"PH Agriculture Renaissance Is Nonsense! Idiocy!" – MT Columnist Marlen V Ronquillo; "Name-Calling" – iVirtual Guru Frank A Hilario

Someone emailed me copy-and-paste Marlen V Ronquillo's column today, Sunday, 22 September 2019, at the Manila Times online (manilatimes.net): "Agricultural Renaissance Is Either Official Nonsense Or Punditry's Idiocy."

My intellectual response? It's all argumentum ad hominem, name-calling. Now, says the:

American Heritage Dictionary (thefreedictionary.com), name-calling is "verbal abuse, esp as a crude form of argument."

Macmillan Dictionary(macmillandictionary.com), name-calling is "the act of saying insulting things to or about someone."

Merriam-Webster Dictionary (merriam-webster.com), name-calling is "the use of offensive names especially to win an argument or to induce rejection or condemnation (as of a person or project) without objective consideration of the facts."

Mr Ronquillo's column is all of 933 words including title, and my intelligent appreciation of it is one phrase: attacking the person.

I wonder where Mr Ronquillo studied argumentation in college? I studied mine at the Cow College, that is, the University of the Philippines' College of Agriculture, now UP Los Baños; Mr Bituin from UP Diliman was our visiting professor in Western Thought then and, you know what? He gave me a perfect grade, 1.0! Why? Because I deserved it.

Logical thinking. I have blogged more than 6,000 essays ranging from 500 to 2,000 words each, so I should know how to build my case when I'm arguing a point! Calling on creative thinking, not resorting to personal attack. I thoroughly enjoy my writing when I am trying to "build up a case" because it is all an exercise in fertility!

Name-calling is only one of the logical fallacies everyone should study, but especially journalists. Even before our Mr Bituin, I learned my logical fallacies reading many of the Perry Mason stories of Erle Stanley Gardner from the library of my brother-in-law Manong Mulong Llamas, the husband of Manang Lucing, who was studying law in Dagupan City. Mr Ronquillo's column? "Irrelevant, your Honor."

Now, look at the lower half of the composite image above; it is the cover of my ebook Paradigms Lost, Paradigms Regained, 269 pages, my literary-literal explanation and exposition of Mr Dar's "Eight Paradigms" embodied in his "New Thinking for Agriculture" that he has come up with as his roadbook (my term) to the new PH Agriculture under him as new Secretary of Agriculture. (Email me for a free copy: frankahilario@gmail.com.)

Now, here is to overwhelm Mr Ronquillo with Manong Willie's idealism, not idiocy, with his 8 paradigms:

(1) Modernizing agriculture.
(2) Industrializing agriculture.
(3) Promoting exports.
(4) Consolidating the farms.
(5) Developing roadmaps.
(6) Building infrastructure.
(7) Having higher budgets and investments for agriculture.
(8) Having legislative support.

If Mr Ronquillo does notthink that that will lead to a Renaissance in PH Agriculture, he sees the glass as half-empty, I see it as half-full!

More to the point: Does Mr Ronquillo know the Renaissance in Europe did not occur within only 2 months – Mr Dar started his new job Monday, 05 August 2019 – but within 4 centuries?! (Wikipedia, en.wikipedia.org).

I have Faith in the Renaissance that is coming to PH Agriculture!@517