Liberating PH Farmers – From What?

With UP Manila communicator Benito, former PH Secretary of Agriculture Montemayor dreams of liberating Filipino farmers – from what?

Facebook sharing of Mr Montemayor: “A Country For Farmers[1].” The link is to the Inquirer.net essay by Joberson Benito dated 25 February 2020 about what Mr Benito knows as the life of the Filipino farmer especially with the advent of the Rice Tariffication Law, RTL. (According to the note attached to his essay, Mr Benito graduated with Organizational Communication from the University of the Philippines Manila.)

So, what does Mr Benito communicate about the RTL?
Very little. Because he did not do proper research!

This is a UP alumnus speaking, the one and only recipient of the UP System’s award, “Outstanding Alumnus for Creative Writing” awarded 2011 by the UP Los Baños Alumni Association. Singular honor; there is no similar or related honor in the entire UP System.

Mr Benito’s essay of 547 words is all prejudice against the RTL but no details. And:
His essay of 547 words is all prejudice against farmers but no details either!

Above, my superimposed image is from my photo collection, taken somewhere in La Union about 7 years ago.

Question: Is that a farmer you are looking at or not?
Answer: He is.

So! The Filipino has changed over the years!
But he has not changed over the years.
And neither Mr Montemayor nor Mr Benito seem to be aware of either.

What has not changed in the life of the Filipino farmer is his poverty. But Mr Benito does not mention that; he is preoccupied with the RTL that he did not study thoroughly. He says of it:

Filipinos love instant noodles, instant coffee, instant coconut milk. We want to achieve the end goal fast. The rice tarriffication law is the Philippines’ version of an instant fix to lower rice prices, an easy way to address the food crisis. But it is like admitting there is nothing to be done to improve our farmers’ productivity and lower rice prices unless we resort to importing cheaper rice.

Note that he misspells tariffication – everyone does! If Mr Benito googled about the RTL, he would not have made that spelling mistake.

In any case, above Mr Benito says the RTL is “to lower rice prices.” No! That is not the purpose of the RTL. Neither is it to improve “farmers’ productivity.” I’m not telling you – you have to do your own research. Or, you read my essay, “PH Agriculture: Rice Tariffication Is A Must, Farm-Based Exports Are More Must![2].”

All in all, what I want to say is that what Mr Benito has written reflects only his diligence and not the quality of education he got from UP Manila, where one of my daughters also graduated from, Occupational Therapy. What Mr Benito needs right now to improve his own occupational therapy – exercise the fingers and add more food for thought for the mind for his body to become healthier as an organizational communicator. This is a grandfatherly advice; I am 79 and he is 26.@517

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[1] https://opinion.inquirer.net/127585/a-country-for-farmers?fbclid=IwAR3nr8Ni9pcVgXXLCIfJAGJHKwoV0cpZFsOVOrZP_Px31MODr5qjYmm-_9s

[2] https://frankhtheblogfather.blogspot.com/2019/11/ph-agriculture-rice-tariffication-is_21.html

Agriculture – Here Is One Little-Big Proof That Science Proves Faith Is Right!

I am an Agriculture graduate, BSA major in Ag Education, UP Los Baños, and I so believe that Agriculture remains to be The Major Force that will bring out millions of Filipinos out of Poverty into Plenty – if we believe in the Christian God and follow His commandments. 

So: Faith First!

Why do I believe that? Because of a biblical promise; it goes back to the times of Jesus:

1 John 3:17 New Revised Standard Version, NRSV

How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?

1 John 3:17 New International Version, NIV

If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person?

Actually it is not a commandment – it is a question of faith! That is why I say, “I believe.” The commandments of God are not going to be executed by God – they are going to be executed by us, or not.

2020. It just happens that I am writing this Wednesday, 22 April, the very 1^st Earth Day in 1970, 50 years ago. Encyclopaedia Britannica says this “helped spark the environmental movement and quickly grew into an international event.”

That’s half a century. Now, why is our Earth even worse than when it was 22 April 1970? Because Man has not changed a bit!

So, here is the short story of Aaron Avner depicted above, all 217 words of it, excluding the date 25 September 2015:

There was a farmer who grew excellent quality corn. Every year he won the award for the best grown corn. One year a newspaper reporter interviewed him and learned something interesting about how he grew it. The reporter discovered that the farmer shared his seed corn with his neighbors. “How can you afford to share your best seed corn with your neighbors when they are entering corn in competition with yours each year?” the reporter asked.

“Why sir,” said the farmer, “Didn’t you know? The wind picks up pollen from the ripening corn and swirls it from field to field. If my neighbors grow inferior corn, cross-pollination will steadily degrade the quality of my corn. If I am to grow good corn, I must help my neighbors grow good corn.”

So is with our lives... Those who want to live meaningfully and well must help enrich the lives of others, for the value of a life is measured by the lives it touches. And those who choose to be happy must help others find happiness, for the welfare of each is bound up with the welfare of all...
-Call it power of collectivity...
-Call it a principle of success...
-Call it a law of life.
The fact is, none of us truly wins, until we all win!!

Question: “Why should I be my brother’s keeper!?” Answer: As the little story of Mr Avner shows, “To find true happiness, we must help others.”@517

Fragmented As It Is, The Philippines Is Worth Writing For!

Facebook sharing of Ed Quiblatin: 

Time to shift from “egosystems to ecosystems” (per article).

Thanks, Ed, I needed that! Paraphrasing Ninoy Aquino, I say, “The Philippines is worth writing for!”

Actually, it has been so for me since at least the beginning of 2007, a little more than 13 years ago, when I started blogging for the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, ICRISAT, based in India, as an international consulting writer for ICRISAT, when now-Secretary of Agriculture William Dar/Manong Willie was Director General. I was writing for ICRISAT countries – but I made sure that I was also writing for the Philippines, directly or indirectly mentioning my country.

My perspective has always been bigger than my topic. Yes, once in a little, I do mention my ability/ies relevant to the topics – from “egosystems to ecosystems” per article.

That is how I approach this one: “Eight Emerging Lessons: From Coronavirus to Climate Action[1]” by Otto Scharmer of Medium.com, writing 17 March 2020. Now that lockdowns have been imposed in most of the world, Mr Scharmer has been moved to think from small to Big. Here are his Little/Big Thoughts on the subject of the “New World Order” (my term):

1.  The coronavirus disruption is a harbinger of things to come.

2.  Your behavior changes the system.

3.  Two levers: timely government response and data-based citizen awareness.

4.  We are faced with a choice.

5.  The decline of Trump and far right populists.

6.  The rise of data-driven awareness-based collective action.

7.  The conversation we need to have now: reimagining our civilization.

8.  School for transformation: activating generative social fields.

“The coronavirus disruption is a harbinger of things to come.” Yes, even if we do not feel it or see it now, the world has been changed forever, even right in your neighborhood. You will see it, or feel it, or sense it, after all this is over. Like it or not.

Your behavior changes the system. In an immediate manner during a lockdown. A whole world in a lockdown is global chaos! No matter how you look at it.

Two levers: timely government response and data-based citizen awareness. No government anticipated this, and no citizenry knew exactly how to behave. Yes, we citizens are now in a state of awareness and immobility against our liking.

We are faced with a choice. Always.

The decline of Trump and far right populists. I don’t think so. I believe Donald John Trump is the best modern American President so far! That is an opinion coming from a Manila observer.

The rise of data-driven awareness-based collective action. Every numbers-crazy! expert of something thinks like that: Numbers will tell you what to do! No, they don’t – your thinking does, numbers or no numbers.

The conversation we need to have now: reimagining our civilization. Ah, I rather agree with this. The world has been pushed to the Brink – let us push it to the Better!

School for transformation: activating generative social fields. Me: Schools transformed and the media humbled – Absolutely!@517

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[1] https://medium.com/presencing-institute-blog/eight-emerging-lessons-from-coronavirus-to-climate-action-683c39c10e8b

PH “Senior High Students Can Barely Write In English” – Cellphones & Internet To The Rescue!

ANN says, “Senior High Students Can Barely Write In English: Report[1]” (20 April 2020, Author Not Named, ABS-CBN News). It is bad news; consultant Karen Brillantes of the Philippine Institute for Development Studies said some senior high school, SHS, students could not write “even a decent English sentence.” (bad English image from vappingo[2])

ANN says Ms Karen said that “SHS students' difficulty with writing in English was particularly evident in subjects where they were required to produce research papers to pass a course.”

As a high school teacher, at Civil Service Professional level, what can I recommend to improve SHS education in my country? This:

Take out of the classrooms K-11 and K-12
and bring them to the Internet. That is,
teach them via cellphones!

Oh, they will all love it. Now they will have a legitimate excuse for walking anywhere looking at their phones. They will be listening to their phones rather than their parents!

But: They will have no excuses to produce an excellent research paper because they can surf the Web anytime of the day – or night!

The key to producing a good research paper is? A good research! If you don’t understand the technical, check the dictionary and/or look for a popular article on the same subject. And yes, Microsoft Word will help you check your grammar, and spelling.

When enough research on the Internet, it will open your mind to universes you have never been before, and you become more knowledgeable, if not more intelligent, simply knowing there are more things to know than what you already know!

So, SHS students can be complying with the research report requirements as well as “maximizing the learning they should have been getting from (their) SHS education.”

Ms Karen said that “the design and content of the current SHS curricula was ‘too ambitious’ and designed for advanced learners, such as science high school students in Metro Manila.” She also said:

As such, (many) SHS students are unprepared for the materials they are assigned to study.

I would agree. But I think that the SHS students in the countryside would be able to cope with such “ambitious” curricula if they had the Internet to turn to anytime – and once in a while, a helpful additional advice from their teacher via a phone call or text!

I’m always surfing the Web. If I don’t understand a subject matter, if I do not agree with the original text, I surf the Web again and again. Thereby, I always find something to encourage me to think my thoughts as an original thinker!

And yes, Ms Karen said:

SHS teachers … also face difficulties in delivering the curricula "due to insufficient guidelines, inadequate materials and preparations."

The beauty of the widest and wildest library in the world – Internet. Insufficient guidelines? Search for related articles. There are no inadequate materials in the Internet – only inadequate searchers! Inadequate preparations? Search and search until you find something. The Internet will help you think better!@517

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[1]https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/04/20/20/senior-high-students-can-barely-write-in-english-report?fbclid=IwAR1u-ksjnhm0eEfNmBAxLzcXSL7o7jOqbixoNsTe81lPor92ozUZKxeeWjk

[2] https://www.vappingo.com/word-blog/could-this-be-the-worst-english-translation-ever-written/

Ready Am I To Teach Online Communication Skills – You Ready To Teach With PowerPoint?

Online Education? Here’s my Test Question: 

“Do you think PowerPoint is essentially the creation of slides that you have to master?”

If so, you’re not ready to teach! You don’t know the essence of teaching!

Susan Gomez shares on Facebook that CNN’s Brian Ries and Meg Wagner have written, “Universities Begin Considering Canceling In-Person Classes Until 2021[1]” – and this Filipino teacher thinks it’s a bright idea. Right now, with the Luzon Lockdown due to the coronavirus scare, my daughter Graciela is holding her Montessori classes online and enjoying it. (online image from The Enterprises Project[2])

Now I speak as a teacher who is digitally & artfully competent. This is a 79-year old sonabagun one-man band who began teaching himself all-digital creative writing, editing, photography, desktop publishing starting in the late 1980s. Yes!

Locked in, locked out, lockdown whatever. In this Digital Age, Online Classes should now be the In-Thing!

The thing is that college professors and instructors may be masters of their subject matters but are not trained to teach such online or digitally – so this calls for new universes of education that the Earth has not seen before! Right here, I want to tell you why creating slides is not the essence of PowerPoint –

With any digital application, via texts and images,
the door to teaching/learning is telling stories.

So, you can teach a whole subject daily in 3 months using only, for instance, PowerPoint – or Microsoft Word!

That’s an original idea. Being Ilocano, I’m an original aboriginal.

I did a Google search on “education digital OR online” and I found one innocent article, Kunal Chawla’s “3 Challenges Facing Online Education Today[3]” (Udacity), where he says:

Learning online is good at multiple-choice questions. While this technique works well for the test makers, it is generally not effective at pushing learners to think of new ideas.

On the contrary! I say multiple choice questions are good in that they force the student to think for oneself: (a), (b), (c), (d), or (e)? It forces one to go back to the lecture or do research.

Open-ended questions are good, says Mr Chawla:

Open-ended questions are encountered in the workplace on a regular basis and any effective learning space will simulate conditions for students to practice such inquiries. Online education, however, has historically been terrible at providing feedback on questions like “How will you break this problem down?” and prompts like “Do you agree with this argument?”

I say if you have a problem with the question “How will you break this problem down?” then you have a problem with teaching in the first place! With that question, it’s like you are asking your student to consider the problem out of the box!

Yes, I am loving online education already. So, who of the Schools, Colleges & Universities in the Philippines – or abroad - would like to engage me as online teacher? Like, I am ready to teach you PowerPoint as the app for teaching anything. Email me, frankahilario@gmail.com@517

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[1] https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/14/us/university-may-cancel-classes-fall-2021-trnd/index.html

[2] https://enterprisersproject.com/article/2016/9/monsanto-cio-value-inclusiveness-driving-successful-digital-transformation

[3] https://blog.udacity.com/2015/04/3-challenges-facing-online-education-today.html

Philippines – Beauty & Brains As Inspiration, Brains & Beauty As Model Farmers!

With the pandemic of the coronavirus, we Filipinos have forgotten corona means crown, such as being worn by each Miss Universe. Beauty & Brains: Gloria Diaz, Miss Universe 1969 and Catriona Gray, Miss Universe 2018 (image from Cosmopolitan[1]). Brains & Beauty: Husband & Wife (image from amazon.com[2])

 “Corona” also means “circle of light” and thereby signifies “enlightenment.” Explained below, The Brains & Beauty Program wants to turn out enlightened farmers and enlightened coops in countryside settings via a pilot program hopefully sponsored by the Department of Agriculture, DA, now headed by Secretary of Agriculture William Dar/Manong Willie.

The thing is that millions of farmers are not getting their beautiful shares of the values they add to their farm produce, being good farmers but bad managers. They are not using their brains when it comes to the business of farming.

In fact, farmers do not consider farming a business –
simply a way of life!

Hence this proposal of mine with the program name:

PH Brains & Beauty, Model Farmers Program

The short name: B&B Program.

For each program participant, the B&B farmers will be pairs, both the Husband (Brains) and Wife (Beauty) who will be engaged for each hectare of agricultural land cultivated.

Initially, the goal is to develop a successful pilot model coop in each of 3 DA regions in Luzon: Region 1 (Ilocos), Region 3 (Central Luzon), and Region 4A (Calabarzon). In each model B&B coop, the following program features will apply:

Training. The 3 model coops each with 3 coop directors and 5 farmer pairs involved will attend a one-time common training of 1 week at PhilRice in Nueva Ecija. This will be led by Program Manager Frank A Hilario.

Loan assistance. The first day of training will be spent considering & calculating farming expenses from production to harvesting and marketing the farm produce. The amount will then be guaranteed by each coop to be available to the model farmer pair.

Cultivator camp. This is the service center for each coop’s hand tractors, rotavators, seeders, transplanters, combine harvesters, dryers, haulers etc.

Coop warehouse. For storing produce awaiting buyers.

Some B&B protocols:

Crops: Rice, corn, sweet sorghum, and pinakbet vegetables: ampalaya, bean, chili, eggplant, tomato, okra.

Cultivation: Use of a rotavator big or small to cut weeds and soil to pieces and mix them into an organic mulch all over the field. This is called trash mulching. The mulch is your source of natural foods for your crops.

Rice culture: The method called System of Rice Intensification will be used.

Sweet sorghum will be grown instead of sugarcane. Sorghum is twice sweeter than sugarcane! ICRISAT variety & technology will be used.

Sweet corn will be raised for consumers around town as well as in distant places.

All of the above will actually go into the B&B Program to bring to life, via techno demos, sustainable agriculture: technically feasible, economically viable, environmentally sound, and socially acceptable.

This will be the first Brains & Beauty Program in the whole world of Agriculture!@517

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[1] https://www.cosmo.ph/style/trend-alert/miss-universe-crowns-a00176-20170129

[2] https://www.amazon.com/Loving-Married-Cartoon-Sticker-Husband/dp/B07DYGKZH1

PH or Elsewhere, Rice Sufficiency & Food Security – Strange Bedfellows!

Which do you prefer: rice sufficiency or food security?

I am right now reading 2 documents: “Reviewing Rice Tariffication In The Time Of COVID-19: Rationale And Road To Rice Self-Sufficiency In The Philippines[1],” which is a very long report by David Michael Marcelino San Juan, uploaded 18 April 2020, some 5,500 words (text only); and “DOF Usec: ‘Agriculture Has To Grow, Or Else, We Cannot Feed Our Own People[2]’”, a very short news item by Gabriela Baron, published 07 August 2019, only 270 words. About 8 months apart, they are talking about the same subject: rice sufficiency.

The author of the long paper misses the point – and so does the subject of the very short news item! The very title of the long paper has the term “Rice Self-Sufficiency.” The title of the short one implies it; in fact, the expert cited, Department of Finance Undersecretary Karl Kendrick Chua (image above) is talking about the Rice Tariffication Law, RTL, saying:

Population growth is 1 percent every year, that is two million additional Filipinos, so agriculture has to grow by at least 1.6 percent, preferably 2 percent or more, otherwise we cannot feed our own people and we will be relying on imports and the price will go up.

Mr San Juan and Mr Chua I am sure they are both knowledgeable, but neither of them is considering another option other than rice sufficiency! (I cannot blame Mr Chua because he was talking only 2 days after William Dar/Manong Willie was appointed Secretary of Agriculture by President Rodrigo Duterte, and so he may not have been aware Manong Willie was after food security as part of his “The New Thinking for Agriculture.”

I call the same error of those gentlemen as “missing the other forest because of the other trees.”

I must emphasize here that the 2 gentlemen miss the same big point: food security!

If we follow the policy of food sufficiency, the Philippines will produce all our foods, all of them and in sufficient quantities, and not buy or import from any country.

If we follow the policy of food security, the Philippines will produce as much of the foods we can, where we enjoy economic advantage, not rice, but such as coconut and sugarcane. Then we import from Vietnam or Thailand the additional rice that we need. We have dollars to import the rice we need.

Why is Secretary of Agriculture William Dar/Manong Willie not pursuing the policy of rice sufficiency like his predecessor Emmanuel Piñol? Because Mr Piñol, like all Manong Willie’s predecessors, all 44 of them, failed to achieve rice sufficiency. Because our farmers are very, very expensive rice growers. Today, PH rice costs P12/kilo to produce while Vietnam costs only P6/kilo!

Of course, it is conceivable that new or improved science can bring down the cost of PH rice to even lower than P6/kilo, but that will not be tomorrow or the next day.

In the meanwhile, we Filipinos have to eat rice morning, noon, and nighttime too!@517

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[1]https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340738836

[2]https://news.mb.com.ph/2019/08/07/dof-usec-agriculture-has-to-grow-or-else-we-cannot-feed-our-own-people/