuscript, and in fact desktop-published it myself – in the language of classical publishing, I did all the designing of the text chapters: crafting the chapter opening pages, typesetting (fonts, formatting font sizes and styles of characters, lines and paragraphs), layouting pages (setting margins, number of lines on a page, running heads), copy editing (correcting grammar & spelling, checking for errors in fact or meaning), proofreading & copyreading, cutting & pasting, inserting & dragging images (photographs, illustrations, graphs), blueprinting (printouting), correcting, repositioning. The only thing I didn’t do was the cover, the design of which came from the coffee-table book artist, as directed by FA Bernardo of course. (Which software did I use? How did I insert images & boxes, dragging them place to place even while adding or subtracting much text? Secret! In any case, book publishing has become so much easier because of the personal computer and laser printer, and they’re not that expensive either, or I couldn’t afford an Intel Core 2 Duo PC with a Xerox Phaser 3116 – I did it at home.)

No, FA’s history does not tell all stories. He would have needed another year to gather materials on his desk, gather thoughts in his head, gather drafts into 2, even 3 books? Like, he does not mention the technology of publishing changing over the years within UP Los Baños itself, from typewriter to typesetter to desktop publisher. Among other things, I would have liked him to mention names of alumnae, like Gelia Castillo who became the first celebrated UPLB international expert, like Lizbeth de Padua who became Bb Pilipinas Universe. Well, no book is perfect.

I recommend you check out a fascinating book feature that is not found in its coffee-table twin: A Centenary Timeline for UPLB – I wrote it myself. Here’s an excerpt:

1800s

1821: February 26, a royal decree authorizes the Real Sociedad Economia to establish a professorship of agriculture in Manila. An offer to pay a professor’s salary of P250 a year is made, but there is no taker.

1858: September 13, Governor-General Fernando De Norzagaray y Escudero establishes a Botanic Garden and a School of Agriculture at Calle Arroceros, Manila. The school does not live long.

1889: July 2, the Escuela Agricola opens its doors in Manila by virtue of a Royal Decree issued on November 29, 1887. After one commencement exercise, the school closes forever.

1889: Up to 1902, the Filipino-American War is more violent and lasts longer than the Filipino Revolution against Spain (1896-1898), with more human lives lost and more destruction of agriculture. Up to 90 percent of the carabao stock is decimated.

You get a rapid glimpse of history even from that excerpt – first, the Spanish imperialists, then the American colonizers. Don’t you feel the pulse of those centuries past?

Bernardo’s text book of UPLB history is full of names, numbers, incidents and milestones that will prove too much if you read more than 2 chapters at a time. Therefore, I suggest that you do not read chapter by chapter but browse the chapters, pick up what interests you, and read here and there. Then you will appreciate that the book, while not necessarily visually attractive as it is mostly rivers of text, makes you think what might have been and what might be next. All good history books should be like that.

One of the major events in UPLB history was the UP-Cornell Graduate Education Program, which was aimed at strengthening UPCA as a graduate school as well as train Filipinos for leadership in agricultural research and educational development. Outstanding products of this program include Emil Javier, Percy Sajise, Pids Rosario, Mario Labadan, Edelwina Legaspi, Teroy Lasap Jr. (No, not me; I didn’t go to graduate school. Yes, Percy, Pids, Teroy were my classmates.)

If you’re interested in names of individuals and institutions, try the Index I prepared. Dates as well as accompanying names are emphasized in the Timeline; names and pieces of relevant information connected to each one are emphasized in the Index. Thus, Umali, Dioscoro L may be seen at least 16 times (as in pages 56, 87, 98, 105, 118, 185), while quite a number show only once, such as Sacay, Orlando (103), student activism (62), thesis as required for graduation (32), University Publications Office (136).

Some of the stories are startling, such as that one that tells of how UP Los Baños missed the historical chance in those Martial Law years of becoming independent of the UP System. And it is shocking to learn that there was a year when UP’s budget was cut 14%, whereupon the UP President unilaterally declared UPLB budget be cut 36%. ‘Murder!’ he wrote. Actually, ‘Unfair!’ he wrote. Right.

One of the main laments of our historian has to do with the UP Open University (in Los Baños): it has only a few hundred students while other Open Universities in Asia have thousands (Malaysia 16K, South Korea 210K, Thailand 550K, India 800K). He blames it on the strict admission requirements of UPOU, that is to say, it is not really an Open University. Right.

The biggest challenge to UPLB today, our historian says, is ‘the great need to restore or revive the Los Baños Spirit’ which he defines as ‘the spirit of teamwork, the enthusiasm to cooperate, the indomitable spirit in the face of adversities, the never dying commitment of graduates of the old UP College of Agriculture and UP College of Forestry.’ UP Los Baños alumni abroad, get that?

So: The history books have been written; FA Bernardo is finished with his 2-book brainchild. But the story of the University of the Philippines Los Baños is not finished. It is beginning its second 100 years, at the end of which, each having been part of its second century one way or another, we all hope to have contributed to changing UP itself from its colonial curriculum, serving the people and not selfish interests, enjoying financial independence and not simply academic freedom – constructive, innovative, brilliant.

Hard-bound, FA Bernardo’s twin books are open doors to the past. We must know our past and know it by heart; if we forget our history, we will be bound to repeat it.

UP!

2007-09-12T10:56:00.000+08:00

Also published by the American Chronicle in a slightly different version.
Copyright 2007 September 12 by Frank A Hilario

Pinoy chairs UN scientific body on desertification

Global science has caught up with the Filipino who has talent and technique. William Dollente Dar, from Santa Maria, Ilocos Sur, has just been elected as Chair of the Committee on Science and Technology (CST) in the current (September 3-14) conference in Madrid, Spain under the auspices of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). It has taken the UN 30 years to realize that the Filipino has the head and heart for ‘science with a human face’ (icrisat.org).

In 1977, the UN Conference on Desertification adopted a plan of action to combat desertification; unfortunately, the plant that grew from the seed sown wilted, died. In 1994, the UNCCD was born; the Philippines signed on August 12 of that year. Some 13 years later, we have the Madrid conference, with a Filipino as head of the science committee. The University of the Philippines must be so proud!

Desertification? Some 200 countries have ratified the Convention, indicating how widespread the unease is. Desertification is ‘denuding and degrading a once-fertile land, initiating a desert-producing cycle that feeds on itself and causes long-term changes in soil, climate, and biota of an area’ (highered.mcgraw-hill.com). With denuded mountains along with eroded farmlands, the process of desertification has already begun. Desertification results in soils starved of water, crops starved of nutrients, farmers starved of income, citizens starved of nutritious produce, countries starved of healthy economies.

With Dar as Chair of CST, the committee can tap his experience and expertise on sustainable use and management of resources, having proven himself as Director General of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), which is based in India: he turned ICRISAT from moribund to dynamic, creative. ICRISAT is one of the 15 international centers nurtured by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), which is supported by the World Bank and FAO. With Dar as Captain, from January 2000 when he took over, to January 2005 when his term was renewed, Team ICRISAT won 46 awards (bar.gov.ph). Among such awards were 2 trophies of the CGIAR’s King Baudouin Award, won in 2002 and 2004. In 2005, ICRISAT won the World Bank’s Development Marketplace Award. This year, ICRISAT was rated Outstanding by the CGIAR, the award for total excellence, considering quality of outputs, impact, financial health, stakeholder perception (americanchronicle.com). The award comes with a World Bank US$2.4 million grant, et amore.

On June 22 this year, the Philippine Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) recognized Dar as the Outstanding Professional of the Year in Agriculture. This category of award is bestowed as PRC’s highest award to someone ‘recommended by his/her peers for having amply demonstrated professional competence of the highest degree and conducted himself/herself with integrity in the exercise of his/her profession’ (americanchronicle.com). This is only one of the many professional awards received by Dar. It will be noted that he has been Executive Director of the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources Research and Development (PCARRD), as well as Secretary of Agriculture of his country. PCARRD plans, supports and monitors R&D programs and projects mostly based on the academe; the Secretary of Agriculture plans, supports and monitors agriculture production all over the archipelago.

With Team ICRISAT’s achievements, and with his own, Dar’s job as new Chair of the UN scientific committee is cut out for him. In the context of the times, desertification is the product of denudation of the land and degradation of the soil that both contribute to and are aggravated by climate change. That is to say, renewing the denuded and ameliorating the degraded lands are direct ways of combating desertification and mitigating global warming. Done properly, reforestation is a battle won against desertification; practiced with sustainability in mind, farming in the drylands is another battle won. Science comes in as an arsenal supplying arms: improved seeds, improved cultivation methods, improved marketing, improved distribution of benefits of the works of minds and bodies to society.

A model for the tropics, Team ICRISAT under Dar has harnessed the potential of sweet sorghum as an intelligent choice for a biofuel crop. Sorgo, as sweet sorghum is sometimes referred to, grows well in denuded as well as degraded sites, the perfect crop to fight desertification, a David fighting a man-made Goliath. With Team ICRISAT’s advocacy, an Indian national has put up Rusni Distilleries to extract ethanol from sorgo grown by small Indian farmers in a commercial arrangement, complete with Indian government support. Being Science Chair of a UN body is added reason to say ‘William Dar is the Al Gore of Science’ (americanchronicle.com).

Given all that, when it comes to the crunch, the global war against desertification must be fought with local battles that have to be won. On his part, and to begin with, Dar had to steer his UN committee in the right direction.

Having become Chair, Dar invited the delegates to discuss the priority theme of their mission as the new science committee. He noted that the proposed Ten-Year Strategic Plan of the UNCCD, 2008-2018, contained ‘relevant recommendations.’ For instance, the Plan’s vision is compelling:

A world where land degradation/desertification trends are reversed and the effects of drought and climate variability mitigated, thereby contributing to sustainable development through the improvement of people’s livelihoods and economic well-being and the protection of the environment at the local and global levels.

Drought reversed, climate change moderated, livelihoods improved, economies ameliorated, environment protected – locally, globally. And how are all that to be accomplished? The accompanying mission is apropos to the vision:

Provide a global framework to support the development and implementation of national and regional policies, programmes and measures … through scientific and technological excellence, standard setting, advocacy and resource mobilization.

As Science Chair under the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, Dar knows that success depends very much on the last in the list, resource mobilization, meaning moving a legion of institutions and individuals to contribute time, intellect, money and effort to achieve the common goal.

No one man is great enough to fight desertification alone.

Also published by American Chronicle in a slightly different version.
Copyright 2007 September 12 by Frank A Hilario.

Our bastard soul.

2007-09-04T10:54:00.000+08:00

The Filipinos In Search Of Themselves

I’m looking for University of the Philippines (UP) lawyers who will prepare and file a case for The Filipino People vs The Congress of the Philippines. The Bastards. Those who make it noblesse oblige to gleefully display their ilk as citizens of virtue and to censure most anybody except the loudmouths that are themselves.

Case: Gross incompetence? Corrupt ideas? Unpatriotic acts? Behavior inimical to the interests of the Filipino? I can’t decide, that’s why I need a lawyer, a Knight in Shining Armor.

You ask me: What bastard? The American Heritage Dictionary says a bastard is (A) an illegitimate child, (B) something that is of irregular, inferior, or dubious origin, (C) vulgar slang, a person, especially one who is held to be mean or disagreeable. So, who is my bastard? All of the above. But if I had to choose only one, it would be B, as revised by me: something or somebody that is of irregular, inferior, or dubious origin. But C is also good and would suffice: someone who can’t help but be mean or disagreeable. I used to be a C bastard myself, and then I grew up. I’m 67, for Christ’s sake.

Aside from me, let’s see if you recognize any historical bastard, Filipino, of the last century, the 1900s, before he disappears from view. This exercise is for your own good; then you’ll know what to do as a man of class, man of letters, man of media, or man on the street.

Oh, and yes, let me remind you that the word Filipino now has two different meanings. American Heritage defines it as one, a native or inhabitant of the Philippines, and two, the name for the Austronesian language that is based on Tagalog, draws its lexicon from other Philippine languages, and is the official language of the Philippines.

And that is where my favorite American Heritage is wrong, and the error is unforgivable. You see, the language Filipino today is a bastard, as it draws not its lexicon from other Philippine languages, but only from Tagalog. I would rate this Filipino mediocre, even execrable.

Therein lies a B story.

In 1987, the Cory Constitution, the one in force today, declared that Filipino, as national language, ‘shall be further developed and enriched on the basis of existing Philippine and other languages.’ 20 years of Senators and Representatives later, what have the A or B or C bastards of Congress done by way of formulating the guidelines to enrich the Filipino? They have insulted the Filipino by ignoring the Filipino.

It’s not true, as James Fallows had written, that the Philippines is a damaged culture (1987 November, Atlantic Monthly) – it’s worse. We are a hundred damaged cultures, Beloved. I blame it on Manila Imperialism (MI). The more popular owner of the acronym MI is of course the theory of multiple intelligences by Harvard Professor Howard Gardner, and now I’ll have to get into that too. Gardner theorizes that each one of us has nine intelligences: linguistic, musical, visual, logical-mathematical, personal, interpersonal, bodily kinesthetic, naturalistic, existential. Tell that to the (Philippine) Marines!

Considering that, if instead of their MI (Manila Imperialism), the lawmakers use their MI (multiple intelligences), then they would know that it is much, much better for the Filipino to be enriched by other languages (cultural influences) than keeping this language pure and tribalistic, a bastard. The delegates to the Constitutional Convention in the time of Cory Aquino were using their inherited MI (multiple intelligences) while the members of Congress since then have been using their legacy of MI (Manila Imperialism). Differing intelligences.

The bastard that is MI (Manila Imperialism) first reared its ugly head perhaps during the time of Manuel Luis Quezon. He was President of the Philippines when the 1935 Constitution was passed. One of the major provisions of the insular Quezon Constitution was for Congress ‘to take the necessary steps towards the development of a national language which is based on one of the existing native languages’ (Paz M Belvez, 2002, ncca.gov.ph). The next year, Commonwealth Act 184 created the Committee on National Language (CNL); those who became CNL members were Isidro Abad (Cebuano), Hadji Butu (Maranao-Maguindanao), Jaime C De Veyra (Hiligaynon), Santiago Fonacier (Ilocano), Zoilo Hilario (Pampango), Cecilio Lopez (Tagalog), Casimiro Perfecto (Bicolano), Felix Salas Rodriguez (Samarnon), Lope K Santos (Tagalog), Felimon Sotto (Cebuano), Jose Zulueta (Pangasinense). A bastard committee? No, a multiple intelligences body, with nine major languages represented. But their decision to recommend Tagalog as the sole basis of the national language is of dubious origin, as there were more native Cebuano speakers than Tagalog, and to force others to speak and think and write Tagalog is to force on them a culture other than their own; it is not mutual acceptance but assimilation; it is not cultural integration but cultural imperialism.

Early this morning, September 4, when I went out walking our two dogs EmEm and Chubby at the grassyard beside VEA School (offering grade school and high school), I overheard the children and the teacher practicing their pieces for some presentation or other. The subject was not roses but Filipino, and a child was reciting that Quezon is the Father of the National Language. He is, of our bastard language, our bastard soul, not that mandated by the clever Cory Constitution, not derived from richly endowed Philippine languages. President Cory Aquino is the Mother of the streetsmart National Language, one of cultural intelligences.

A common language is for communicating, cooperating with. If the Filipinos’ multiple languages were transformed as their multiple intelligences into one essential national language, it would be the people’s authentic soul even as their cultural vitalities animate them. Then they can become a truly great nation, a creative country if ever there was one.

To force our lawmakers to generate guidelines to develop Filipino as national language, I challenge the UP College of Law to sue those bastards in Congress so we can all stop suffering with our bastard soul.

Also published by American Chronicle in a slightly different version.
Copyright 2007 September 04 by Frank A Hilario.

Los Indios Bobos.

2007-08-23T10:53:00.000+08:00

Being Jose Rizal, Pinoys &
The University Of The Philippines

One Vision Indivisible. Pinoys, we modern Filipinos ignore that as requisite for countrywide development, because we are all Los Indios Bobos. Exactly like Jose Rizal, our National Hero, in 1889. No wonder we can’t progress from Third World to First World, even to a Tiger Economy.

Bobos is plural for bobo, which is part of the vocabulary of the Filipino, a legacy of Spanish colonialism; the word is Spanish for foolish (SDL International, FreeTranslation.com). Los Indios Bobos, Those Foolish Indians, primitive thinkers.

And where in all this is UP, the University of the Philippines, the State University, the premier university, my beloved alma mater? Bobo!

UP is 99 years old; it is celebrating its centenary next year, 2008. I get that data on the history of the University of the Philippines as part of the history book on UP Los Baños just written by a well-known science manager, Fernando A Bernardo; his book is UPLB: A Century Of Challenges And Achievements, 2007, Los Baños: UPLB Alumni Association, 249 pages, in press), which includes as background the status of the Filipinos when the Spaniards came to the islands to subjugate them in the name of Felipe, King of Spain, and called them Indios (Indians, implying primeval, implying second-rate humans).

If I understand him right, Bernardo submits that one of the lessons learned from that century of schooling is that UP Los Baños is also bobo for being subservient to the System – UP. Change the System!

First, we much change the Indios. We must change ourselves.

In Rizal’s subversive first book, Noli Me Tangere (1887), history told as fiction, the Spanish friars describe the Indio variously as ‘indolent,’ ‘vicious,’ ‘ungrateful,’ ‘uncouth’ (Ma Soledad Lacson-Locsin translation, 1996: 9). Barbarians.

The Spaniards, Nathan Gilbert Quimpo says, regarded the Indios as belonging to the ‘primitive’ and ‘inferior races’ and thus were ‘as fit to be enslaved or subjugated’ (2003, ‘Colonial name, colonial mentality and ethnocentrism,’ Part One, Kasama 17(3), 2003 July-September, cpcabrisbane.org). Quimpo cites Manuel Duldulao’s ‘hierarchy of inferiority’ that goes like this: Peninsulares > Criollos > Mestizos > Indios. The Indios are the lowest form of citizens in their own country. Dregs even.

Even the intellectual Jose Rizal was oppressed by the label of Indio on the Filipinos, that is to say, including himself. He was ashamed to be a Filipino! He didn’t actually say he disliked being referred to as Indio, but he felt the stigma. He was the leader of a gang who called themselves the Kidlat Club (Lightning Club), the name signifying its real as well as its ephemeral nature. The Kidlat Clubbers included the brothers Antonio & Juan Luna, Lauro Dimayuga, Baldomero Roxas, Gregorio Aguilera, Fernando Canon, Gregorio Pautu and Julio Llorente. Sometime between May and October 1889, they were sightseeing in the Paris International Exposition; that was when Rizal noticed that the American Indians were carrying themselves with dignity despite the pejorative label Indios, that is to say, uncivilized. They were showing they were more civilized than their namecallers. That was when Rizal had a flash of genius and told his gangmates: ‘Why should we resent being called Indios by the Spaniards? Look at the American Indians. They are not ashamed of their race. Let us be like them. Let us be proud of the name Indio and make the Spaniards revise their conception of the term. We shall become Indios Bravos!’ (Source, Gregorio Zaide 2003: 138; Jose Rizal: Life, Works and Writings. Mandaluyong City: National Book Store). And so they did.

Los Indios Bravos – The Indian Braves. That was good for the 19^th century, to prevail over the stigma of inferiority, over the alleged lack of culture.

Today, I think we Filipinos have too much culture – we are too American for our own good. We don’t have enough education for our own good. UP was designed by the Americans almost 100 years ago to match the times; times have changed, but we haven’t.

So, for the 21^st century, instead of Indios Bravos, I’m thinking Indios Bravados, where ‘bravado’ means ‘a real or pretended display of courage or boldness’ (Encarta 2007 Dictionaries). We need both senses to put some sense back into our heads.

Like Rizal and the Kidlat Gang, before they transformed themselves into Los Indios Bravos, our thinking shows we are backward Indios even in UP.

In these trying and crying times, if we don’t have bravado (true boldness), what we need is bravado (assumed boldness) that will assuredly grow into bravado (real boldness). Boldness for what? Boldness for growth, for progress. For the family, for the community, for the country. Boldness for moving on despite the problems, despite the corruption, despite the despair of many, despite the naysayers, despite the coup plotters, despite the destabilizers, despite ourselves.

To pursue the good life, the collective good life, we Filipinos need bravado. Now, while I’m the first to say that, I just found out that Bravado is the name of a magazine in New Zealand; and the Editorial Collective that works behind the issues has defined the word in this manner: ‘Bravado, n, a bold and defiant demonstration of courage; any public show of skills and talents to encourage admiration’ (bravado.co.nz). I like that, ‘to encourage admiration’ and not ‘to encourage submission.’ Modeling, not behavioral modification.

By bravado I mean daring but not bluster, I mean being proud but not boasting, I mean showing but not show-off, I mean display but not swagger. I’m thinking of politicians, soldiers, businessmen, teachers, academicians, analysts, columnists, media people, activists, reformers, oppositionists.

From where the Philippines is right now, if we want to get there from here, we should not think First World or Tiger Economy – it is too much to expect; instead, we should think Ten Steps Forward. The first step should be to separate master from slave, as in UP from UPLB. All we need is bravado.

Let's be creative. Instead of being Los Indios Bobos, or Los Indios Bravos, we must be Los Indios Bravados.

Also published by American Chronicle in a slightly different version.

1907 in confusion.

2007-08-16T10:51:00.000+08:00

We Had A Cow College
Before We Had A University?

1907 was a great year. Maybe. The recliner was invented, and so was popcorn. And so was our beloved Cow College. A creative year.

As to the recliner, it made Edwin J Shoemaker’s La-Z-Boy furniture company one of the most successful companies in the US (britannica.com).

As to the popcorn, Orville Redenbacher co-created a hybrid called ‘Snowflake,’ because it was lighter and fluffier than the competition. Did it make this scientist rich? Britannica doesn't say. It certainly made watching movies more enjoyable.

As to our Cow College, it’s the UPCA, the University of the Philippines College of Agriculture. According to Dr. Fernando A. Bernardo’s book (UPLB: A Century of Challenges and Achievements, Los Baños: UPLBAA, 250 pages, in press), 1907 is the year this Cow College was born.

That is all very clear, right? Now, I’ll ask you a question:

As an institution, do you celebrate your birth the day a higher power creates you or the day you open to the public, the greater power?

Historically, UP, the University of the Philippines has a confusion of answers:

1) Date first opened to public: UP College of Medicine, celebrating centenary on 2007 June 10

2) Date conceived by Department of Public Instruction: UPCA, celebrating centenary on 2007 (August 9 maybe)

3) Date created by Philippine Commission: UP PGH, the Philippine General Hospital celebrating centenary on 2007 August 17 (Act 1688)

4) Date created by Philippine Commission: UP itself, celebrating centenary on 2008 June 18 (Act 1870).

5) Date created by UP Board of Regents: School of Fine Arts and College of Agriculture, celebrating centenary on 2009 March 6.

Why do I want to confuse you? Harry S. Truman says, ‘If you can’t convince them, confuse them.’ More to the point, I want you to pay attention. Tom Peters says, ‘If you’re not confused, you’re not paying attention.’

UPCM. UP College of Medicine celebrated its centenary 2007 June 10, June 10 being the date in 1907 when the Philippine Medical School (first incarnation) opened to the public (upm.edu.ph). Earlier, UPCM was created 1905 December 1 by the Second Philippine Commission (Act 1415).

UPCA. In 1907, the Department of Public Instruction adopted a plan ‘for the establishment of a large insular agricultural school in the vicinity of Manila’ with a huge P100,000 budget available’ (Bernardo as cited, page 24).

UP PGH. The Philippine General Hospital was created by the Philippine Commission (Act 1688) on 1907 August 17 and opened to the public on 1910 September 1 with 300 beds (pgh.gov.ph). So the celebration was this year, August 13-17.

UP Manila. This Ermita-Padre Faura UP campus claims that perhaps no other constituent university of the UP System is the history of UP more closely bound than in UP Manila, being its birthplace in June 1908 (upm.edu.ph).

UP itself. On 1908 June 18, the Governor General signed into law Act 1870 creating the ‘University of the Philippines’ (Bernardo, 25). But in fact, there were no schools to compose UP at that time. It was only on 1909 March 6 that the Board of Regents ‘unanimously decided the immediate establishment’ of the School of Fine Arts and the College of Agriculture, during the 1^st meeting of the BOR (Bernardo, 25).

Hah! Don’t get me wrong; I’m UP and I admire UP. Now then, Blaise Pascal reminds me, ‘You always admire what you really don’t understand.’

Will UP people admit to confusing a date with another date weeks or months apart? Daniel Boone admits, ‘I have never been lost, but I will admit to being confused for several weeks.’ And Jane Haddam says, ‘People always seem to know half of history, and to get it confused with the other half.’

1907 was really a confusing year.

1907 was a merry-mix-up year. The Nacionalista Party was founded April 29; one of its leaders was Manuel L Quezon (controversial genius); Ramon Magsaysay (convivial leader) was born on August 31, Gregorio Zaide (controversial historian) May 25.

1907 was a hanging year. Macario Sakay, anti-American, was hanged by the enemy September 13.

1907 was an earth-shaking year. Arrhenius proposed that life on earth originated from interstellar microorganisms. The idea of space-time continuum was established in Minkowski’s Raum und Zeit (Space and Time). Joseph John Thompson published his Corpuscular Theory of Matter (chronita.com).

1907 was a religion-laden year. Syrian archbishop Athanasius Yeshu Samuel first brought the Dead Sea Scrolls to our attention (britannica.com). In the Philippines, the Union Theological Seminary was established in Dasmariñas, Cavite.

1907 was a school-founding year. The Americans established the Central Luzon Agricultural School (Gina Mission, gina.ph/CyberDyaryo). Librada Avelino and Carmen de Luna founded the Centro Escolar University.

1907 was a color-coded year. It was the year the Lumiere brothers developed color photography. It was also the year of black and white – you’re black and I’m white – an imperialist year. It was the beginning of the American Occupation of the Philippines. It was the year Rudyard Kipling won the Nobel Prize for Literature; he is ‘chiefly remembered for his celebration of British imperialism’ – his convictions being ‘bound up with a genuine sense of a civilizing mission that required every Englishman, or more broadly, every white man, to bring European culture to the heathen natives of the uncivilized world’ (britannica.com). A genuine imperialist!

But if you think imperialist thoughts, then you will never celebrate any of those anniversaries, because it was the Americans and not the Filipinos who first thought of UP and its component parts. Certainly, UP itself is of imperialist design – the Americans came as imperialists, didn’t they?

If you ask me, I will celebrate all those anniversaries. Lewis Carroll tells me, ‘Everything’s got a moral, if only you can find it.’

I find I have 3 birthdates: 1939 November 11, as school records show. 1940 September 17, as my father wrote on the hidden side of a post in our house long ago. 1940 September 22, as records of the Catholic Church in Asingan, Pangasinan show. I celebrate them all. Why? It’s all very simple, really:

I celebrate life!

Also published by American Chronicle in a slightly different version.

Young at heart.

2007-08-07T10:55:00.000+08:00

Tony Meer Paints His Loves

Also published by American Chronicle in a slightly different version.

He is my beloved kind of hero. He is my Caped Crusader – he is a lawyer who fights for unpopular causes; he is my Superman – he has a lingering health problem yet stands out as he continues to fight for the Filipino soldier. He sits still on his wheelchair while his mind prowls the past and the present, looking for opportunities to serve his people.

Tony Meer is 83 going on 84; I’m counting, he is not. Yesterday, September 6, I didn’t really count but there may have been 83 paintings from his brilliant mind and gifted hands in his one-man art exhibit at the Manila Polo Club, Forbes Park. Tony Meer is Lawyer, Soldier, Painter, Spy.

You knew Tony Meer is an alumnus of the University of the Philippines (UP), but you didn’t know he was a spy? That means you haven't read his autobiography, a massive tome, A Lawyer’s Fate & Faith (2003), all of 499 pages, each page 9x9 inches. He was a soldier-spy in World War II. He was one of those who helped liberate the campus of the UP College of Agriculture in the last war.

You didn’t know that Tony Meer was a painter? Neither did I, never mind that he did share with us (Dr Tony O, his wife Bella and I) his penthouse and karaoke December 15 last year, 2 days after celebrating his 83^rd birthday. I asked questions and we sang songs along with him with his karaoke and sing-along mike. Who wouldn’t be happy and open celebrating an 83^rd birthday? A creative mind is a happy soul.

Yesterday at Tony Meer’s one-man art exhibit, it was love at first sight for me. I fell in love with Tony’s girl the moment I saw her. The image you see is a detail of my favorite Tony Meer painting, unsigned and undated – it belongs to the future. It is a painting not by the hand but by the heart. She sits still and she moves me; she looks the other way and she has my attention. She is young and I am young at heart.

While not a Michelangelo or Leonardo, the one who sired her, Tony Meer, is a painter unlike any other. Let me count the ways:

(1) He paints in oils.
(2) He paints in music.
(3) He has painted in blood.
(4) He has painted in jurisprudence.
(5) He continues to paint in words.

(1) He paints in oils.

His one-man show of paintings yesterday was for raising funds for his foundation Handog sa Sundalo (Gift to the Soldier). (A good number bought paintings, he reports today.) I will describe the Tony Meer collection of paintings as one of portraits: visual renderings of men, women, children – and horses. The painting of a horse I liked he has titled ‘Macedonian’ and was featured on the face of the RSVP invitation card. About 20 were portraits of women. Tony Meer probably loved them all; I love a few. One of them has her eyes blocked out in colors; she is someone who is here and is not here. There are portraits of several men, at least 12 of them. The one I like I shall call the White Man: white hair, white beard & moustache, white teeth showing – his smile warms my heart.

(2) He paints in music.

At the one-man show, Tony Meer yesterday read and sang songs he wrote and composed himself, dedicated to his many loves, ‘the people who made my life worthwhile.’ The many women in the artist’s life – falling in love was music to Tony’s ears.

(3) He has painted in blood.

When World War II came to the Philippines 1941 December 8, he enlisted in the Philippine Army under General Douglas MacArthur. He became a machine-gun expert; he became a smart intelligence officer. Among others, he saved the Carlos P Romulo family from the enemy butchers. The Japanese hunted him. When they couldn’t catch him, they tortured his sister-in-law’s family; they burned the family house in San Pablo City; they massacred men, women and children of the city; they threw babies into the air and caught each at the point of a bayonet. Barbarians! The blood flowed; the mural was oppressive, suffocating.

(4) He has painted in jurisprudence.

Tony Meer, UP College of Law, is the one who discovered the contract lease between the Sultan of Sulu and the British North Borneo Company, proving that the Sultan in truth and in fact owned Sabah. He is the one who first assailed ‘the right of a government official to destroy the property rights of a taxpayer by methods not conferred upon him by the law involved, or in excess of the authority granted him under the law.’ He is the one who found in the Tariff and Customs Code a provision for allowing the entry of imported parts of a final product free of customs duties and taxes, and with that, the Philippines became the biggest pineapple country in the world.

(5) He continues to paint in words.

Aside from that coffee-table book I already told you about that which much of the information I know comes from (my copy obtained through a common friend, Dr O), I have a copy of his new book Carry On! subtitled The General Miguel Malvar Family (102 pages). Miguel Malvar was the last General to surrender to the American imperialists. Tony Meer’s mother was a Malvar, a daughter of the General. Tony Meer, grandson of a hero, is going to be the last hero to surrender to the hegemony of the mass media, or the machinations of those who use the mass media to build and maintain their empires. He continues to publish himself, even paying for space in the media, to denounce hosts of television talk shows who are ‘vultures of morals, who smile with glee when some other persons are suffering from the publication and exposure.’

I don’t know about you, but I’m sure Tony Meer loves his country very much.

American minds.

2007-08-03T10:49:00.000+08:00

Another 100 Years Of Solicitude
In The Philippines? Duh!

American minds? They don’t necessarily agree with each other, and that’s the beauty of it all – with an open mind, you can make sense upon nonsense of all that chaos and confusion upon the waters of democracy. The Yankees are the greatest act in history, but that doesn’t mean they’re perfect. Many an American is bone-headed; that doesn’t mean the Yankees can’t teach us something.

I’m a Filipino celebrating a century of American minds in the Philippines. The Yankees have been teaching us Filipinos for the last century; we don’t like everything they deliver, including lectures, but hey, you can also learn from bad examples. You just have to be creative!

Filipino to American, I give credit to whom credit is due: The state-sponsored American education of the Filipinos began almost 100 years ago when William Howard Taft, later to become President of the United States, as Governor General and head of the Philippine Commission, the colonial government in the islands, signed Act 1870 creating UP, the University of the Philippines, on 1908 June 18 (UPLB: A Century of Challenges and Achievements, a book by science manager-historian-author-poet Fernando A Bernardo, in press). UP was the Filipinos’ first institutional great lesson in thinking: Think big and think country and think international. But we were not paying attention, except to the Stateside goodies. Beloved, Uncle Sam was great!

Today, American thought is almost anathema to the University of the Philippines, at least to the nationalists who reject English as the dominant medium of instruction in school and the language of communication media, except print. Not me. To teach, to communicate, to learn I prefer the English language as I, too, am a victim of colonial education. (I've been saying that for at least 40 years.)

UP, the University of the Philippines is the institution that has shaped my mind, this BSA ‘65; it is an institution I cannot reject for being colonial-minded or subservient to the American mind. It is only subservient to itself. You are what you think. You serve your own master. UP can learn from Ateneo, as the younger can learn from the older, as indeed the State can learn from the Church: There are no masters where there are no slaves.

In fact, the Earth is now a borderless world – so, likewise, must be our thinking. So, American minds keep knocking on our doors? My door is always open, come in!

American minds come in all guises, or disguises. Like today, Thursday, August 2, as I start writing this, I sit admiring even as I use our brand new desktop PC with all the power that my money can buy. Money can’t buy everything, but this time, it’s everything to me, a writer, editor, publisher, nerd in need of a high-powered PC.

Yes, this PC is American minds, plural. (And yes, the personal computer is the only place in the world where protocol dictates that you have master / slave, and such relationship is real, not virtual.) The PC itself started as American, that of Steve Jobs (the idea) and Steve Wozniak (the thing). The innovation, art & science that went into the making of the components, the technologies – consider the processor, motherboard, hard disk, CPU case, monitor, keyboard, mouse – are all Yankee in origin, if manufactured in China. As American as apple pie, if coming from Taiwan.

What do we have here? ‘Truly the world’s best.’ Intel claims that on her Core 2 Duo desktop processor. I'm looking at the Hilarios’ Core 2 Duo 1.86 GHz processor with 2 GB of DDRAM housed in a PowerLogic tower case with a Conroe1333-D667 motherboard by ASRock, a Radeon X1550 graphics card, a 320 GB hard disk, and a 17-inch LG Flatron LCD monitor to boot. An all-black ensemble. My children and I have been using it for a week; I have been using many a PC in many an office since 1985, and I find this one truly a merry mix of the best minds. Definitely American.

I’ll tell you more about it in a parallel way:

(1) I’m happy with that desktop PC now ours (Intel Inside) – it’s above standard.

(2) I’m unhappy with Intel’s grammar – it’s below standard.

Happy with Intel’s Core 2 Duo

July 27, a Friday, I pick up the Hilarios’ PC order, which I have already described above; add to the assembly an internal Asus DVD Writer optical drive, an A4Tech Anti-RSI keyboard, and an ekes optical 3D mouse to make it work. Ah, and it’s good-looking! And the monitor: the colors of LG’s Flatron are gorgeous; never mind the fonts but the images are perfect.

An Intel Core 2 Duo PC! I’ve been dreaming of such a desktop for exactly a year. It was on July 27 last year when Intel launched the Core 2 brand of CPUs. The website says (intel.com) ‘… The Intel Core 2 Duo processor family is designed to provide powerful energy-efficient performance so you can do more at once without slowing down.'

I like the sound of that: ‘So you can do more at once without slowing down.’ Being a multi-tasker, always opening many Microsoft Windows, I have always had problems with memory-hungry Microsoft Word, from Word 97 to Word 2000 to Word XP (2002) to Word 2003 – I have yet to learn to like Word 2007 along with Windows Vista. Word has always crashed on me, for want of physical memory. No more. Oh, and how fast is our Core 2 Duo? It can copy 1 GB in 120 seconds. Lightning speed without the lightning. Today, the past is epilogue.

Unhappy with Intel’s Core 2 Duo grammar

I bought my Intel’s Core 2 Duo from Prologue Computers (based in Los Baños) and there picked up a copy of the Intel brochure on the processor itself (printed in Hong Kong). The headline:

Up to 40% more performance
and 40% more energy efficient.

That’s the new Intel Core 2 Duo desktop processor according to the Intel brochure. That is incorrect. I mean, it has incorrect grammar. Also bad euphony.

I remember a very old Reader's Digest joke (I've been reading this magazine for 50 years), and it goes like this:
Question: Why do the Americans have to be taught English in class?
Answer: Because they have to learn a language other than their own.

You see, ‘performance’ is a noun and ‘energy efficient’ is an adjective. In marketing, that’s poor performance. This is good marketing:

Up to 40% higher performance
and 40% higher energy efficiency.

Even that performance can be improved upon. I know because I worked as a copywriter in a Makati advertising agency (Pacifica Publicity Bureau) with EVP Telly Bernardo and Creative Director Nonoy Gallardo in the mid-1970s and learned something from them.

This is better copy:

Works for you 40% more
and saves you 40% more.

And this is even better copy:

Runs your software the fastest
and saves you energy the most.

See? I don’t mind the best American mind knocking on my door or sitting on my desktop. I have my own.

Also published by American Chronicle in a slightly different version.

and i love her.

2007-07-29T10:48:00.000+08:00

up in my head, she walks in beauty

'She walks in beauty, like the day'

She walks in beauty, and I love her.
She is beautiful to me, now.
For all that may be said, love is a matter of the inner being.
I love her for her books where I found what I had been looking for – and what I had not been looking for – and both had enriched my mind.
I love her for her companionship, her bright face in the morning, her umbrella of energy.
I love her for a reason, and for no reason at all.
She inspires me to creativity.

She has known many masters over the years: American, Japanese, Filipino, and she has imbibed their good and bad habits. While she insists that she is Filipina, I love her for her beautiful mind.
I love her if she were just being her.
I love her after all is said and done.

She was always with me in and out of my classes.
I love her for welcoming me back after a string of bad grades in one semester – 5, 5, 5, 4, 4, all of 15 units. First love does that to you.
After that, she rejected me for all of my bad years, but I love her anyway.

I love her for what she was and what she has become.
I love her for allowing me to become what I am today.
I love her forever.

This love of mine leaves me no choice – she will always be a part of me. She was my intellectual introducer, nourisher, enricher.
She colored my world green and gold and red. She colored my words.
I would not show my love by etching her name and mine on the bark of a tree or on a colored, tiled sidewalk. I would show my love in subtle ways.
My love was not because I got something in return but because I could give back something – my talent, my works, my sacrifices, my challenges.

Once I betrayed her; it’s very late, but now I’m very sorry.
Once, I didn’t see her point of view, and I rejected her in public and for what seemed like for all time.
Once, I declared her action as loyalty to a wrong cause, but she was very right and I was very wrong.
Once, I believed too much in my logic and reasoned out that her reasoning was clouded by a misplaced ideal. It was my ideal that was misplaced.

I left her. But no, I never really left her. I hung around her. I couldn’t get her out of my system. I went South, North, Center, and to the Big City, but she was always in my heart.
I lost my faith in myself and almost lost my mind, but I survived also because of her.
I found back my faith in people, in God, in me also because of her.

She nourished my nocturnal soul.
She taught me Spanish, even when I didn’t like it and could not see what relevance did that make in my life.
She taught me Western Thought and Eastern Thought and I got a 1 in the first and a 3 in the second. I always inclined to the West in my way of thinking rather than to the East. She would always point to both.
She tried to teach me to love the life and works of our national hero, José Rizal, but I didn’t really give it much thought. Two years ago I learned that lesson of love.

When I first knew her, she accepted me as an innocent country boy of 19, wide-eyed, naïve.
When I became a writer in her presence and with her promptings, she cultivated the seeds I sowed in the minds of my readers.
When I thought I saw in her Maria Makiling, she thought she saw in me her Oblation. Love makes you very imaginative.
When I saw her, it was love at first sight, and I didn’t regret falling in love with her even when I found out she was highly politicized. I was stubborn myself.
When I deserted her for another love, she called me back and accepted me with open arms.

I love her despite everything.
I love her although she has insisted in talking to me in Tagalog and I had insisted in talking to her in English, and now I understand her.
I love her for being of a free mind and wanting me to be free.
I love her for defining for me what is freedom, which is that I am free to swing my arm short of her nose.
She has her faults, but I have learned to forgive, and instantly, such sweet pleasure!
She is not perfect, but I love her so.
I love her enough to wait forever to get connected via wireless Internet in an optic fiber network.
She can throw a tantrum, but I can watch her now and love her still.
She will be 100 next year, but what the hell! I love her anyway.
I love my alma mater, the University of the Philippines.
My beloved.
UP in my head, she walks in beauty.
Bow.

Every body counts.

2007-07-27T10:45:00.000+08:00

War As A Measure Of Worth

Maria Makiling must have wept as she watched the carnage below

Dr Fernando Bernardo has just written the first scholarly history of my alma mater: University of the Philippines Los Baños: A Century Of Challenges And Achievements, published by the UPLB Alumni Association Inc – it’s about to go to press; I’m in my fifth reading-to-edit-the-text – and it was his Three Tales Of War (my coinage) that struck me first: the Filipino-American War, World War I, and World War II. It’s from Dr B’s book that I can give you some details. You will be surprised to learn that WWI came to Los Baños in a mighty way. As we go the way of warriors, we shall learn to measure war in a way that every body counts, beloved.

First, World War I – Dr B writes that ‘the Filipino-American War (1899-1902) was more violent and lasted longer than the Filipino revolution against Spain (1896-1898), with more loss of human life and destruction of agriculture.’ Rough estimate of Filipino lives lost: 400,000 men, women and children. Mostly men, and mostly farmers. In nine provinces, those who engaged the enemy – Batangas, Rizal, Zambales, Iloilo, Nueva Ecija, Laguna, Bulacan, Bataan, Ilocos Sur – there were large decreases in human population, a total of 224,358 (the 1887 census compared to the 1903 census). War always devours her own children. This was reflected in the decrease of cultivated rice land by about 300,000 hectares. Governor General Robert Taft reported soaring prices for rice because there were few farmers left. War always devours. There were soaring prices for carabaos too because there were few carabaos left. War is not kind to animals either.

Second, World War I – In Europe, war was raging between Germany as aggressor and the Allies as aggrieved. Manila was 10,000 km away from London, so why should that war bother Filipinos? Simple: The Americans brought the war to the Philippines. We were under American tutelage (or vassalage, depending on how you look at it) in 1918 when in early October, the government called for volunteers to serve in the National Guard and be trained to be shipped to and fight in Europe. The Two Hundred faculty and students from my Cow College volunteered and began training in Manila to fight for democracy wherever it was. That's why we have Loyalty Day today. When that war came to Los Baños, we were not afraid. It was the right move – get to the frontline. You cannot avoid war even if you wanted to. If war has done it unto the least of your brethren, it has done it unto you.

Third, World War II – On Christmas Day 1941, at about one in the afternoon, Japanese planes bombed the campus and made a direct hit on Molawin Mess Hall, completely destroying it. The bombing was timed to coincide with the mess hour of the ROTC cadets; fortunately, the sermon of the Roman Catholic priest had been too long no one was yet there when the bomb fell. That’s one Sermon on the Mount (Makiling) that literally saved souls!

1945. At dawn on February 23, Filipino and American forces liberated Allied prisoners at the College: Americans, British, Australians, Dutch – in the process killing many Japanese soldiers. On the night of February 26, the Japanese soldiers retaliated – on the campus residents. They burned St Therese Chapel where many had sought sanctuary; they bayoneted those attempting to escape – hundreds of them. Your religion cannot save you if the enemy has no religion.

At the end of it, what did the havoc of World War II leave at the College of Agriculture? Debris of science, ashes of lives - no Phoenix rising. Gone were the botanical and insect collections, scientific equipment, 26,000 volumes of books and pamphlets, hundreds of thesis manuscripts and science journals, improved seeds, improved breeds of livestock (like the Berkjala pig) and poultry (Los Baños Cantonese chicken). War conquers all.

Now then: War as a measure of man’s worth? The value is negative. War itself is a weapon of mass destruction. Every body counts if we engage in peace, in creativity, a weapon of mass construction.

Your mind opens windows.

2007-07-26T10:44:00.000+08:00

When What You Remember Is Sweet

‘The pause that refreshes’ (That's not me sitting but that's my bike, at the new
CEAT building, UPLB, with Mt Makiling in the distance, 2007 February 14)

Yes, I have registered at http://www.iskulmeyts.com/ which is Web-managed by Ms Bernardita ‘Bernie’ Quimpo (writer, editor, publisher) who is a UP Diehard (the husband is Norman, Ateneo math-head, Director of Graduate Services). And yes, thereby, my head has opened windows on the past, UP and not UP. When fate closes a door, your mind opens windows if you’re paying attention. Beloved, God opens more windows if you believe.

Believe me, if Bernie is a UP Diehard, I remember I'm a UP You Only Live Twice. If you register at iskulmeyts.com, I hope the memories you remember or will soon be reminded to remember are sweet, or sweeter. Of course, the memories depend not on the memories but the one remembering.

At 67, married, with a dozen children from one wife, what memories do I have, cherish? All kinds, but none of them bitter. And better, I know I’m better because of them, in spite of them. Like, I’m listening to the Beatles at 1530 hours this Thursday, July 26; they must be the most creative band of all time. This is the CD where they have all of their albums in one package and on our desktop personal computer (PC), the album covers are shown and the lyrics display themselves and shift from song to song as the Fab Four segue from title to title, from mood to mood, from insinuation to insinuation:

A Hard Day’s Night
I Saw Her Standing There
I Wanna Hold Your Hand
I’ll Follow The Sun
I’m A Loser
Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds
Norwegian Wood
Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da
Paperback Writer
Revolution
Rocky Raccoon
Sea Of Monsters
Taxman
When I’m 64
With A Little Help From My Friends
Yellow Submarine
You Can’t Do That
You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away.

The Beatles! I didn’t like them when they first arrived on the shores of these islands, my beloved pearls of the Orient Seas. I ignored them. I was teaching high school at the Asingan High School in my hometown, Asingan, Pangasinan, where my nephew, Santy Llamas, was a student who had a combo gang of four who loved the Beatles.

I told my students that high school was the best years of a student’s life, and that they should enjoy it. (I myself hadn’t. In our town at RJC, Rizal Junior College, I was a book-head and contented myself ogling at girls and having crushes.)

I taught at Asingan High subjects like World History and Trigonometry, and I loved what I was doing. I loved my students even more, boys and girls, but more the girls, especially the brightest and best-looking. I loved them all, that’s all. Why shouldn’t a teacher love his students?

My teaching was twice bittersweet because at that time UP had not finished with me, or, which is the same, I had not finished with UP for my BS Agriculture major in Ag Education. But I was finished with my first girlfriend – I broke up with her when, in a dance that night in the town fiesta an incident slapped my face, in a manner of speaking, and sternly said that a poor boy like me didn’t belong in her world. That love affair lasted perhaps 3 years. I’m glad I survived the heart I myself broke. UP and I? Why, we had a love affair that lasted longer than that, five-and-a-half years to be exact – and I’m glad I survived the extra one-and-a-half!

In fact, that second love affair went to extreme, would you believe? I got Extremed is what happened. What else would you get from a 5, 5, 5, 4, 4 (15 units)? After that, the world almost collapsed on me. Prof Dolores Barile was my adviser; Prof Tito Contado also advised me, bless his soul – he could look into my tortured spirit.

My UP years can be described in only one word: Passion. First, it was a passion for knowledge; then it became a passion for knowledge of love; then it became a desperate passion for mending a broken heart, mine; also a broken spirit, also mine. Help! In the end, UP won, thanks to some kind hearts at my Cow College, and I graduated from worrying about repeating Entom 1 and memorizing the scientific names of the muscles of an insect as well as the mouth parts.

After that, a great many years later, the Roman Catholic Church won, and I also graduated from worrying about repeating to worry, thank God.

The Sword, The Word, The Food.

2007-07-25T10:42:00.000+08:00

What’s The Shortest Distance
To A Man’s Heart, Love?

Fresh lumpia at AgriPark, UPLB College of Agriculture, served at Zonta International meeting, 2007 April 14

Beloved, what’s the shortest distance to a man’s heart? To the brave man, it’s the sword. To the coward, it’s the word. To the hungry, it’s the food. Be creative! To me, it was the food – and then it was love at first sight.

I always loved girls, I mean since high school when I began to have crushes – and I had many – I always loved to be with any number of girls. No, I didn’t court them or anything like that, I just loved to be with them. High school time, in the 50s, at home, I preferred the company of my mother than my father, who was aloof. My mother was always solicitous of me, his son who had apnea – this is the medical opinion of my wife, not a doctor – and so I learned from her (my mother, not my wife) how to sew and many other such things a mother could do with her own hands. She was good at all of them, and I loved to watch her doing them. Excellence is excellence, even it happens to be your mother.

Don’t tell me I didn’t have boy feelings. Of course, I loved to play hide and seek with the boys and the girls, but especially the girls. One of my crushes was a distant cousin, Manang Iling, a little older than me, across the street from us. To look at her and sometimes to touch her hand, no matter how fleeting, was heaven. That’s crush.

Fast forward to my Cow College, UPCA, the UP College of Agriculture. At this time, after so much struggle, I had finally graduated and I was already an Instructor (Substitute) in the Department of Agronomy, through the good graces of my namesake Francisco ‘Kiko’ Hilario, Upsilonian (from Bulacan) – I was a barbarian, but Nestor Pestelos, who was (and still is) like a brother to me, an Upsilonian himself (from Quezon), must have spoken in my behalf. Kiko must have talked to Dr Ramon Valmayor, Department Chairman, into accepting me, a BSA ’65, major in Ag Education. I was a Lab Instructor. I remember two of my brightest lab students – I gave them both a 1.0 – who went on to become leaders and/or famous in their own right, girl and boy: Candida Adalla, who is now in her second term as elected Dean of the College of Agriculture, UP Los Baños, the first and the only lady Dean of this College; Vic Ladlad, who became, last I heard, one of the brightest commanders of the NPA (Nice People Around). Vic? Well, you can’t win them all!

Food was what I was saying before I interrupted myself. One of my barkadas at that time, 1966, was composed of Mila and Carmen and Loly (all UP of course, and all smart librarians in their own right – meaning I was probably at the library when you couldn’t see me around); they were staying at the Women’s Dorm right across the St Therese Chapel – oh, I was religious at visiting the girls but not at visiting the church. When those three girls moved to the house of the Avanzados (Ilocano) at Santa Fe within walking distance from the main road at Grove, of course I visited them there. That’s where I saw this girl, Tencie, from the North, Ilocana. Black is beautiful. My kind of beauty. Like attracts like. She was taking Home Tech; she must have been intelligent – otherwise, she couldn’t have appreciated my Reader’s Digest stories and jokes. And of course, she was very good at cooking – and, if you knew me, I was very good at eating. So, when I was visiting, and of course it was often, I was visiting both her and her kind of Home Tech.

Cooking aside, the boy-girl attraction was strong, mutual. I had no doubt about my feelings, I had no doubt about hers. And I can assure you, no untoward incident happened of any kind. So why didn’t I marry her? Beloved, all I can tell you is that it was me - it wasn't her, it wasn’t the food.

You can lead a horse to the water.

2007-07-24T10:41:00.000+08:00

But Not Anywhere Near Ours, Please!

The software of the 1990s were an embarrassment. Also to me. The user had always been right, but in those times the software wasn’t always right for the user. To illustrate, Dr O likes to tell this anecdote, and I know it’s true because I happen to be the villain in the story. It happened more than 10 years ago. The opening line is very simple:

Dinadael ni Frank ti dua wenno tallo nga computer idiay PhilRice idi.

Before I translate, let me give you some background:

For more than a year starting in 1993, if I remember right, Dr O hired me as a Consultant reporting to him directly as the Executive Director of PhilRice at the headquarters in Maligaya, Muñoz, Nueva Ecija. Already, Dr O had made PhilRice what it was - a multi-award-winning, internationally respected institution. Already the JICA-funded buildings and facilities had been built and established, all world-class. I was delighted being one of those who had the privilege of enjoying the amenities too. You just walked into any of the washrooms and you knew everything was world-class. Inside the rooms, the equipment and facilities were up to international standards, that is to say, much, much better than you expected.

But the desktop personal computers (PCs) were out-of-class, not up to world standards. I know because they were not even up to my standards. Already, I was writer and editor and publisher using the computer and I demanded from every PC the best they could deliver. I was already adept at word processing, having graduated from WordStar 1 to WordStar 4, from WordPerfect to Microsoft Word. The primordial MS-DOS (Microsoft Disk Operating System), not yet Windows, was the dominant operating system, with which you couldn’t do much unless you memorized all those DOS commands – which I did. I knew all those commands: ren (rename), md (make directory), del (delete), deldir (delete directory), dir /w (show directory wide, that is, in columns), attrib +r (make the file read only so that cannot be deleted with the command del) – and many more.

Even then, I was a taskmaster; I tell the PC, ‘Do this – or else what good are you?’ In those times, some PCs with their MS-DOS would not be able to do what I wanted them to do – work faster, or work better – and they would quit on me. That is to say, they would crash.

In fact, a fatal crash happened 3 times with 3 different PCs in 3 different divisions of PhilRice with the same person – that was me.

Not funny.

So when the PhilRice divisions realized what happened with the PCs I had been using, they told Dr O:

Sir, take Frank wherever he wants to go with you, but please don’t let him go anywhere near our computers!

Not funny at all.

So now I translate this:

Dinadael ni Frank ti dua wenno tallo nga computer idiay PhilRice idi.

Into this:

Frank destroyed 2 or 3 computers in PhilRice that time.

‘Destroyed’ makes it sound like it’s murder, or that which is intentional. ‘Destroyed’ is inaccurate because you cannot destroy a computer you’re using unless you strike it with a hammer. Not any one of your bad commands can destroy a computer – it can only embarrass you. And no wrong command can destroy a computer – it can only freeze it and, having frozen the hardware & software, the computer freezes you with fright.

Frank destroyed 2 or 3 computers in PhilRice that time.

I would attribute such a negative achievement of mine to my irrational conviction on the genius of man in the form of hardware and software, that such genius was limitless. ‘Frank crashed 2 or 3 PhilRice computers that time’ is more accurate; anyway, what happened is that the man had expected too much of the machine, or the machine had promised too much to the man.

In those times, Tails you lost, Heads you lost. You couldn’t win. Not funny, not funny at all.

Beloved, today, in the same sense, I haven’t changed a bit. I haven’t learned from my unintended PhilRice crash course on desktop PCs. Today when I use a PC, I am a multi-tasker – ‘Do this, and this, and this, and this,’ 4, 5, 6 windows opened at the same time. Today, these PCs have learned from those crash courses in the 1990s. While PCs still crash, they can now un-crash themselves, the genius of Microsoft Windows. I'll say creative.

I’m a winner now. I can’t destroy anybody’s computer anymore even if I wanted to. Now then, I would expect that I will never ever again hear someone say to Dr O these words:

Sir, take Frank wherever he wants to go with you, but please don’t let him go anywhere near our computers!

If today someone persists in saying that, I say he’s the one who needs a crash course in desktop personal computers. Windows XP has restored my faith in the machine.

PS (July 25, 0517 hours): I do remember to give thanks and say, 'Lord, thank you that I lived in the time of the desktop computer! It's a fantastic help to me, a writer, editor, publisher. I couldn't live without it, leave home without it.'

1967 October 10.

2007-07-22T10:39:00.000+08:00

I, The Clown Who Cried Wolf

1967 October 10, Loyalty Day at the University of the Philippines College of Agriculture in Los Baños, Laguna, south of Manila. The phenomenal Ilocano Ferdinand Edralin Marcos was in his third year as a would-be long-running President of his country while I was already behind my long-running fourth year as student of UPCA. A most-decorated War Hero was in Malacañang and I was one of the barbarians at the gate of this Cow College, the old carabaos staring at my back. I wasn’t alone but I was alone; I had always been alone in the midst of plenty of people. Let a hundred flowers bloom, a thousand thoughts contend, and I had other ideas. I had always been a rebel – and I never ran out of causes, beloved. I had always been creative.

In those days I was one of the campus figures, scholars and writers who dared our readers to think differently, that is to say, intelligently. Our readers were on one hand the students who by default had to pay for their copies of the Aggie Green & Gold and later The Forum when we lost control of the AGG to some other lesser mortals, and on the other hand the faculty who read us anyway. I’m sure we made good reading even then: Nestor Mn Pestelos (writer and editor par excellence), Aniceto O Llaneta (a lover’s poet), and I, Frank A Hilario (columnist and short story writer). One member of Our Gang of Four, Remigio D Torres didn’t write; he was the straight man, the friend to the three clowns that we were. These clowns helped him write his BS thesis and it was adjudged the Best that year. In UP, clowns don’t settle for less than the crown.

40 years ago, Loyalty Day! I, this barbarian at the gate, was distributing mimeographed copies of an open letter in English to the drivers, passengers, walk-on-bys, to the browns, blacks, whites – Los Baños has always been a multi-cultural City of Learning, if not of Enlightenment. Celebrating Loyalty Day in the customary way, the rainbow of people entering through the UPCA gate between the carabao heads standing at attention must have worn smiles on their faces; cerebrating Loyalty Day in an extraordinary way, I must have worn a blank face. A smile was farthest from my mind. My mission that day was serious, risky. I was unafraid, but I was wary.

I had helped with my own hands to mimeograph at the student office at Baker Hall the very open letter I was distributing which was from my gray matter; I had titled it ‘What Did You Do In The War, Daddy?’ Little did I know that it was Charles Fuller Baker, botanist and entomologist and American of excellent mind, who was Dean in that time of history I was going to challenge academically that day. I have lost my copy of it forever, but I remember it was a public letter to a very private being, my unborn son, who turned out to be a daughter, born the next year on Valentine’s Day – we didn’t have the child’s sex then and not even a name, but the baby in the womb was inspiration enough for me to do what I did best: write. When an excellent scientist becomes Dean of the College, he inspires you; when a writer writes, he doesn’t watch out – you have to.

My open letter wasn’t at all about the War Hero, Big Daddy Ferdinand of World War II; it was about The Two Hundred (students and faculty members) at the UP College of Agriculture who in 1918 October 10 volunteered to serve in the National Guard to help fight World War I which was raging in Europe. The American-led Philippine Government had called for volunteer warriors. Bravely and knowingly, The Two Hundred went on training in Manila; the next month, November, Allied Forces and Germany signed the armistice and the National Guard was disbanded. But old soldiers never die; neither do young volunteers. Here are details from a forthcoming book on 100 years of UP Los Baños written by UPCA-bred science manager-poet-painter-author-historian Dr Fernando A Bernardo: Three years later, in July of 1921, the Student Body of UPCA respectfully requested the UP Board of Regents to set aside October 10 as Loyalty Day, and this was granted. Loyalty Day is now a moveable feast of the College of Agriculture, my dear Cow College.

In my open letter, I pointed out that the UPCA loyalists volunteered to fight a war not of their own country’s making and not at all endangering their motherland. I didn’t use the term then, but it was a proxy war they were going to fight in. Courageous as they were, their bravery was misplaced because they volunteered to engage in the wrong war and in the wrong place. I was thoroughly convinced of the reasoning of that position, and I’m sure my open letter did give that distinct impression. I meant it to, and I knew I wrote well.

I was anti-tradition, an iconoclast. I was against the celebration of Loyalty Day because I saw that it was not loyalty to the College that was being celebrated; neither that it was loyalty to the country of one’s birth. Rather, it was loyalty to the Americans who were running these islands, and to the Cow College, which was the same thing. Loyalty indeed, but it was misplaced. I was the clown who cried that the mind was warped who proposed that October 10 be declared Loyalty Day for the UP College of Agriculture.

I had written, typed the draft, edited, retyped and corrected with my very first portable typewriter (probably an ABC). At Baker Hall, I had cut the stencil myself on a bigger desktop manual typewriter (probably an Underwood), and signed on the stencil with my own full name using a stylus – not a pseudonym. I was sure I was doing right, so what reason was there to hide behind an alias? I didn’t consult anyone; nobody told me; I had come to those conclusions myself. The whole letter was me. The writing was passionate, the reasoning internalized, the intention heartfelt. It reflected up-to-date knowledge of what was going on in the rest of the world.

I have always been a wide reader. At that time I was also reading the magazine Ramparts as well as I.F. Stone’s Weekly, both being intelligent if anti-American imperialist publications. Ramparts or no Ramparts, I was against the Vietnam War of the Americans. In 1967 January, Ramparts published photographs of Vietnamese children burned by napalm, a weapon of choice of the invaders. This tugged at the heart of Martin Luther King Jr who publicly denounced the war in a speech in New York in April of the same year (pbs.org). Opposition to the Vietnam War of the Americans was in the air as I wrote my letter. I was anti-establishment in October 1967 as the Genuine Opposition has been in May 2007.

1967 October 10 was my ninth Loyalty Day since I was First Year in my BSA (Honors Curriculum) in June 1959. So I had observed Dr Silverio Cendaña as the happiest celebrant of the volunteers; I can still imagine him marching at the head of his group, acknowledging the admiration of the crowd who wished them all well. During each Loyalty Day, the spirit of volunteerism that I equated with the Los Baños Spirit was palpable; it was one of the nicest feelings you could have in the entire year. That was priceless.

With my one open letter, I broke the spell of that spirit; I destroyed the magic of that one moment in 1967 October 10. I made Dr Cendaña and the others mad. I didn’t care. In the words of Dr O the other day, I had ‘the arrogance of youth.’ Oh, I had the arrogance of knowledge. I was young and I believed I knew more than the old fogies did; I believed I had all the answers. I was certainly a damn good debater – I did not always win but I was always arguing. The delight was in the act, not in the victory.

In that open letter, in effect, I decried the subservience of the Loyalty Day volunteers and to the wrong master yet! While I had written a love letter to my unborn child, I had written a hate letter to everybody else.

That love-hate letter was the beginning of my loved affair with the Cow College. I lost my job as an Instructor – they simply did not renew my appointment the next year. Nobody would touch me with a 10-foot pole. In fact, all of the Los Baños Science Community never forgave me; they wouldn’t even talk to me. There was one kind person, God bless his soul, Dr Eduvigis Pantastico, Director of the Crops Division of the Philippine Council for Agriculture and Resources Research and Development (PCARRD), who never lost his faith in me, but even he could not get me into PCARRD pass the desks of prejudices, perhaps even of fear and loathing. I had done it unto myself. I had always been a one-man band. (I'm now a blogging OMB, and I take my own photographs.)

Because I wasn’t cowed by the imposition of Loyalty Day upon an unsuspecting public, I lost whatever milk of kindness that this Cow College made mine before, parting the Red Sea for me to graduate - ask Dr Emiliana N Bernardo (my last Instructor in Entomology I; I failed with 2 others) and Prof Dolores Barile (my Adviser), and they should know. And not only them: It was Dr Filomena Campos who had readmitted me.

After all, in the early 1960s, I had been extremed – I had a semester of 5, 5, 5, 4, 4 (where 5 was Failed and 4 Conditional). Before, I had been a College Scholar (semestral average 1.5), then I fell in love hard, so hard that I went Class AWOL twice: one, Absent Without Leave; two, Absent With His One Love. I wasn’t going to classes anymore; I was going to her, to wherever she was: there waiting for her to come out of her class at UST in España; there visiting her in the house of her parents in Lucena City; there at the Girl Scouts Headquarters in Los Baños with the other girls in training. When love walks in, all reason flies out the window.

When you’re extremed in UP, it’s a terrible stigma even your friends are ashamed of you – even more so, you are ashamed of yourself. I didn’t tell my parents or anyone; I suffered in silence. I didn’t know it but it was heavy silence.

That was me: Extremed out three times over. First, I extremed out as a boy in school; that was in the early 60s. Then I extremed out as a boy in love; that was in the middle 60s. Then I extremed out as Instructor of my Cow College; that was in the late 60s. I was the Sixties’ Self-Made Loser.

There was one evening at fiesta time when I was extremely dismayed with her that I broke up with my first love and succeeded in breaking my own heart. Imperceptibly, my own thoughts became my own enemy. One or two years later, something in my mind almost snapped – if it did, I would have been totalled. (I have a longer version of this part of the story of my life; email me if you want to read an electronic copy: frankahilario@gmail.com.)

My first two extremes happened before 1967; in 1965, already a graduate, I returned to my hometown Asingan, Pangasinan; I was in friendly territory. But you have no friends if the enemy happens to be you.

My third extreme happened in Loyalty Day of 1967. In my open letter I myself distributed October 10, was I psychotic exposing myself? In the first place, I was crazy writing that letter, but I also knew only I could write it. ‘What did you do in the war, Daddy?’ I had gleefully written it in the American idiom – it was an intellectual insult.

I broke many a heart from that day onwards; I incensed many a mind henceforth. I broke the link I had with my Cow College whose milk I had grown in and out of my student life. BS Agriculture, major in Ag Education; I was First Year in 1959, a graduate in 1965; I finished in five and a half years what others finished in four.

I was extremed, and you took me back in. I was sick, and you visited me. I was hungry, and you gave me to eat. I was thirsty, and you gave me to drink. With the charm of my namesake and benefactor Francisco ‘Kiko’ Hilario (Floriculture), this College welcomed me in 1966, hiring me as a Lab Instructor in Horticulture, a field I did not major in – it was an acknowledgment as well as a risk that if I was not intellectually equipped for the job, I knew exactly what to do to make me one. I did not reciprocate; instead, ignorantly, I bit the hand that fed me. He never told me but I must have broken Kiko’s heart. In any case, in late 1967, after that open letter, the whole University Town shunned me, and this clown couldn’t even make himself laugh anymore.

If at all a consolation, the Cow College officials must have reflected on the logic of my letter, unofficially accepted my main contention of loyalty to the wrong master, and began declaring that commemorating October 10 was more as loyalty to the Los Baños Spirit and less to big-picture volunteerism, or words to that effect. As Dean Cledualdo B Perez put it 10 years later in 1977 in his response when UPCA won the Ramon Magsaysay Award for International Understanding, the Los Baños Spirit is one of ‘tenacity, innovativeness and camaraderie’ in hacking out of the wilderness a center of learning (maf.org). The Cow College had begun classes in 1909 on top of a grassy hill at the foot of Mount Makiling with 12 students without tables, without chairs, without blackboard and chalk, without a classroom – all they had was the blue of the open sky and the green of hope. That was the spirit!

I was the boy who single-handedly changed the history of UP Los Baños, burning down with an inflammatory piece of paper the House of the Los Baños Spirit from significant to insignificant. An intellectual David taking on a Goliath.

I’m sorry. I apologize from the bottom of my heart.

I was the clown who cried the wrong wolf 40 years ago and I’m ashamed of myself. The clown believed too much in the clown he didn’t see what his audience was laughing at. Loyalty Day was perfect as I was imperfect. I can see now that the real Los Baños Spirit is Big-Picture Volunteerism. This was the paradigm this clown rejected both out of ignorance and arrogance.

And I did not learn that lesson until 40 years later. Three days ago, Friday the 20th, Dr O, Frank Cornejo, Bernie Quimpo and I, UP diehards all, met at Bahay Alumni in UP Diliman and talked about books and such in relation to the UP Centennial. I was supposed to be engaged by Class 58 in writing their celebratory centennial stories into a book, to come out in 2008. I was editing the text version of a two-volume history book of 100 years of UP Los Baños both authored by Dr Fernando Bernardo, while he was busy editing himself in the coffee-table version. It just so happened that in the name of the UP Los Baños Alumni Association, Frank and Bernie were going to market the books starting Loyalty Day 2007, barely 3 months away, and they hadn’t seen the likes of either. Not to worry; they were going to sell the history, not the book. At one point in the long conversation, lasting a good 6 hours happening in two offices with free-flowing brewed coffee, no sugar and no biscuits, the idea came up that I create a website. Your word is my command. Back in Los Baños, I did exactly that the next day, yesterday, wrote a piece to introduce it, and at once texted Bernie of the upload. She texted back to say she had read my ‘first salvo’ (her exact words) – she made me realize I was once more coming in with intellectual guns ablaze. (Read if you will my ‘On The State University’s 100 Years Of Solitude’ which is #1 – but I’m not going to rewrite it now or ever; let it be a monument to itself, a challenge to all of UP and all of myself). She also suggested I write a piece of nostalgia. Consider it done.

Remembrances of things past. That was when UP Los Baños history came back to haunt me. Not unlike Ulysses, in Los Baños, for years I became a part of all that I had met. Then I made a paradigm shift; then I wanted them all to remove that part of me that was part of them.

As a joker I had come in too strong on Loyalty Day 40 years ago that nobody laughed. My paradigm was warped, clowned. I had seen only the piece of the jigsaw puzzle and yet I declared that that was all there was to that, and I didn’t try to fit it into the Big Picture. I hadn’t learned the lesson that it must always be the Big Picture. World War I didn’t happen only in Europe; it happened even where it didn’t happen. The whole world was involved in that war; it was right to volunteer to fight in it, wherever it was, wherever one was. The polar caps aren’t melting in this country; we don’t even have snow – but global warming covers all.

Now you get the picture I did not. I’m sorry I forgot to reflect even on my favorite quote of John Donne (from Meditation XVII, online-literature.com):

No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main ... Any man’s death diminishes me, for I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send for whom the bell tolls: it tolls for thee.

UP being a centenarian.

2007-07-21T09:20:00.000+08:00

On The State University’s100 Years Of Solitude

UP is preparing to celebrate being a centenarian. 100 years! By the way UP has lived her life, those are 100 years of solitude, that is to say, 100 years of academic freedom. When you focus on freedom, you focus on the individual and ignore the social, you concentrate on the singular and disregard the plural, you image in the person and image out the community, you remember the piece of the jigsaw puzzle and forget the big picture. Freedom, how many frailties are submitted in thy name! Freedom should only be for creativity, not frailty.

The UP Centennial is too serious a matter to be left to UP officials only. I must participate. I must participate in the very many ways I can – and this is one of them. I’m a ’65 graduate – no, not undergraduate – either you graduate or you don’t; certainly, I was extremed but I was readmitted, thanks to the kindness of the one and only Dr Filomena Campos. I took the very first Teacher’s Exam in December 1965 and passed with playing colors; I got a grade of 80.6%, not bad for a first-timer – and no review classes, and no leakage. Oh, and by the way, beloved, I'm from the Cow College.

100 years: UP is preparing to celebrate its being old. It should also be preparing to celebrate its being young once again. UP should be preparing to cerebrate too. To celebrate is to rejoice, to cerebrate is to re-juice. To simplify: To celebrate is to think of the chronological or consequential, to be critical; to cerebrate is to think of the non-chronological or inconsequential, to be creative. UP has never been known to be creative, only critical – an institutional neglect of the creative juice. Which explains the individual neglect of the creative genius – If your columnist is critical of the national government, he is probably from UP. Thank God GMA is from UP!

UP is old. She must now give up her ‘la triste, mustia vida’ – half a line from the most famous Atenean of them all, Jose Rizal’s Adios, Patria Adorada (my title) – ‘my life shrunk and forsaken’ (my translation); click here to read the full and very different English translation in my blog Adios! Patria! Adorada!) – what is academic freedom if it is only for the academic? Welcome, UP Beloved. Adios, Beloved Country!

The world is astir with global warming while UP is hardly astir – Rip Van Winkle 5 times over. Or, to say it differently, UP looked at the problem and called it tuition, and she saw that it was bad, and she made the logical decision of increasing it a thousand times over and above the objection of the people, the masses that she loves to love and in the name of whom she demonstrates at Mendiola over and above the objections of GMA. Logical – Is that all the cerebral competency that UP can show the world?

Look at the logo of the UP Centennial again (the first one). It reflects ancient, static art. Why can’t it be at least like the second, or the third? Hasn’t UP heard of Photoshop?

I’m old chronologically; I’m 67; I didn't learn creative writing from UP; I learned my blogging and uploading and all that modern jazz all by myself. UP is old academically, having lived all her life with the old logic. Think Socrates. Why can't UP learn something new by itself? Modern logic may have originated from the Peripatetic tradition going back to Aristotle (answers.com), who is ancient (born 384 BC), almost prehistoric, certainly static. Your logic is good, but we need cash.

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Wanted: A New Chancellor for a Cash Cow College

UP’s Choice.

Avoidance of Relevance.

UP Los Baños historical faces

UPLB Alumni Association to the rescue

Most interesting task and challenge

Writing history is needing people

UP Los Baños: The Complete Story?

Rice becomes GMA - Photos become her

My Flickr invents 'shot story'

Atlas Blogged!

Climate Change In UK,Then In UP, Then In US?

Science Parks, Stops.

Academe as anti-poor.

The University Of The PhilippinesA Hundred Years Hence

Loyalty Day 2007.

And Independence Day, UP Los Baños?

Knowledge Initiative.

‘Let knowledge come from everywhere’

'Survival of the Fittest' revised?

To The Breeders, To Make Much Of Time

The De Sotto Lesson.

Bernardo’s PowerPointHistory of UP Los Baños

1800s

UP!

Pinoy chairs UN scientific body on desertification

Our bastard soul.

The Filipinos In Search Of Themselves

Los Indios Bobos.

Being Jose Rizal, Pinoys &The University Of The Philippines

1907 in confusion.

We Had A Cow CollegeBefore We Had A University?

Young at heart.

Tony Meer Paints His Loves

American minds.

Another 100 Years Of SolicitudeIn The Philippines? Duh!

Happy with Intel’s Core 2 Duo

Unhappy with Intel’s Core 2 Duo grammar

and i love her.

up in my head, she walks in beauty

Every body counts.

War As A Measure Of Worth

Your mind opens windows.

When What You Remember Is Sweet

The Sword, The Word, The Food.

What’s The Shortest DistanceTo A Man’s Heart, Love?

You can lead a horse to the water.

But Not Anywhere Near Ours, Please!

1967 October 10.

I, The Clown Who Cried Wolf

UP being a centenarian.

On The State University’s100 Years Of Solitude

Climate Change In UK,
Then In UP, Then In US?

The University Of The Philippines
A Hundred Years Hence

Bernardo’s PowerPoint
History of UP Los Baños

Being Jose Rizal, Pinoys &
The University Of The Philippines

We Had A Cow College
Before We Had A University?

Another 100 Years Of Solicitude
In The Philippines? Duh!

What’s The Shortest Distance
To A Man’s Heart, Love?