UPOU Soon to Launch Green Building

I mentioned in one of my FB posts in 2014 that UPOU was going to construct its first green building.  In fact, I posted a picture of the start of construction.  Today, I wish to inform the followers of this blog and my FB Posts, that said building shall be launched during the Graduation Ceremonies of UPOU in July 2015.  Well, that’s my belief, but I haven’t heard of an official launch yet.  Let me tell you a few little things about this building.

The UPOU Community Hub Building.

 

The main entrance to the Hub.

The building is called the UP Open Unive3rsity Community Hub.  My own perception is that this has reference to one of the important functions of the UPOU, as an open educational institution, to provide a facility and space where community residents could exchange with UOU academics ideas worth pursuing through individual educational efforts.  The UPOU provides a meaningful description of this concept  called ODeL or Open Distance Electronic Learning, which is at the heart of UPOU operations, and for which the UPOU has provided this facility.

At the background is UPOU's Billboard.

 

View from the rear.  Thisw portion will be a lagoon, I understand.

View from inside through main doors.

The roof enables light to shine through and would help reduce use of electricity for lighting/

This is one sample of the discussion  spaces at the UPOU Community Hub.

This facility shall house UPOU’s Learning Center in Laguna, UPOU Information Office (where souvenir items shall be available for sale at very low cost), the UPOU Library, perhaps a seminar hall, and discussion hallways.  Too, there are four spaces for food concessionaires who may be interested to provide food items like snacks and pasalubongs.  Take note that this building is almost right across from the SouthSupermaket in Los Banos, and entry through it doesn’t permit entry into the UPOU Compound  and IRRI field.  You enter through the main entrance, and exit through the same way.

This facility may be open to the public in July during UPOU's Graduation Ceremonies.  See you there.

Remains Applicable Today

This was a discussion paper of a Professorial Lecture of an esteemed colleague, the late Professor Dr. Corazon Lamug of UPLB.  I believe the issues raised then remain important today.  I accidentally found it in my old files and I wish to share it.

Comments by

Dr. Lex Librero

Discussant

  

A CRITIQUE OF THE SOCIAL RESEARCH DESIGNS OF STUDIES ON COMMUNITY-BASED NATURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

BY DR. CORAZON B. LAMUG

(SEARCA Professorial Lecture, UP Los Baños, 14 March 2008)

 Having a discussant in a professorial lecture is not unheard of in the academe, but at UPLB it is not normative behavior either.  Therefore, it came to me as a surprise when Dr. Cora Lamug requested that I serve as discussant for her professorial lecture.  I know that in most universities abroad academics welcome, in fact they seek, criticisms of their works from their peers.  I have been exposed to the belief that this is one of the best ways of improving one’s work.  Unfortunately, this academic culture has not as yet blossomed well enough at UPLB, much less in other universities in the country, even at this rather late age. 

It is, therefore, a very pleasant and welcome opportunity for me to respond to what an esteemed colleague has made of the sometimes confused and confusing research in community-based natural resource management in this country.

Dr. Lamug’s critique of the research designs employed in CBNRM studies, I would like to believe, has dug much deeper than most in terms of comparative analysis of research designs, particularly from the points of view of positivism, interpretivism, critical theory, and action research. 

The first observation that Dr. Lamug made that caught my eye immediately was stated rather lamely when she said “Most review of CBNRM focus on research findings.”  I have always been vocal against this simplistic approach to the review of scientific literature, particularly by our colleagues and graduate students.  Look at any chapter on the review of literature in all graduate theses and dissertations at the UPLB Library and you will find that not less than 95% would just report a litany of findings reported by theses and dissertations done earlier, not much more.  Why do I need to pounce on this right away?  Well, this is not the way to review the scientific literature.

Professor Ivor Davies of Indiana University, in a course that I took under him, once said, “no body will be interested in your findings, but everybody will be interested in how you treated the scientific literature you had access to.”  In other words, the results of your study can only be meaningful if the means by which you arrived at them were subject to scientific rigor.  Outside of that, the results become spurious.  From this point of view, therefore, Dr. Lamug’s decision to look at the research designs employed in the research efforts in CBNRM concerns become very significant if only because we are interested in meaningful new information and knowledge that would hopefully provide insights into how the existing problems in the environment could be dealt with effectively and efficiently.

I am elated by the fact that Dr. Lamug chose to look at the research designs that have been employed in the study of natural resource management in this country.  The classification of research designs into the four paradigms of positivism, interpretivism, critical theory, and action research makes the discourse much more philosophical and academic, thereby elevating a few notches the discourse as it ought to be in an academic community.  However, I shall try to simplify some of my thoughts on these as we go along, at least for the benefit of those at my level who may not always feel comfortable with the isms of academe.

Dr. Lamug has already explained to us what the four paradigms mean, but let us have a quick review.  According to the philosophy espoused by Auguste Comte and the philosophers that followed him, human thought proceeds through three stages: theological, metaphysical, and positivistic.  The first refers to explaining all phenomena as happening because of the direct manipulation of supernatural beings or divine forces as if they physically existed (for example, recall the gods of Greek mythology).  The second is just like the first but that the supernatural beings have become more abstract rather than appearing human like.  The third, positivism,  abandoned the supernatural beings and metaphysical abstractions in favor of naturalistic and empirical explanations.  Put simply, we give meaning to what we can observe or sense.

Interpretivism means that the social sciences should be concerned with providing interpretation of events and phenomena in terms of how people involved perceive and understand their own experiences, not simply quantifying what actually happens in a social phenomenon.   In fact, interpretive sociology  deals with how to find reality through the experiences of individuals involved in the actual social phenomenon.

Critical theory, as explained by Dr. Lamug, may be viewed from two perspectives, namely: literary criticism and social theory.  We are interested in social theory, I believe, in this instance.  From the point of view of the social sciences, therefore, critical theory is concerned with critiquing and changing society as a whole in contrast to traditional theory which is oriented to understanding and explaining social phenomena. 

Participatory action research, or simply action research, has been defined as “collective self-reflective enquiry undertaken by participants in social situations in order to improve the rationality and justice of their own social practices” (Kemmis and McTraggart, 1988).   Hence, research becomes action research when it is collective activity.  Put simply, action research is actually the Dewey concept of learning, which is “learning by doing,” and it is known by many names like participatory research, collaborative inquiry, emancipatory research, action learning, and contextual action research which are variations of a theme.  In other words, a group of individuals would identify a problem, together do something to resolve the issue, observe how successful their efforts may be and if not satisfied, try again.

Now, let me proceed further into the lecture.  Dr. Lamug reported that 74% of the total number of reviewed research reports employed positivism as research paradigm.  About 7% of the studies employed interpretivism, another 7% critical theory, and 12% participatory action research.  This tells me that our researchers have been focusing too much on simply describing the situation in the environment.  Only 12 of a hundred have focused on explaining and understanding the actual experiences of individuals living in coastal areas.  This is rather small amount of research.   Could this explain why we do not, until now, fully understand the problems of people living in the coastal areas of the country?

Dr. Lamug’s critique, I would like to believe, has dug much deeper than most studies in terms of comparative analysis of research work in CBNRM.  She also had the foresight of telling us that the paradigms of positivism, interpretivism, critical theory, and participatory action research, indeed, are interrelated one way or the other.  Participatory research could be viewed as trying to achieve a clearer focus on a specific group of individuals being observed from the point of view of critical theory, and whose actions may be interpreted either from the point of view of the researcher or the researched and examined within the broad framework of positivism.

Dr. Lamug, through her lecture, has attempted to enlighten us on very serious discrepancies both in terms of our knowledge of and the methods by which we arrive at such knowledge of CBNRM and its effects on people and society.  For so long a time now, we have been doing research that simply scraped the surface of a social problem.  There are few in-depth analyses of the problems of CBNRM.  Most of the studies lack in-depth analysis that should logically lead to a better understanding of why people live the way they do in relation to their environment.

Has it not occurred to our colleagues, for example, that we still need to have a much better appreciation of why our indigenous cousins have a more meaningful understanding of nature and their environment?  At one time in the recent past, I challenged the researchers of Bicol University in one seminar, when I asked the participants “why is it that the wild life of Mayon Volcano understands the volcano much better than the people in its vicinity?”   The wildlife there, including the small lizards and insects, know when Mayon volcano is acting up.  But then again, the people probably know when Mayon volcano acts up but simply disregard it.  Such human behavior is something that also needs to be understood.  There must be a root cause of this problem situation, and that root cause is something we are not sure of.

Going back to issues raised in the lecture,  I ask: do we really understand our environment?  Some would say, yes we do but the difference is that we simply do not give a hoot because our greed is much stronger than our sense of responsibility and even safety.  Now, what then is the connection between irresponsibility and environmental conditions.  It is easy to make motherhood statements, or cop-out statements, but do we really honestly understand what the real relationship is between our own thinking and behavior and the natural order of our environment?  Our indigenous cousins would say, don’t do that because this would happen as a result, and that thing would result in this thing, and so forth and so on.  They have a strong sense of connection with their environment, and they have a deep understanding of how their lives and behavior are intertwined with natural conditions in their environment.  In a way, we can partly understand this phenomenon by understanding the indigenous knowledge system of the place.

If it has not come clear to you, let me try to simplify the message of Dr. Lamug’s lecture this morning.  In terms of research efforts, we simply describe because interpreting is much more difficult to do.  We think that when we have done our description we are done with our task.  Far from it.  The real work of a researcher is the correct interpretation of meaning and potential meanings and implications to our lives of what we may have discovered.  The problem is, when we do interpret to the limits of our understanding, we would certainly have to get out of our comfort zones – this is exactly what prevents us from further pushing our research and intellectual creativity towards innovative ways of looking at things and events.

Scientific revolutions happen, according to science philosopher and historian Thomas Kuhn, because of what he terms as anomalies resulting from discoveries of new ways of doing things.  The new ways of doing things resulting from new interpretations of similar observations unsettle what appears to be a relative calm within the scientific community.  When these new ways of doing things gain greater adherents among members of the scientific community questions are raised and an anomaly arises, and this anomaly would be settled either by accepting or rejecting the newer ways of doing things.  Then another relative calm sets in until another anomaly arises, and so forth and so on.  Of course, this does not happen overnight.  Remember, Copernicus was forgiven by the Roman Catholic religion only a thousand years later after he refuted the then dogma of the church that the earth was the center of the universe and that the heavenly bodies were the ones revolving around it.

As far back as two decades ago, I had already suggested that at least the UPLB-based social science researchers had better start doing synthesis work on the voluminous amount of research done if only to formulate research hypotheses or some other generalization that would lead to some kind of theorizing. 

I am glad that Dr. Lamug has done this critique because it has shown us clearly that many of the many research reviewed may not be as useful as the researchers might have thought initially. 

Echoing Dr. Lamug’s conclusion, I fully agree that our researchers in CBNRM must now try to be much more purposive in their efforts to unravel the complicated nature of social conditions.  A combination of the four paradigms sound to me to be highly useful.  This combination of paradigms could, in fact, provide us a better approach to a clearer understanding of the problem and solution structures of CBNRM issues.  My own take on this, however, is that I would prefer to reduce effort in mere description of conditions and put more effort into translation and interpretation of experiences into lessons and realities that could help us resolve real-world problems.

I now take this opportunity to congratulate Dr. Cora Lamug for painstakingly synthesizing the 74 studies in CBNRM in order to ferret out the lessons that most of us have failed to see.  To many social researchers, the work done by Dr. Lamug would have been daunting.  But I have known Dr. Lamug to be different, one who engages a social issue with intellectual fervor, trying to understand the social phenomenon through the eyes of a seasoned scientist.  As to the quality of the lecture this morning, it is a lecture worth the name professorial lecture.

Congratulations again, Dr. Lamug.  Thank you.

Why Do I Feel A Bit Lonely This Christmas?

It’s 8:32, evening of Christmas Day, December 2014.  For a couple of years now, Jegs and I have embraced the thought that we do not exist for Christmas as we consider the Christmas Season a complete example of misplaced dogma.  For example, why can’t we observe the spirit of goodwill 24/7?  Why must we wait for the Christmas Season to give to the poor?  In fact, if what all people demonstrate during Christmas is something they do on daily basis with open hearts, then we’d be living in a world that is much more meaningful.  We have been trying to reorient our simple lives to this direction and goal.

So, why do I feel a bit lonely at this moment when I have not felt similarly during the last 364 days?  While having dinner this evening, just the two of us, it occurred to me, “if we’re luckier next year, would it be possible to spend our Christmas in a place far removed from the hustle and bustle of a modern community and live only within the means that others strive to survive in?”  Jegs immediately said, “that would be Itbayat, Batanes?”  I thought, “not exactly, but it could be.” 

Well, Itbayat is the northernmost town of the Philippines, part of Batanes, officially one of the poorest provinces in the Philippines.  It is about 98 kilometers from the southern tip of Taiwan, and 250 kilometers north of Apparri, Cagayan.  In spite of its proximity to Taiwan, people there don’t look like Chinese.  They look Austronesians, like their ancestors.  The value system there hasn’t changed for thousands of years.  The most apparent demonstration of this is that the jails in the six municipalities and provincial capital of the province are completely empty.  There are no criminals there, and if there are they’re afraid to commit crimes.

When I left the town of Itbayat some 58 years ago to attend high school in Basco, and then, after that, attend the U.P, College of Agriculture in 1963, I recall that the place was so backward I thought people there didn’t have any space anymore to move backwards to. The roads were all muddy and filled with puddles of water during the Christmas Season.  The weather was so cold from November to February, when the trans-Siberian cold front would swoop down on the islands.  Children had to wear handmade bonnets, and adults wore two or more shirts.  Those who can afford had jackets.  People like us, who didn’t have the means, had to make do with worn out long sleeves (hand-me-downs), but most of us would wrap ourselves with jute sacks which served as both mat and blanket when we slept at night.  One of the indelible lessons I learned from my late mother about surviving in the cold was to take your bath everyday so that you will not feel cold.  “If your body is dirty,” my mother always told us children, “you will always shiver in the cold.  And when your body is clean, you will not feel the cold.”  That was lesson well learned for me.

I come from a poverty-stricken family, grew up under the disciplinarian authority of a single parent, and had to work the dirt almost 24/7 to eke out a living.  In those times, I never saw paper money beyond the one-peso denomination.  And it was some one else’s money, too.  So poverty to me was never a new experience.  It was never fun, either.

When my brother, Tino, left Basco for Los Baños, I barely remember it.  All I now recall was that the only money my mother gave him was P50, or so I thought, saved from being laundrywoman for a Philippine Constabulary soldier, from which she earned no more than P10 per month, from which we got all of our expenses.  My brother left Batanes without a sure life to live.  My mother was lucky that the then Governor of Batanes, the late Gov. Eugenio Agudo agreed to grant her request to bring along Kuya Tino as houseboy in Los Baños, because he wanted to study at the U.P. College of Agriculture.  In Los Baños, Kuya Tino was taken as houseboy of the Uichanco Family.  The family patriarch, the late Dr. Leopoldo Uichanco, was then the Dean of the U.P. College of Agriculture.  After a few semesters, Kuya Tino was hired as student assistant in the then Office of the College Secretary, when the late Professor Melanio Gapud was the UPCA Secretary.  To make a very long story short, Kuya graduated from UPCA under the Honors Curriculum (perhaps that was the last time that UPCA had the Honors Curriculum offerred).  Almost right away Kuya Tino was hired as Farm Technologist of the then Farm and Home Development Program (FHDP) of UPCA's Department of Agricultural Economics, which later became the Farm and Home Development Office (FHDO) of UPCA, and the Office of the Director of Extension first under UPCA then later under the UPLB. The FHDP was a joint project of UPCA and Cornell University.  That was the time when Kuya Tino sent me to school, starting with high school and then college (UPCA).

I consider myself extremely lucky.  I was from a dirt-poor family but I got to the best university in the country.  I was an ordinary student, but I survived the intellectual cadence at UPCA.  I was not an honor graduate, but I was employed by my Alma Mater.  I was not the luckiest graduate of my academic department because I was the first major of the department hired as an administrative staff rather than academic staff. I did not enjoy the leaps and bounds of promotion because I started out as administrative staff, then as Instructor (2-7), Assistant Professor (1-4), Associate Professor (1-7), and then Professor (2-12) every step of the ladder in all positions, which means I had to stop at every step of the promotion ladder.  Alongside, I was given opportunities to serve (additional assignments without additional pay) as Departmental Section Head, Department Chair, Institute Director, Associate Dean, Dean, Vice Chancellor for R&D, Chancellor, and then as Faculty Regent.  I was the Centennial Faculty Regent of UP, and I was assured that there would be only one Centennial Faculty Regent within 100 years.  So I can say that I have had a fair share of glory as a professional, a survivor of sorts.  So why do I feel a bit lonely this Christmas Season?

Well, for one, my Kuya Tino survived a stroke in November 2014.  I must say, I was not prepared for that one.  When your brother comes so close to stepping into the other side, it hits you like you didn’t know what was going on; that all you knew was “no, this isn’t happening.”  But, then, of course, the reality sinks in and you have to deal with it.  I’m glad that Kuya Tino is still with us.  I’m also glad that in February 2008, the UP Board of Regents awarded me the lifetime title of Professor Emeritus.  And, then, of course, the UPOU continues to give me teaching assignments, so that at least I get the feeling that I’m still useful.  So it is not that I have lost things to be happy about.  Still, why must I feel a bit lonely this Christmas Season? 

If there’s anything I am completely happy about (except the  usual LQ that happens now and then), it’s living with an excellent partner, Jegs.  I believe that both of us have installed each other on a pedestal so high, as pointed out by the singer Anne Murray in one of her hit songs, “that I could even see eternity.”

And so, why do I feel a bit lonely this Christmas Season?  I think it all boils down to one thing.  I need to reconnect to my past.  I think I need to revisit my past to appreciate what I have become.  Hopefully, that would explain why I feel a bit lonely this Christmas Season.

                                                          ###

Cambodia's Rice is World's Best

Yes, it has happened.  This year, Cambodian jasmine rice was awarded for the third time in a row as the “world’s best rice.”  This happened yesterday during the 6^th The Rice Trade (TRT) World Rice Conference in Phnom Penh.  The Conference is being hosted by the Kingdom of Cambodia, 18-20 November 2014, dovetailing Cambodia’s 2^nd Rice Festival on the 18^th held at the Hotel Sofitel.  Fingers were crossed until today that the award would go to Cambodia again as the World Rice Conference got underway.  Indeed, the Cambodian jasmine rice has received the prestigious award for the third time this year, the difference being that this year’s award is shared by Cambodia and Thailand.

   

In the last two years, Cambodian rice has won the title of “The World’s Best Rice,” during the World Rice Conferences in Bali, Indonesia in 2012 and in Hongkong in 2013.

The Cambodian jasmine (fragrant) rice variety,  Phka Rumduol, is a premium rice which means it has extra long grains, strong natural scent, soft texture, tender and fluffy when steamed and what millers and researchers refer to as “tantalizing” aroma.  The jasmine rice is also called Cambodia’s white gold for very significant reasons.  The name white gold means that rice is both economically and culturally significant to the country.   Cambodian rice being exported meets the very stringent international inspection and certification requirements .  This has enabled Cambodia to penetrate the rice markets in the European Union, China, and the United States.  In fact, more than 70 countries around the world import Cambodian jasmine rice today, through some 77 Cambodian rice traders.

New Dawn in Cambodian Rice Production

According to the Cambodian Organic Agricultural Association (COrAA), increasingly, Cambodian rice farmers are shifting to modern farming practices such as organic rice production.  This is an amazing feat because only about 15% of rice fields in the country have irrigation, and Cambodian rice farmers use little inputs.  Many farmers have not used farm chemicals, for example.

The fact is, the issues of food safety, human nutrition, and environmental conservation are always part of the public debate on food worldwide.  This has somehow pushed Cambodia to become more concerned about organic agriculture, hence the creation of COrAA.    The COrAA now has established Cambodia’s Standards for Organic Crop Production, whose aim is to “protect consumers against deception in the market place and unsubstantiated product claims.”   The tools that the COrAA uses in guaranteeing that what is sold in the market is authentic organic rice is the Association’s inspection and certification system.  Therefore, all rice products sold in the market today have been subjected to a “reliable certification system” and rules for labeling organically produced rice.  This, on top of the fact that the production of Cambodia’s jasmine rice has gone through strict processes from seed selection to cultivation and until milling.  This has been labeled by the International Financing Corporation as the “from farm to fork” process.

In Cambodia, like in any other rice producing or agriculture-oriented economy, more than half the population is dependent on rice.  The COrAA says about 60% of the country’s population depends on rice cultivation, and about three-fourth (75%) of Cambodia is arable land.  Emphasis in the production of Cambodian jasmine rice and producing rice through organic agriculture seem to be the direction toward which Cambodian rice farmers are headed.  It is clear also that the aim of the Kingdom in the area of rice production is to export rice to both the developing and developed countries of the world.

Role of Financial Assistance

Helping Cambodia in transforming its rice industry is the International Finance Corporation (IFC), part of the World Bank Group.  According to the IFC, it is helping Cambodia in three major areas of the rice industry: improving the quality of rice, improving milling efficiency, and boosting Cambodia’s rice exports.

The IFC’s role in improving the quality of rice in Cambodia has been impressive.  According to the IFC, it has worked through millers to introduce Phka Rumuduol to farmers and this has resulted in increased yields.  The IFC has also helped sustain a weekly radio broadcast that has continually educated farmers on key farming techniques as well as the benefits of producing improved high-value fragrant rice seeds.  In 2013, IFC pointed out that it had helped more than 30,000 farmers in eight provinces improve their knowledge and attitudes on farming techniques, helped some 8,000 farmers shift to planting fragrant rice seeds that has resulted in an increase in average rice yields by 20%, and increasing revenues by an additional USD1.5 million.

Improving milling efficiency is another area that IFC has focused its attention on in the process of helping improve rice production in Cambodia.  Its target is to enable at least 10 rice mills to receive international certification by June 2015.  Through IFC funding, hundreds of rice millers are undergoing training in the improvement of operational efficiency and milling quality.  What may have triggered this portion of the project is IFC’s observation that a large proportion of Cambodia’s rough rice production is “informally exported” to Thailand and Vietnam, where it is milled and further exported to other countries as long-grained jasmine rice.  This has resulted in “tremendous loss of opportunity for Cambodian rice millers and traders to add value and create employment,” according to the IFC.

In boosting Cambodia’s rice exports,, the IFC has been working directly with the country’s rice exporters and traders.  Among the techniques in improving rice exports include developing new niche markets especially those that are willing to purchase premium fragrant rice at premium costs.  The IFC has made sure that it collaborated with both the public and private sectors of the rice industry in its efforts to boost Cambodia’s rice export performance.  This has been influenced greatly by the issuance of Cambodia’s Standards, by Royal Decree, in 2013.  IFC says, this has resulted in “quality assurances that have led to international recognition and confidence from global buyers.” 

IFC also continues to promote Cambodian rice in the TRT World Rice Conferences, as well as in other avenues in North America and the European Union.  Other efforts by the IFC in improving Cambodia’s rice industry include, among other things, registration of Cambodia’s rice price quotations at the Live Rice Index, where global price indices are available on weekly basis, and publicly accessible.  It is also supporting the Cambodia Rice Federation to develop a national branding campaign for Cambodia rice.

Ultimately, one of the measures of the success of Cambodia’s rice production efforts is possibly its recognition worldwide through the “World’s Best Rice” award.  Today, Cambodia has received such award three years in a row.  This has potentially raised the bar of expectation in terms of increased exportation of Cambodia’s jasmine rice.

Personal Narrative

GO WRITE YOUR PERSONAL NARRATIVES

By

Dr. Lex Librero

Graduation Speaker

_________________________________________________________

Graduation Address before the BNSHS Class 2013, Batanes National Science High School, Basco, Batanes, 20 March 2013

Division Superintendent of Schools Wivina B. Gonzales, BNSHS Principal Juan E. Redondo, Teachers and students of the Batanes National Science High School, proud parents,  and friends, thank you for inviting me to join you in witnessing this high point in the young lives of the members of the Batanes National Science High School graduating class of 2013.

It is both a pleasure and great honor to be speaking before you, graduates of the Batanes National Science High School, this year.  Fifty years ago, I was in your shoes,  and, like you, I dreamt of a successful life after high school. 

Graduation ceremonies are also known as Commencement  Ceremonies.  Particularly, those that transpire in high school have specific significance.  To graduate means to have completed a series of responsibilities, and to commence means to start something.   Reference to the graduation ceremony means that you are going through the final stages or rituals of having earned the right of passage, while that which refers to the commencement ceremony marks the beginning of the wonderful stories of young men and young women who are destined to succeed in their lives after high school.

My message to you, members of the BNSHS Graduating Class, on this day marking your graduation from high school is: go from these portals and seek your destiny.  Let me remind you, however, that destiny, according to poet William Jennings Bryant,  is not a matter of chance, but a matter of choice.  You don’t wait for it, you have to determine it, then achieve it.  So, go achieve your destiny, go write your own individual personal narratives that you would want to be remembered by.  The Batanes National Science High School has prepared you well for this journey.  But as you will find for yourselves, you will, on a clean sheet, draw your lives with a pencil without an eraser, for that is what life is all about.  You cannot erase the errors that you shall have made.  You will have to live with them forever.  Think … decide … then act.  The world is waiting for you.  So go  write your own stories.  Some of you might be asking yourselves, how will I do this?  Well, let me tell you part of the narrative that I have written while away from the portals of this institution, my alma mater.  I must seek your indulgence because this could be a long story to tell.

My friends, in 1984, I was here to address the graduating class of the Batanes National High School.  I considered that as some kind of progress report to my alma mater 21 years after I left in 1963.  Today, twenty-nine years after that address, or fifty years after graduating from this institution where great minds are molded, I am back, this time, to make my final report to my alma mater and to the members of this institution, including you, the members of the graduating class this year.  Indeed, it is a rare opportunity for anyone to be able to come back to his alma mater twice in his lifetime to render a report, and I am greatly honored to have been given this opportunity  so that I may share with you the narrative I wrote for myself while away from these portals.     

In the old English heroic epic poem titled Beowulf, we are told  that when everything is over and done with, after going through all the significant and insignificant events in our lives,  what is left is only our personal individual story or narrative.  Personalis narratives vivat in aeternum.  Indeed,  it is through this narrative that we may live forever. 

It is my hope, therefore, that you shall be able to pick some nuggets of thought from my narrative that may guide you as you navigate through the rough seas of life out there in the real world, writing your own narratives.  It is my fervent hope that you would write your own narratives as diligently as I did mine, for in the end this is all that matters in any one’s life.  When we are all gone, it is only what we have done in our lifetime that will linger on after us.

More than a month after our commencement exercises here in 1963, I joined my brother, who graduated and was already working as farm technologist at the UP College of Agriculture in Los Baños, in preparation for my enrollment there.  He was the one who sent me to school.  Without him, I would not have entered high school, much less college. 

Anyway, at that time, UPCAT was still not required, but the  UP College of Agriculture was admitting only the top 5% of graduates from high schools all over the country.  There were 500 of us that entered the UP College of Agriculture in June 1963, but after one semester 300 of us were left.  Passing the subjects at the UP College of Agriculture was very difficult, almost impossible if you did not study well, and so after yet another semester, 200 of us were left.  In the end, less than 100 finally graduated after five or six years, a survival rate of 20%.  Only four in our batch graduated on time, which was four years, and so they were permitted to join the UP Graduation Exercises in April 1967. 

I completed my BSA thesis in May 1967, only one month after the UP Graduation Ceremonies that year, but I was only included in the graduation ceremonies one year later.  When I finally joined the graduation ceremonies of UP in April 1968, I clearly remembered a dialogue between the late Mr. Cordell, the well-loved janitor of BHS during our time, and myself.  One day about two weeks before graduation, while we, the members of the graduating class, were converging on these grounds to rehearse our graduation program that time, Mr. Cordell casually asked me, dinu ngayan mo aya machinanauo? to which I responded lamely, du Los Baños siguro.  He was so surprised, even apprehensive and in disbelief.  He said, mangay ka’d UP? Gattus! 

In those days, there were very few Ivatan students at UP.   It is a different picture today.  As late as last year, if we compared the number of Ivatan students at UP based on the population base of the province, then we could say that   Batanes was over represented in UP.  This is perhaps an indicator that, indeed, Batanes is bursting on its seams with intellectually gifted young men and women, something all of us must be absolutely proud of.  Then again, getting to UP is just the beginning.

When I enrolled at the UP College of Agriculture in 1963, I realized Mr. Cordell was right being concerned whether or not I would make it in Los Baños.  I was thrust into the block section comprised of valedictorians and salutatorians from all over the country, from high schools, large and small.  Coming from a small high school, I felt I was so  provinciano and completely unprepared for the intellectual competition notwithstanding my excellent training at the Batanes High School.  Of course the competition was very fierce and I had to study extremely  hard because that was a point in my life when I was no longer simply thinking of my self but of my being an Ivatan.  Yes, there comes a time when you will no longer be concerned about yourself alone but with whom you represent.  I was the only one from Batanes in our batch and I became known to my classmates simply as hoy, taga Batanes, which even sounded derogatory as  Batanes was terra incognita, an unknown place, in those days.

While enrolled in the UP College of Agriculture, I was always short of money.  There was nothing new about this since I was also always short of money throughout my high school years.  But being short of money while you are in college in a distant, unknown place, the experience is extremely humbling, so I labored for additional survival pocket money as working student, earning a princely amount of P0.50 per hour.  In those difficult times, that meant I had some money, just enough to afford a respectable student life at that time, which was three square meals a day and cost of laundry, but I had to walk to all my classes everyday.   By any standard during that time, I was as poor as the bottom 5% of all students at the UP College of Agriculture.

Initially, as early as 1964, I was assistant laborer in the department of horticulture, in-between my classes.  I remember vividly that for one year, my responsibility was to water all the plants in the nurseries of the Department of Horticulture before I attended my classes in chemistry.  When I got to my classes, I would be all swollen up due to bites of giant garden mosquitoes.  In later years, I worked as assistant janitor and later as news release sorter in the Department of Agricultural Information and Communications, then later as student news writer, and then as student announcer in the radio station of the UP College of Agriculture.  As working student, I had to study doubly hard to avoid being left behind in my subjects.  I was lucky to have been included in the Dean’s list for one semester, even as I was a working student.

By the time I graduated, one of the regular staff members of the radio station resigned so I decided to apply for the position vacated.  I patiently waited for almost three  months before the UP College of Agriculture could hire me, and to make sure that I would be hired I continued working with the radio station, even after my official appointment as student announcer has expired, doing whatever was assigned to me without any salary.  I was finally officially hired as Radio Station Supervisor of UPCA’s rural educational radio broadcasting station, DZLB, in 1968.  Working in the radio station meant working in odd hours.  I had to report early to work at 7:00 a.m., and went home after signing off at past 8:00 p.m., everyday, including Saturdays and Sundays. 

I guess the message is, for those of you who wish to work in media like radio, television, or the newspapers, be prepared to work 24/7.

For four years I worked 12 hours everyday, but I never claimed nor got any overtime pay, even if I was entitled to it.  Instead, I continued working more than the required number of hours per day, and completed an amount of work more than what was required by my position without expecting to receive any remuneration. 

My intention was very simple and mundane, just to prove to my superiors that they did not make any mistake in hiring me after my graduation from college.  To top this all, my salary as Radio Station Supervisor then was only about 5% of what the present Radio Station Supervisor receives today.  I did not mind this because I learned by heart a lesson from our teachers in the BHS who used to tell us, “don’t expect to receive a reward for every single effort you make.  If you deserve to be rewarded, such reward will come but at a time you least expect it.  And whatever reward you will get will not always be what you have expected to receive.”  Yes, life does have unexpected turns and twists beyond our wildest imagination, especially in today’s world where everybody who wishes to stay alive is engaged in a survival competition among the increasing members of society. 

Then four years later, when my department was looking for an individual to fill an Instructor’s position left vacant by the resignation of one faculty member, I got the surprise of my life when I was appointed to the vacant position of Instructor in 1972.  Apparently, the then Chairman of the Department learned that I was doing overtime work everyday, including Saturdays and Sundays, in the past four years, without  complaint and without additional remuneration but simply performing my responsibilities the best way I could.  In other words, I was dependable and could deliver.  And I was good at what I did.  It helped, too, that most of the faculty and staff of the department were my friends and had, individually or collectively, suggested to the Chairman of the department that I deserved to be appointed to the position of Instructor.  At that time, becoming an Instructor in the UP College of Agriculture was what every graduate aspired for.  Incidentally, the norm then was that the only fresh college graduates that were hired for faculty position at UP right after graduation were honor graduates of UP. 

Beginning when I was a Radio Station Supervisor, however, I had started enrolling in one advanced or graduate subject every semester so that in 1974 I graduated with the degree Master of Science in Development Communication.  At that time, UPCA had become what is now known as the UPLB.

In 1975, I was then designated Station Manager of DZLB. This was an additional responsibility without additional remuneration.  I had to leave in 1977, however, to pursue my PhD degree at Indiana University.  Upon my return from Indiana University in 1981, I was promoted to Assistant Professor by virtue of the fact that I had earned a PhD degree and was already called Dr. Librero, and then I was appointed Acting Chairman of the then Department of Development Communication from 1983-1984, and as full-fledged chairman from 1985-1987. 

During my term as Department Chair, I worked for the elevation of the Department into the Institute of Development Communication, to which I was appointed the first Director in November 1987.  In 1991, I was appointed Associate Dean of the College of Agriculture.  Then in 1993, I was appointed Dean of the School for Distance Education (Los Banos) after the UP Open University was created by the UP Board of Regents.  In 1995, I was appointed Vice Chancellor for Research and Development of the UP Open University, and then as Chancellor, or Chief Executive Officer, from March 2001 to February 2007.

During all those years, I was so lucky to have been able to undertake various responsibilities.  Among other things, I was also able to do the following:

1.      I trained all the 110 farm broadcasters of the Department of Agriculture in 1973.

2.      I served as resource lecturer in more than 500 training courses, in a span of 34 years, from 1973 to 2007.

3.      I authored five academic books, more than a dozen book chapters, more than 30 technical journal articles, about three dozens popularized articles published in national and international magazines and newspapers, more than a dozen booklets, and more than two dozens papers presented in national and international conferences where I represented the Philippines as country delegate or representative.

4.      I was lucky to have mentored a whole generation of junior faculty members in the Department of Development Communication at UPLB, who have themselves become excellent academic administrators at UP today, and advised 30 PhD graduates, 30 MS graduates, and 25 BS graduates of development communication who are now successful professionals with various national and international institutions.

5.      I never left the University of the Philippines in search of a new job because when I was a student of the BHS, what got implanted in my mind then was the saying, “a rolling stone gathers no moss.”  Whatever that meant, it did not include getting rich.  Had my first job been with one of the commercial companies that tried to recruit me when I graduated from the UP College of Agriculture, I could have ended being chief executive of that company and would have become a millionaire as early as many years ago.  That was not my luck because I chose to be an academic in the public service, working through the University of the Philippines.   

Teaching in UP was very rewarding intellectually, but certainly not rewarding financially.  Again, my days in the BHS have always been coming back to mind with the reminders from my teachers that money was not all there was in the world.

I found teaching and  introducing innovations to improve my teaching capabilities in the university much more challenging, even if they were not financially rewarding.  In the end, I was able to improve myself as a professional and even influenced others to improve as well.   

The lesson here is, if you wish to become rich early on your own, select a high-paying job and stick to your organization until you make it to the top.  In the professional world where individual performance is important, always strive to be the best you can become.  The trick is, compete with your own self, not with others.  If you compete with your own self, you learn to improve and respect yourself, and develop your self confidence to its utmost.  If you compete with others, you will eventually learn to lose your self confidence.  Remember, too, that it takes time to succeed because success is the natural reward for taking time to do anything well.

During all these years, I have been lucky to receive some awards for work well done.  Those that I treasure include the Leadership Award in Educational Technology that the Alumni Association of Indiana University gave me in 1987, the M.S. Swaminathan Award for Social Science Research in Agriculture in 1993, the Distinguished alumni awards that the College of Agriculture, College of Development Communication, and the UPLB Alumni Association gave me from 1993 to 2007, the UP Scientist award from UP in 2006-2008, the international publications awards from UP from 2007-2012, the UP Alumni Association Distinguished Professional Award for communication education in 2007, the Rolando Andaya Sr. Award for Distance Education and Open Learning in 2011, among others.  There are numerous other awards but I don’t have to mention them here.  It is enough for me to say that I do have a fair share of recognition for work well done.

I should also explain to you that recognition comes in various forms as well.  I always value more those that did not carry financial rewards even if money might be important.  I was elated no end, for example, when the then Dean of the UPLB College of Agriculture himself initiated my nomination to the Ten Outstanding Young Men of the Philippines awards in 1987.  While my nomination to the awards was not submitted because I was already over-aged, I thought it was enough indicator that I had been doing well as a professional and other people have taken notice of my work as a professional.  That was already great reward for me.

In May 2008, I was all set to retire from the University of the Philippines but the new Chancellor of the UPOU had other plans for me and she convinced me to accept an extension of my appointment as professor of development communication at the UP Open University.  She said I was still needed by the UPOU to finish the work I started in 2004 to conceptualize, design, organize, and write the curriculum of the first Doctor of Communication program ever to be offered in Asia.  I relented and accepted full extension of my appointment every year in the last five years, which means I am still on the official roster of the faculty of UPOU until May this year.   In fact, I am here as professor of development communication representing the U.P. Open University.

In December 2007, I was elected by the faculty members in all the seven different campuses of the UP System to serve as member of the UP Board of Regents in 2008, representing the entire UP Faculty.   The UP Board of Regents is the highest policy-making body of the University of the Philippines System and I was a member of it for one year.  As Faculty Regent, I was sometimes called UP’s Centennial Faculty Regent because I was Faculty Regent during the Centennial (or the celebration of the first 100 years) of UP.  I was, of course, extremely proud of this because there can only be one Centennial Faculty Regent at UP every 100 years.   It so happens, too, that UP’s first Centennial Faculty Regent (and, if I may add, the only UP Centennial Faculty Regent until 3,008 A.D.) was an Ivatan, an alumnus of the Batanes High School, the forerunner of the Batanes National Science High School.

In 2009, I completed designing the proposed Doctor of Communication Program curriculum, which included system-wide consultations with other experts in communication at UP.  At UP, consultations meant very intensive and endless debates over many philosophical issues about a doctorate curriculum in the field of communication because at UP there were already two PhD programs in communication, one in Diliman and another in Los Baños.  

After the intensive consultations, I presented the proposal to the UPOU University Council for approval, and then to the UP Board of Regents for final confirmation.  In 2010, therefore, we started offering the program, and I was appointed to serve as the first Program Chair of the Doctor of Communication Program.  Today, the UPOU’s Doctor of Communication Program is the most popular professional doctorate degree program in communication in the country and in Asia, and one of three programs world-wide.   

By the end of May this year, 2013, I shall cease to be Program Chair of the Doctor of Communication Program, and I shall also cease to be professor of development communication at UPOU.  By then, I shall have reached the age of 70, and Civil Service rules prohibit regular appointment to the civil service of the country beyond age 70.  While I shall have come to the end of my active professional life, I shall be starting another life.  Life could begin at 70, indeed.

During the meeting of the UP Board of Regents on 28 February 2013, just three weeks ago, the University of the Philippines System honored me again with a lifetime honorific appointment to the title of Professor Emeritus effective May 31, 2013.  At UP, the title of Professor Emeritus, which is solely for the qualified retired faculty members, has become highly competitive and is, indeed, a great honor to be awarded the title.  To qualify for the nomination to the Professor Emeritus title, one has to have achieved the academic rank of Professor 12 while still in active service at UP, and must have performed exemplarily as professor at the University of the Philippines.  Not all retiring professors at UP are awarded this title.  It is still an elite title for any one, and as an Ivatan, I am proud to be called UPOU Professor Emeritus of Development Communication.   I offer that in honor of my alma mater, now called the Batanes National Science High School.

And so, my friends, incomplete as it may be, that is my narrative, the story of my life (or at least part of it) after high school, until 70, that is.  In this narrative, I am very proud to say that this Ivatan standing before you now has been given such honors by the University of the Philippines System.  This Ivatan is a member of the Batanes High School Class of 1963.  Some of the members of that class are here now to honor you and to celebrate their 50^th anniversary as graduates of this institution.  Let us acknowledge the BHS Class of 1963.   (Members of the Class of 1963 all rise.) 

They, too, have their own individual narratives.  Some day, you will know what those narratives are.  Perhaps, the Batanes National Science High School might want to collect the narratives of its graduates for reasons of posterity.  I shall be glad to give a copy of mine to the BNSHS.  

Thank you, Golden Jubilarians of the BHS.  You have survived half a century of exciting life after high school.  That, indeed, is something to be proud of.

So, now, may I address myself to you, members of the graduating class of BNSHS 2013, go forth and write your own individual personal narratives for only you can do it for yourselves.  How your personal stories will unfold depends on you, and you alone.  The world is waiting for you, and your teachers in this institution from which you are graduating today, shall be watching.

May I now invite you all members of the graduating class of 2013 to please rise … and may I invite all teachers, parents, and those in the audience, to give these young men and women a big applause.  (Every body applauses.  Graduates take their seats.)   My final message to you, my friends, is a passage that someone has written before.  “The roots of true achievement,” it is said, “lie in the will to become the best you can become.”   

Thank you again, and congratulations to all of you.

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