Wanted: SEARCA's Reinvention & Transformation After First 50 Years

The top image is from the cover, the lower image is from page 76 of the 90-page coffee-table book SEARCA's First Fifty Years (Pushing The Frontiers Of Agricultural And Rural Development) of the Southeast Asia Regional Center for Graduate Study & Research in Agriculture, published in 2016. Reinvention and Transformation are what I expected to have happened between birth and golden year. The book is full of information, but does not point out clearly SEARCA's necessary reinvention and transformation.

That is what I would have put into the pages of that commemorative book if I were the writer; thus:

The story of SEARCA from idea to
institutional innovator to implementor.

These 2 searching questions would have occupied me:

(1)   What did SEARCA reinvent in the conduct of graduate studies and researches in Southeast Asia?

(2)   What specific transformations occurred as outputs and impacts of graduate education and research results disseminated in the 11 member countries: Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Timor-Leste, and Vietnam?

That book was published in 2016. To establish credentials, let me point out that in 2012, I was the writer, editor, photographer and layout artist of a million-peso coffee-table book with this layer of titles (mine):

The Filipino Farmer Is Bankable
Celebrating 25 Years Of The ACPC
Serving The Credit Needs Of Small Farmer And Fisher Households Of The Philippines

Already, those 24 words summarized and made the report remarkable.

The ACPC is the Agricultural Credit Policy Council of the Philippines. Executive Director Jovita Corpuz recruited me after asking just 1 question: "Can you do it?" I said, "Yes," even if the schedule was very tight: 3 months to the Silver Anniversary of ACPC on April 25. I delivered on that date a 144-page book full of photographs, half of them mine.

I wrote the ACPC book with 4 major parts:
1. Realizations
2. Reinventions
3. Recognitions
4. Reflections.

Those 4 guided me in writing out the whole ACPC story, and putting photographs amidst texts.

I am not excited with the Beginning & End of the Story as written in SEARCA's First Fifty Years. The answers to these simple questions would have made it beautiful and valuable:

How stood graduate study and research in Southeast Asia in 1966?
What happened after 10 years?
What happened after 20 years?
What happened after 30 years?
What happened after 40 years?
What happened after 50 years?

To help answer those questions, let us be clear about the mandate of SEARCA. The coffee-table book says:

SEARCA is mandated to strengthen institutional capacities in agricultural and rural development in Southeast Asia through graduate education, short-term training, research, and knowledge exchange.

Now then, what were those institutional capacities, what were their weaknesses and how were they strengthened within those 50 years? What were the graduate studies? What were the short-term trainings conducted, and how many participants? What were the researches conducted in all those 50 years – a 10-page summary would have been excellent. What knowledge exchanges happened?

I believe a revision is not too late.@517

The Rise Of Rices? Dalisay Rice & BigasPh

On Facebook Sunday, 03 November 2019, I read Dalisay Rice Rachel Renucci-Tan's sharing about BigasPh, and my writer's curiosity was piqued, as Rachel had so many questions that obviously had no answers!

I compare now:

Dalisay Rice (above image left):
The whole story of Dalisay Rice is incredible, and having googled on the subject and even attended the launching on 11 September 2019 at the Hyatt Grand Manila, I have so far written 6 essays each 517 words that I have collected in my blog Paradigm Shifts (just click each of the links below and you will be magically transported to the specific essay):

(1) 13 September 2019: "Sun Rises Over Rice In Leyte – Science Makes History, CYA Makes Farmers Rich & Happy!" blogspot.com

(2) 15 September 2019: "How PH Rice Farmers Can Become World-Competitive. 1, Learn From Dalisay Rice!" blogspot.com

(3) 15 September 2019: "How To Make PH Rice World-Competitive. 2, Learn From Dalisay Rice, Inbred" blogspot.com

(4) 16 September 2019: "How To Make PH Rice World-Competitive. 3, Learn From Dalisay Rice, Self-Sufficiency" blogspot.com

(5) 16 September 2019, "How To Make PH Rice World-Competitive. 4, Let Cooperatives Take Over" blogspot.com

(6) 22 September 2019, "Innovation In PH Agriculture, And PRRD Knows One: Dalisay Rice" blogspot.com

BigasPh (above image right):
The whole story of BigasPh is unreliable, and who they are is told in only 410 words in the website BigasPh.com, including the title "Our Story" on the subject of who they are (bigasph.com).

Incredibly, those 410 words do not mention any name of any person at all! So, they want to keep secret who they are?

We are a group of young people who are passionate to make it easier for Filipinos to have access to commodities through online shopping without compromising product quality.

So we started BigasPh.

So, who is your leader? What is your group? Who are you?

Proud Pinoy po kami, from very humble origins.

What families are you, and where do you come from in these islands? What kinds of lives have you led so far to make us believe you are "passionate" and that your Pinoy rice is made available "without compromising product quality"?

BigasPh is the only online bigas delivery service in the Philippines known for delivering the highest quality of rice and excellent customer service.

You claim to be "known for delivering the highest quality of rice" and yet I have neither heard nor read about you, and you have absolutely no credibility claiming you deliver the "highest quality of rice" unless you have compared your rice with Dalisay Rice in public with known and knowledgeable people as credible witnesses!

You say you value Integrity, but if unidentified, you have zero credibility. There is no way of checking out what you claim is true. This is bad copywriting as I know it, and I worked as a copywriter for the Pacifica Publicity Bureau of Tony Zorilla years ago, learning from Creative Director Nonoy Gallardo and the Father of Advertising David Ogilvy, British genius.

In advertising, there is no substitute for genius!@517

Vanjoss Bayaban: From Raw Talent To Voice Kids Philippines Champion

Stars are made. But first they are born.

Vanjoss is The Voice Kids Philippines Season 4 Champion. By text votes, Vanjoss, a member of Team Sarah, won over Carmelle Collado of Team Bamboo, and Cyd Pangca of Team Lea, 62% over 24% and 13%. That's called overwhelming.

Vanjoss was born 12 years ago Yvanie Jeuosh Bayaban to Evelyn (Hong Kong OFW) and Bayani Bayaban (welder)[1]. He started singing at 4 mentored by his father, who had been an amateur singer[2].

He has a brother and studies at the Angela Valdez Ramos National High School of Asingan, Pangasinan. (This school was named after the mother of former President Fidel Valdez Ramos who is from that town.) Evelyn came home just for the singing contest. Now she has a national singing sensation as a son – and now the 2nd-class town has a #1.

Why am I writing about singing now, when I am a writer about science? Because I am a native of that town, and very proud of it. In fact, doubly proud – if you did not know, an earlier sensation in the entertainment world is a native of Asingan: Hope Elizabeth Soberano, more popularly known as Liza Soberano. Vanjoss is 12, Liza is 21 years old.

Let me say, "The fine art of entertainment is no stranger in our town!"

Vanjoss as Singer had first-class talent; Sarah Geronimo taught him to be a winner. Sarah says[3]:

Working with Vanjoss has been a humbling and inspiring experience for me. Napakahusay, pero marunong makinig sa mga payo. (He is a whiz, but wise enough to listen to advice.)

Vanjoss had chosen Sarah over Lea Salonga and Bamboo Mañalac as voice coach. Sarah is now herself a popular singer and actress, from Santa Cruz, Manila.

Carmelle (girl) is from Camarines Sur[4]; Cyd (boy) is from Bukidnon[5], wide distances. Either talent is not shared in equal manner, or is cultivated differently in different places. Also, talent is celebrated in some locations more than in others. (I have my own to celebrate: creative writing, thank God!)

For his final number, Vanjoss captured the hearts of millions of digital voters singing Josh Groban's "You Raise Me Up" in Vanjoss' own way, raising the ante.

One of the judges, Filipino international singing celebrity Lea Salonga told him[6]:

Vanjoss, mula sa blind audition mo, ipinakita mo talaga 'yung power, and tonight, full power ka talaga. Ang masasabi ko lang, this is for your mom: "Sulit ang pag-uwi mo."

(Vanjoss, starting with the blind audition, you already showed that power, and tonight, you were full power. The only thing I can say is, this is for your mom: "Your coming home was worth it.")

Pamela Adriano says, "He was as powerful as he can be in his last power ballad performance, and with his incredible, spine-tingling performance.[7]" Vanjoss won P2 million in cash, and a house & lot. Actually, he won more: He won millions of Pinoy hearts here and abroad.@517

---

[1] PeoPlaid, peoplaid.com

[2] entertainment.abs-cbn.com

[3] news.abs-cbn.com

[4] facebook.com

[5] pep.ph

[6] news.abs-cbn.com

[7] entertainment.abs-cbn.com

You Can Forgive, But You Cannot Forget!

On Facebook, there are many sharings about being a good Christian, loving your family, friends, neighbors, and praying for people's well-being, even for miracles to occur to someone or some other. Good, honest intentions. 

But of course, there are hurts, even very deep hurts, wounds that are difficult to heal. If you are at the receiving end of the hurt, you cannot forgive. My wife says, "I can forgive. But I cannot forget!" (above image from Man Repeller, manrepeller.com)

There are people who claim to be able to forgive, or have forgiven others for whatever. I have only one question, which was the original title of this short essay: "When you forgive, do you forgive as God forgives?"

To help you answer the question, I am reproducing a whole little chapter of the book Chicken Soup For The Christian Family Soul by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Patty Aubery & Nancy Mitchell Autio, published by Health Communications Inc, Deerfield Beach, Florida, pages 352-353 – somewhat shortened:

No fishing allowed

A legend is told of a priest in a small Midwestern Parish who as a young man had committed what he felt was a terrible sin. Although he had asked God's forgiveness, all his life he carried around the burden of this sin.

He heard about an elderly woman in his congregation who had visions, when she would often have conversations with the Lord. One day the priest got up enough courage to visit this woman.

Toward the end of his visit, he set his cup down on the table and looked into the old woman's eyes.

"Is it true that sometimes you have visions?" he asked her. "Is it also true that, during these visions, you often speak with the Lord?"

"Yes."

"Well… the next time you have a vision and speak with the Lord, would you ask Him a question for me?"

"Yes, I would be happy to," she answered. "What do you want me to ask Him?"

"Well, would you please ask Him what sin it was that your priest committed as a young man?"

The woman agreed.

A few weeks passed, and the priest again went to visit this woman. After another cup of tea he timidly asked, "Have you had any visions lately? "Did you speak with the Lord?"

"Yes."

"Did you ask Him what sin I committed as a young man?"

"Yes," the woman replied. "I did."

The priest, nervous and afraid, hesitated a moment and then asked, "Well, what did the Lord say?"

The woman looked up into the face of her priest and replied gently, "The Lord told me He could not remember."

God not only forgives sins. He chooses to forget them. The Bible tells us He takes them and buries them in the deepest sea. And then as Corrie Ten Boom used to say, "He puts up a sign that says, 'No fishing allowed.'"

If God forgives us, can we do less?

Gigi Graham Tchividjian

The story should have ended thus:
"If God forgives & forgets, why can't we?"
Frank A Hilario@517

PH Pork To Love – Think Of All Where It's Coming From!

About local pork, from Filipinos, there is much scary news going around these days in print, online, on air. Here is one frightening news: "Meat Processors To Boycott Domestic Pork As ASF Measure" (Vincent Mariel P Galang, 29 October 2019, BusinessWorld, bworldonline.com). This means:

To avoid ASF, they will buy pork from other countries – that is illogical, wrong, bad, laughable! There is more ASF out there than in these islands.

The African swine fever, ASF, that is plaguing the Philippines' hog raisers came from abroad – the ASF virus is not native to these islands. Says the World Organisation for Animal Health (October 2018, "African Swine Fever," oie.int):

More recently (since 2007) the disease has been reported in multiple countries across Africa, Asia and Europe, in both domestic and wild pigs.

Note: "since 2007." ANN says there is also an ongoing ASF outbreak in Japan, and according to epidemiology experts, it probably originated from China (Author Not Named, "Swine Fever Outbreak in Japan Originated from Asia: Expert Team," 08 August 2019, Nippon.com, nippon.com). In the Philippines, it has been reported at about the same time as in Japan, only August 2019, or 3 months ago.

Concerned about the local pork business, in the above Facebook sharing of Secretary of Agriculture William Dar/Manong Willie, he says:

Sa pagtangkilik mo ng karneng baboy mula sa mga local hog raisers, natutulungan mo na rin ang mga magsasaka ng corn, rice, coconut, cassava, banana at iba pa!

(In your patronizing pig's meat from local hog raisers, you are at the same time helping the planters of corn, rice, coconut, cassava, banana and others.)

He further says:

Higit pa roon, ang PAGTANGKILIK sa KARNENG BABOY mula sa Pilipinas ay hindi lamang susuporta sa kabuhayan ng libo-libong hog raisers at kanilang mga pamilya. Ang pagtangkilik din natin sa Pinoy pork ay tutulong sa kabuhayan ng mga nagtatanim para sa feeds: mga rice farmers, corn farmers, cassava, coconut at banana farmers, maging ang mga mangingisda at iba pa.

(More than that, patronizing pork meat from the Philippines is not only supporting the livelihood of thousands upon thousands of hog raisers and their families. Our patronage of Pinoy pork also helps the ones growing the ingredients for feeds: rice farmers, corn farmers, cassava farmers, coconut and banana farmers, fishermen, and others.)

Manong Willie next emphasizes the safety of eating pork, saying:

Ayon sa mga pahayag ng Department of Agriculture (DA), Department of Health (DOH), at iba pang ahensya, LIGTAS na LIGTAS kumain ng baboy sa kabila ng ASF o African swine fever. Ang sakit na ito ay sakit lamang ng baboy, kaya't wala itong anumang panganib o epekto sa tao.

(According to statements from the Department of Agriculture, DA, Department of Health, DoH, and other agencies, consuming pork is very safe despite the ASF or African swine fever. This disease is limited to swine, and therefore poses no danger or effect to people.)

Kaya't tuloy tuloy lang po nating TANGKILIKIN ANG PINOY PORK!

(Now therefore, we should continue patronizing Pinoy pork!)

Amen to all that!@517

Abundance Lessons From Drought – The Brown Mekong River & The Green Bamboo

You would be very wrong if you thought that only 6 Asian countries – Cambodia, China, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam – should learn lessons about rivers now that ANN says, "Mekong Shrivels As Drought, Dam Strangle Southeast Asia's Largest River" (Author Not Named, 31 October 2019, Agence France-Presse, philstar.com; main image is from this site; from Facebook sharing of Annie Revilleza; bamboo image from Business Diary Philippines,businessdiary.com.ph):

The once mighty Mekong River has been reduced to a thin, grubby neck of water in stretches of northern Thailand – record lows blamed on drought and a recently opened dam far upstream.

The Mekong River is now bad news for rice. Robert Akam & Guillaume Gruere write that along the Delta there is now saline water intrusion, extensive dam-building, and too much pumping of groundwater ("Rice And Risks In The Mekong River Delta," 16 January 2018, OECD Insights, oecdinsights.org).

This calls for a paradigm shift: From drought, abundance!

Mekong farmers have to learn that:

It is the water that irrigates their crops and not the river!
So?
Farmers have to learn to harness the power of water from Mother Nature.

Now look at the images above again – at right are 2 clumps of bamboo growing in the Philippines, the greens providing a sharp contrast to the browns on the Mekong River. The healthy bamboo clumps show rich leaf litters below them; the unhealthy Mekong River is "flooded" with eroding soils.

I say the bamboo clump is teaching us sustainable intensification.

Now, what is sustainable intensification? 5 years ago, I already wrote about it; in my essay "Shifting To Sustainable Intensification In Agriculture. How To Be Climate-Smart" (28 October 2014, iCRISAT Watch, icrisatwatch.blogspot.com), I said: "… sustainable intensification of agriculture, Sinag, my acronym." In Tagalog, sinag means glimmer or light.

Now, I am going to show you that those bamboo clumps are giving us glimmers of hope. Note the leaf litter scattered in and around those clumps: Those leaves rot and provide rich organic matter to the bamboo shoots – no wonder that bamboos can survive the poorest soil!

Now, what are the many sinag lessons from the bamboo? These 2 should be enough:

Trash farming.
Weeds in your farm are trash, just like the leaf litter in that bamboo clump – and they make good organic matter. Simply incorporate your weeds with the soil by rotavating the field surface so that the weeds and the soil are cut together and mixed in 1 rotary motion – and you have a surface mulch when you are finished, organic matter to decay and enrich your field with nutrients and moisture. Trash farming is an old practice we have yet to learn. Did you know that the term is already in the dictionaries? Google it!

Direct-seeding SRI.
Learn from the bamboo: You plant cuttings directly on the soil, and their leaf litter give them moisture & nutrients. Now, some farmers like ZIDOFA are doing System of Rice Intensification, SRI; I want them to try direct-seeding to conserve more water – from conservation comes abundance.@517

117 Years Back, Learning Cacao Farming; Today, Davao Farmer Is Reinventing Cacao Farming Unnecessarily!

The double-image above I composed from 2 sources: left is Tabale Cacao Farm and right is Rosit Cacao Farm in Davao City. Can you see the similarity? Look at where the soil is supposed to be, underneath those cacao trees. Full of litter. Litter of fallen leaves, rotting, rotten. 

Excellent! Both soils rich in organic matter.

This is an agriculturist and a teacher speaking, graduate of the University of the Philippines' College of Agriculture, now UP Los Baños, and a student of organic farming since the mid-1960s. In fact, I was the one who brought to the attention of UPLB, perhaps the whole Philippines, about the merits of organic agriculture.

If you wish, you can ask Nicanor "Nicky" Perlas, the only Filipino who has so far received the Right Livelihood Award, about what kind of organic horticulture I taught at Xavier University College of Agriculture in 1968. He will show you copies of my Horticulture lecture syllabuses. Nicky graduated from my organic farming to biodynamic farming, but he still tells me every time we meet, "Thank you for infecting me with organic farming."

Now that I have established my organic credentials, let me tell you that when I checked the Facebook announcement of Rosit Cacao Farm of a "Davao Region 2-Day Intensive Cacao Farmers Hands-On Training," I noticed immediately this:

"5. Different farm clearing and techniques."

Ladies & gentlemen, there is a better way to plant your cacao graft or budded whatever planting material:

No need to clear your farm.
Do not forget: Your young cacaos need mother trees.

So, plant your cacao in a field already with growing trees.
If not, plant your fast-growing tree species first.

Says William S Lyon in his 1902 book Cacao Culture in the Philippines published by the Bureau of Agriculture:

The planting of shade trees… among the cacao has been observed from time immemorial in all countries where the crop is grown.

The best field to grow your cacao is where there are already growing trees that will provide not only shade to your precious cacao, but also nutrients such as nitrogen – that is why leguminous trees such as "madre de cacao" are preferred as nurse trees.

If your field is bare, start by growing your shade trees – first plant the exotic, fast-growing ones, so that you don't wait too many months before planting your precious cacao. If you want, you can grow along with the exotic species some native species of trees, which grow slower; later you can cut down the exotic and leave the natives to grow with your cacao – after all, the natives of a place are the best growers, whether people or plants or animals!

Look at the double-image above again. With all those leaf litters in both farms, those lands are now very rich in humus. Why are cacao trees thriving? Not only because of the rich soil but because:

They now give shade to each other so that the climate within is conducive to growth. Certainly, those trees are productive!@517