World class agricultural products comes out of top emerging tourism site Bicol

World class agricultural products comes out of top emerging tourism site Bicol

Published in the Manila Bulletin, January 25, 2010

melody m. aguiba

When it comes to emerging Filipino products, the Bicol Region can be the next big thing with its world class goods foremost of which is a remake of the native pili nut.

One does not have to go far down south and cross islands to find other high value goods like Bicol’s anti-arthritic native ‘Ragiwdiw’ footwear, healthy sweet sorghum cookies, nutrient-rich seaweed noodles, and the durable, finely embroidered pina fiber. For Bicol is just a land transport, although eight to 10 hours, away from Manila.

A Technology Commercialization Center (TCC) along Maharlika Highway in San Agustin, Pili, Camarines Sur has just been established to showcase these goods in the aim to establish a market that acknowledges international quality in Philippine goods.

For one, the Wrapsody pili pastry, coming from a humble beginning from the concoction of the husband and wife tandem Erwin and Cynthia, is now being positioned to be marketed in South East Asia as a delicacy worthy of comparison to the Mediterranean fame baklava, also a nut-filled pastry.

Wrapsody is made of layers of phyllo dough–thin sheets of dough that make flaky pies and pastries. Sweetened with caramel and syrup and made tastier by butter, it is filled with chopped pili nuts that take a customer to the distinct natural taste of pili that is recognizably as good as the almond in its bare flavor.

“Pili has a very delicate taste. The more you process it, the more you lose the real taste. If you’re not a Bicolano, you might not find it fine-tasting. But it’s a very good nut. It’s soft, and yet it’s crunchy. Just sun-dry it, and it gives a very satisfying taste,” said Erwin who comes from Bicol.

Wrapsody’s production volume at present is 300 units (12 pieces of approximately 2×2-inch piece per unit) per week. But with government assistance on marketing, there is certainly a big room for growth for this product.

“I just wanted to come up with something new out of pili because everytime my husband would bring home pili then from Bicol to our house in Quezon City, I would ask him if there isn’t any other product than just the (honey-glazed) pili,” said Cynthia who’s a home-cooking expert.

She then scouted for all potential ingredients and tried and erred and tried again on it until the taste was perfect.

The Ragiwdiw native footwear is another piece of handicraft that’s getting a boost in the market through the TCC established by the Bureau of Agricultural Research (BAR) in the aim to maximize commercialization of agriculture-based produce– processed and fresh.

Ragiwdiw is an obstinate weed in the rice fields that once pestered many farmers until the Philippine Rice Research Institute (Philrice) found a way to make rural folks earn from it through footwear-making. Smoother to the foot sole than abaca-made footwear, the fiber from Ragiwdiw manages to retain in the ridges it creates through the weaving process an ability to stimulate or massage the foot sole.

Thus, Ragiwdiw footwear maker Emily Noora boasts, “This is a treatment for rheumatism.”

For its nice look, therapeutic comfort, and durability (“it lasts for a long time,” Noora confesses), the Ragiwdiw slippers are being brought by Filipino balikbayans to their relatives and friends abroad.

“This has already reached Japan,” she said.

Prior to the establishment of the TCC, Noora’s goods were only being sold in public markets in Bicol. But these products need better image projection that they deserve.

“We positioned the TCC along the national highway so it can be strategically located. These centers should not look like they’re government–owned,” said BAR Director Nicomedes P. Eleazar.

Like Noora’s footwear handicraft, the sinamay bags, placemats, table runners, and decors of Bikol Sikat Handicraft (BSH) also need a new type of branded marketing.

“We need to have exposure. We’re only selling these at our factory in Camalig (Albay),” said BSH Entrepreneur Sheila Briones.

The TCC in Bicol, just the second TCC after BAR established one at its building along Visayas Avenue and Elliptical Circle in Quezon City, is actually becoming a center for technical assistance to farmers and rural enterprises and cooperatives. It also provides them internet access, a venue for assistance on real estate problems or business incubation needs, technical know-how in farming, technology transfer,and marketing.

TCC aims to narrow down the wide gap between technology generation and adoption by displaying the big potential for Filipino agricultural products.

It seeks to increase the income of farmers and small enterprises through value-adding, develop home-based and semi-commercial food processing enterprises, and generate jobs for housewives and out-of-school youth.

It should help reduce malnutrition in the outskirts and assist farmers in decreasing farm spoilage through technologies that will process crops during the peak season and sell these at a more attractive price off-season.

“It is becoming a convergence zone here for people who have different businesses,” said Norita Badong, entrepreneur who founded Diet Secret Cafe on Mayon Avenue in Naga City, a restaurant offering only healthful food such as sweet sorghum-made cookies.

Badong is apparently a Filipino pioneer in the use of non-wheat flour for cakes and pastries.

She is helped by TCC with the partnerships that she strikes with farmers, marketers, suppliers, or fellow entrepreneurs.

Diet Secret Cafe’s production of cakes, cookies, pasta, and snacks is contributing to increasing production of sweet sorghum of marginalized farmers in Pacol, Naga where 18 hectares are presently planted on sweet sorghum.

It has partnered with the Naga Small and Medium Business (NSMBE) from which it sources the sweet sorghum. The income that comes from sweet sorghum farming here is used to fund a scholarship for the underprivileged in the region.

Aside from giving livelihood and helping finance scholarships for the indigent, the growing of sweet sorghum also greatly benefits consumers. Sweet sorghum has those hard-to-find nutrients such as iron, calcium, and potassium. It is said to be the vitamins in the old times when vitamins were not yet in the form of over-the-counter pill.

Diet Secret Cafe, having been founded by a woman, , also gives livelihood to housewives who are being trained on food processing.

A native of Naga, Badong has specialized in using non-wheat flour from raw materials that are available in the PHilippines since this is both healthy and cost-effective. The Philippines heavily imports wheat for food– for our daily pan de sal, and import cost reaches to $200 million with around one million metric tons of imports a year.

She has successfully substituted the imported flour in cakes and bread without one even noticing the difference in the taste.

While it is difficult to use grainy flour like that of sweet sorghum flour, a key is in using this at a lower mesh sieve to make the product softer to the bite, said Badong. Non-wheat flour substitutes like sweet sorghum are also a rich source of nutrients.

“They’re already taking out the bran (outer layer of grain containing fiber, omegs, protein, vitamins and minerals), the hull, the wheat germ in white flour, so you’ll end up with empty carb. But sweet sorghum doens’t have a hull,” and so it retaints the nutrients in the grain, she said.

Badong, who finished Nutrition and Dietetics at the Universidad de Sta. Isabel, has been developing bakery products from non-wheat flour over the last five years. Her other starchy vegetable raw materials for cookies and cakes are camote (sweet potato), cassava, and arrowroot (uraro or araro). These crops have high amylose starch, making them advisable for intake by diabetics, hypertensives, the obese, and the diet conscious.

“The beauty of uraro is it has a high amylose starch, so it can be perfect for diabetics. Your body doens’t metabolize it readily, so the calorie that it yields is very low. It’s low glycemic too since it’s high in fiber. It’s in fact being used to prevent colon cancer,” she said.

Badong’s other secret in making her products healthy is the use of natural sweeteners like coconut sap sugar, xylitol, and stevia.

The Bicol Region is also an upcoming leader in seaweed products as the region, as you know, is surrounded by coasts where seaweeds abundantly grow. Now becoming a popular product is noodles that have seaweeds for a major ingredient and thus take advantage of seaweed’s phytochemical richness and anti-cancer, flu prevention, and immune system booster properties.

The Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic REsources-Regional Fisheries Research Development Center (BFAR-RFRDC) has initiated from its field office in Sorsogon the making of seaweed noodles which is now spreading throughout the region.

RFRDC Manager Aida S. Andayog said that since the Pacific side of Sorsogon has the highest biodiversity of seaweed in the world, the region might as well maximize commercial trade of this marine resource. Besides, the PHilippines is producing as much as 80 percent of the world’s seaweed production.

Seaweed noodle manufacturing is now giving livelihood to many small businesses in the region. For instance, the Bacolod Enterprises and Fisherfolks Organization (BEFO), an organization initiated by housewives, has been producing over the last two-three years seaweed noodles that are marketed in the community. Now their seaweed noodles are reaching farther up north, Baguio.

If the Philippines only knows how to market its highly health-giving seaweed noodles, these seaweed noodles can be as known and as commercially successful as the Mexican Taco or the Indian Chapati.

Hopefully, the TCC is helping gain popularity for this nutritious dish.

The embroidered pina fiber is another product long been there in Bicol, in Camarines Norte to be specific. Perhaps it cannot be done better elsewhere.

Camarines Norte’s pina fiber is exported to countries like Japan or Taiwan. But first of all, they should be widely consumed here. Pina fiber is known to be the best material for Philippine national clothing “Barong Tagalog.”

Yet, even this high-quality pina fiber needs a lot of promotion even within the country.

The pina fiber of Labo Progressive Multi Purpose Cooperative (LPMPC) specifically exceeds quality standards for durability or tensile strength and fineness as certified by the Fiber Processing and Utilization Laboratory of the Fiber Industry Development Authority (FPUL-FIDA).

But LPMPC General Manager Mario M. Esposo said his cooperative’s pina fiber needs a lot of support from the government and from Filipino consumers when it comes local patronization.

He said the government should fully enforce the law mandating that all government employees and officials should use uniforms made of Philippine tropical fabrics.

“It’s not being fully implemented,” he said.

If Republic Act 9242 (An Act Prescribing the Use of Philippine Tropical Fabrics for Uniforms of Public Officials and Employees) is implemented, then the budget for this can be used to boost sales of pina fiber and thus benefit Filipino farmers and weavers.

“We need help from local patronage. Our industries will survive if there’s local patronage,” he said.

LPMPC’s pina fiber barongs are famous for their beautiful designs that these are very much sought after for special events like weddings.

LPMPC is actually introducing many firsts from the Bicol Region– the manufacturing of the first all-Filiipino produced bottled fresh pineapple juice that is now seeking registration with the Food and Drug Administration so it can be marketed in big stores like SM. It has produced the first dehydrated pineapple in the market well-liked for its chewy bite and fresh sweetness.

These products are supporting the emerging fame of the region as a top tourism site with the development over the last three years in Camarines Sur of the CamSur Wakeboarding Center (CWC), reportedly the only one of such wakeboarding center in South East Asia. The Caramoan beach is also luring not only Balikbayans but foreign tourists as it boasts of a white-sanded beach and long shoreline.

Department of Agriculture Region 5 Regional Director Jose V. Dayao said the TCC is envisioned to become a center where local and foreign tourists can buy goods unique to Bicol to bring home with.

Filipinos will be able to recognize that the Bicol Region may have originally given rise to laing (made of gabi or taro leaves) which is now in a sanitary, bottled container. Laing is now considered a special dish in gourmet and fine dining restaurants specially as it is flavorful for its rich coconut sauce and for another variety of preparing it, one with hot tasty red pepper.

“After a tour, people will try to find goods to bring home as pasalubong. So we need a market like this that will cater to them,” said Dayao.

Inspiring and Educational Interview with PWDs

Inspiring and Educational Interview with PWDs

I am so thankful for the big adjustment we’ve been experiencing at the Growth Revolution Magazine since we released our first issue in July 2008. After having released our fifth quarterly issue on Climate Change Rice (http://growthrevolutionmag.wordpress.com/category/about-us/october-2009-january-2010/climate-change-rice-report/), we have become more confident about hitting deadlines which is really sacred in Journalism. Imagine not seeing your daily paper just because people miss keeping up with the deadline.  And having missed it in the magazine really pains me.

But I’m really so happy that despite the financial crisis, we’ve been able to release hard copy of the issues which is the most finance-draining part of a publication.  Of course we can just release online issues as a website is still a lot cheaper to keep.  But as you know and as most of us are, I love bringing prints–magazines, books– which I can read while transporting or taking a break anywhere. I really love driving a lot, I hope I can do really long distance driving as I’ve been inspired once to read about Lea Salonga’s long distance driving in th US.  But nothing is better than just sitting in a vehicle while on transport and reading a favorite piece of literature in print.  And you know, I haven’t even held an Amazon Kindle yet in my own hand, even if my husband once allowed me to bring a small device that I can use to read electronically.

Aside from being thankful about all these enjoyments that come from pubishing a Philippine-based science and technology magazine, I am so thankful that through Growth Revolution Magazine, I’m able to experience a very educational research work on Persons with Disabilities (PWD).  It is now politically incorrect to call them disabled (according to correct wordings advised by the United Nations) as these people are truly able to make huge differences in our lives and in our society as much as anyone.

I am dazed that we Filipinos know little about PWDs, their needs, their potentials, their contributions so far to society.  I felt so guilty that I’ve been whining about some of my misfortunes when some people who are visually impaired (correct term for the blind), hearing-impaired (deaf), and physically challenged (physically disable) have conquered people’s curses and scoffs and rose above their difficulties and became a success.  Many of these success stories are told by Grace D. Chong in “Flying on Broken Wings,”  a book a copy of which was given to me by Nova Foundation President Manuel (Noli) V. Agcaoili who himself, is a polio victim since age two. Noli is a marketing guru, civic leader, and entrepreneur.

It is sad to hear that some people still think such disabilities are a curse in the family and with such fail to address their basic need– education.  My eyes widened as I learned that Nova Foundation employs up to 70 PWDs out of its around 100 employees.  One of them is Gimar Aguillon, a very creative web designer and Nova’s web master.  Gimar became deaf at a very early age, he couldn’t remember if he ever really experienced hearing a sound.

The one thing that strikes me is Gimar was able to study because a friend of his mother knew that a program for the deaf is available at the P. Gomez Elementary School in Sta. Cruz, Manila.  Gimar’s mother then accompanied him to Sta. Cruz from their house in Navotas to be able to study.  But I just thought, what if his mother didn’t have a neighbor who knew that the deaf has such available resource?  I ask this since I myself don’t know what to advise my neighbor who has a deaf child until I heard about this from Gimar through an interpreter.

Now despite the lack of knowledge in most of us, there are now many resources for PWDs.  One of them is JAWS (Job Access with Speech), a screen reader which loudly utters whatever is written in a Word file.  This allows the visually-impaired to become capable of working as call center agents and telephone operators as some of those who have been trained in JAWS are now call center agents.  That to me is very inspiring.  JAWS was developed by Ted Henter, a former motorcycle racer who lost his sign in 1978 in an automobile accident.   Many more to come in our next issue.

BioChem Informatics Center

BioChem Informatics Center

By Dr. Junie B. Billones

The discovery of new drug usually starts with the screening of phytochemicals followed by synthesis and biological evaluation of the derivatives of the active component.

   The synthesis – assay cycle can be very tedious and costly since structural modification to improve the activity has been routinely carried out on ‘trial and error’ basis. With the advent of advanced computer technology and the development of hardware and software for computational applications, biomolecular modeling, quantitative structure–activity relationship studies and detailed physicochemical investigations at the molecular level are becoming routine methodologies in many biochemical research laboratories.

   There is no known research or academic institution in the Philippines that explores and exploits the databases of chemical structures, gene, and protein sequences for the discovery of novel drugs or biological targets and new mechanisms of relevant ligand-receptor interactions. Being the Health Sciences Center of UP and host of the National Institutes of Health and the Philippine General Hospital, UP Manila is the strategic location for the BIC.  UP Manila is the only University in the country now that offers an MS Bioinformatics.

      Our proposed BioChem Informatics Computing Center will lead the search for lead compounds from chemical

databases of natural products, modeling of substrate-target interactions using available public databases of biomolecules, and development of more potent and safer drugs using cutting-edge computational methodologies.

   Here are UP Manila’s current studies on BioChem informatics.

1. The Cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) Inhibitors (COX-2) paper aims to generate second generation of candidate drugs against inflammation. The non-steroidal antiinflammatory drugs such as ibuprofen (Advil, Medicol, Ponstan) have side effects such as ulcer.  COX-2 specific inhibitors should relieve pain and inflammation without serious side effects.  We came up with a score of new candidates predicted to be more potent than existing compounds in the market like celebrex and celecoxib. This manuscript is now being reviewed for publication in the Philippine Journal of Science(PJS).

2. The paper on the search for Human Leukocyte Antigens (HLAs) is purely bioinformatics in nature.  Here, protein sequences from protein data bank (PDB) were aligned and modeled. Then these HLAs were allowed to interact with forces which model an epitope of dengue virus 2. The results of such interaction allow the identification of several HLAs that could potentially interact strongly with dengue virus and could serve as the basis of antiviral therapies.

3. The paper on molecular design of a sunflower based peptide as inhibitor to dengue protease involves homology modelingCyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) Inhibitors (COX-2) of four serotypes of dengue virus. We introduce mutation to sunflower trypsin and generated 20 peptide analogs which were modeled and docked (allowed to interact) onto the four dengue proteases. This study allowed the identification of a potent peptide against the four types of dengue virus. This study won the best poster award in health science category last 2008 National Academy of Science and Technology (NAST) meeting.

4. The study on HIV inhibitor involves modeling of HIV and its mutant which were obtained from PDB and compounds that can potentially inhibit the virus.  It does not only involve docking (which simulates the interaction of drug and target site of protein) but also generate potentially more potent antiviral agent against the native and mutant virus. The graphical output shows the interaction of drug with the target at the molecular level.

   The BIC will certainly provide opportunity to young Filipino scientists who are interested in biocheminformatics.

Bioinformatics: RP’s Big Step in Drug Discovery

Bioinformatics:  RP’s Big Step in Drug Discovery

By Bernie Cahiles-Magkilat

Bioinformatics techniques in drug discovery are making a way for Filipino scientists to take a hard look at developing the country’s drug-making potentials. It could be a small step in the world of the giants, but nevertheless a step in the right direction.

   The Wikipedia defines bioinformatics as the application of information technology to the field of molecular biology.

   Common activities in bioinformatics are mapping and analyzing DNA and protein sequences, aligning different DNA and protein sequences to compare them and creating and viewing 3-D models of protein structures.

   “If you don’t have a laboratory to conduct a full-blown experiment, you can do it on the computer using a specialized software,” said Dr. Junie B. Billones, University of the Philippines (UP)-Manila Learning Resource Center director who is spearheading this effort..

   The process is time-and-cost-efficient.  It allows the compounds to be examined first through computer simulation to find out if there are active (curative) component in a natural ingredient that can be developed for a targeted drug to treat a particular disease.

   Bioinformatics techniques are already widely employed abroad. A cost-effective system in drug synthesis is an important factor in the commercial success of a drug.  This process must integrate chemistry, biology, pharmacokinetics, and other disciplines needed in drug design and development.

   For this, the Philippines needs to establish a BioChem Informatics Center (BIC).  UP Manila is pushing for the funding of the BIC by the Philippine Council for Advanced Science and Technology Research and Development (PCASTRD-DOST).

   “We plan to acquire Accelrys’ complete suite of computational programs for drug design and discovery.  With these programs, one can easily screen potential drug candidates from a database of natural and synthetic products for any target biomolecules,” he said.

   The Philippines has so much natural resources to tap for drug development. But it needs the equipment and the training of people skilled in bioinformatics and related disciplines, according to Billones, a graduate of BS Agricultural Chemistry (magna cum laude) at the Visayas State University and a Ph.D. in Chemistry at the Australian National University at Canberra.

   With our very limited resources, Billones hopes that the academe, industry, and the government can

collaborate on the long process of drug development.

   For instance, the output of UP Manila’s simulation works can be used by UP Diliman or Ateneo where they have synthetic capability.

   Isn’t it about time that the Philippines develop its own drug manufacturing industry? Bioinformatics is paving the way. Let there be a strong determination to proceed.  

See them in the Market

Bureau of Agricultural Research Tech Commercialization Report

See them in the Market

For the first time in 15 years, Emily Noora, 44, may finally be getting the lift of her life for her “Ragiwdiw” slippers through a special market she has never enjoyed before.

Special because this market, the Technology Commercialization Center (TCC), fits exactly what she, and actually most Filipino farmers, handicraft makers, and innovators, has always needed.

Ragiwdiw was an old pest, a weed that pestered rice farmers because of its persistence in the deep-watered field.

That is a past thing now because farmers have learned to haul those wild grasses and dry them under the sun upon learning this from the Philippine Rice Research Institute’s Palayamanan program .

They then weave them into braids and sew them into slippers, sandals, and shoes that are persistent, durable, and lasting as they are in the field. People like them because they are cheap for their big use.

Emily’s shoe trade is on display at the TCC, along the Maharlika Highway in San Agustin, Pili, Camarines Sur and right at the Bureau of Agricultural Research’s (BAR) main building at the corner of Elliptical Circle and Visayas Ave.

This is a promotion for her products whose only main market before was the Naga public market.  But of course Noora boasts her products have already reached rich countries like Japan through hand-carried delivery of balikbayans every now and then.

“This is good for rheumatism,” said Noora of her footwear which has soft, soothing spikes for the ailing foot sole. “It’s more durable than abaca.”

Undulating lines of alternating dyed red and beige colors don the shoes as designed by Emily herself from her own experience of what is most appreciated by customers.

Her hard work is paying off as the BAR’s TCC is linking manufacturers like her with traders and consumers. The TCC in the Bicol Region just opened this year, still the first TCC outside of the first TCC in Quezon City.

But the aim of BAR is really to multiply centers like this that makes the supplier and market linkage possible.

“We positioned it along the highway so it can be strategically-located. These centers should no longer look like they’re government-owned, so people would find it inviting to visit them,” said BAR Director Nicomedes P. Eleazar.

More TCCs are expected to be put up by DA and BAR since this set-up has been showing up to be a magnet for Filipino consumers. What, with 90 million Filipinos getting amazed and surprised that the Philippines has many excellent, locally-made, world-class products that simply don’t reach them!

More than just a market, the TCC is a one-stop-shop of training, trading, and technology transfer.

“It is becoming a convergence zone here for people who have different businesses,” said Norita Badong, founder of Diet Cafe whose health-giving malunggay and sweet sorghum-filled products are also on display at the TCC.

The TCC in San Agustin has its own internet cafe for the use of farmer-partners and entrepreneur-partners which makes this place information access-friendly.

It offers a service on Business Incubation. This enables farmers and entrepreneurs to voice out any need such as those for processing equipment or packaging equipment. Business Incubation is also all about logistical support to the agriculture stakeholders. They may find help on office space, telephone connection, internet connection, suppliers’ information and marketing and promotion information.

This is also the place to visit for buyers, hopefully those who over the long term would eventually buy in bulk or those who would buy to export.

Hands-on training, demonstration of new technologies, and reading materials on technologies are available here.

Since the Bicol Region is becoming the fastest-growing tourism area in the country– with CamSur Wakeboarding Center (CWC) and the Caramoan beaches there– the TCC in Pili is envisioned to likewise become a center where local and foreign tourists can buy goods and souvenirs unique to Bicol to bring home with, according to Dr. Jose V. Dayao, DA Bicol regional director .

One top product sold at the TCC-Region 5 is the bottled laing (made of gabi or taro leaves). The Bicol region is known to have produced this special viand that has already been acknolwedged as a delicacy even in gourmet and fine dining restaurants. The fast-becoming famous Wrapsody of the husband and wife tandem Cynthia and Erwin Perena are runaway sellers at the TCC.

Bicol is still a major source of native handicrafts that truly identify their source to the rural province.

Bikol Sikat Handicraft has the handiwork for placemats, table runners, venetian blinds, bags, handbags, slippers, giveaway items, decors, sinamay bags, and abaca-made tissue holders. Its use of different materials– twine, abaca fiber, bakbak (outer part of abaca), lupis (third and fourth layer of the abaca leafsheaths) make for a variety in the appearance of the handicrafts

Bikol Sikat Handicraft does have a store in Camalig, Albay, within the family’s own residential-factory area. But the TCC will also be a big boost for its crafts as much as for Noora’s footwear.

“We need to have exposure,” said Shiela Briones. “It is good (Bicol Integrated Agricultural Research Center Manager) Ma’am Ellen (Delos Santos) invited us to display here.”

A natural ingredient producer, the Bicol Moringa Development Cooperative (BMDC), is another great expectant with the TCC. Through it, Efren Ramos, BMDC’s founder, is able to touch base with markets and other farmers that are planting the vitamins and minerals-rich moringga (malunggay).

BMDC makes Moringa Miracle Green Capsule, Moringa Wonder Polvoron, Rice Coffee, and Moringa Rejuvenating Tea. Another future for moringa is the production of oil which can be a source of biofuel.

Ramos is seeking government assistance not only on marketing and promotion for BMDC’s products but also on equiment like capsulator for the moringa food supplement, tea bagging machine, and coffee roasting machine. For its planting of moringa, the cooperative has been able to obtain counterpart funding from the National Agribusiness Corp. to expand the work of the Moringa Growers Deferation of the PHilippines.

These entrepreneurs look forward to better coordination and linkage as the TCC aims for the following:

Narrow down the wide gap between technology generation and adoption by displaying the big potential for Filipino agricultural products in both processed and finished form

Increase the income of farmers and small enterprises through value-adding

Develop home-based and semi-commercial food processing enterprises

Generate jobs for housewives and out-of-school-youth

Decrease farm spoilage through technologies that will process goods during the peak season and sell these at a more attractive price off-season

Reduce malnutrition in the outskirts.

How to Put Up a Seaweed Business

Bureau of Agricultural Research Tech Commercialization Report

How to Put up a Seaweed Business

Are you looking for a business that offers customers health-giving benefits, gives a return on investment of 50% and higher, and which promotes Philippine indigenous raw materials?

   Then you must look at what seaweeds can give you. Seaweeds grow abundantly in the country since we have many coasts, the second longest in the world where seaweeds can grow.  There are many different species of seaweeds, a total of 1,500 have been identified all of which are of high-economic value, but only 500 are edible. Seaweeds are very nutritious and even have anti-cancer properties (see other story on seaweed’s health benefits).

   Take the first step now.

   1.  Pick the product you’d like to produce.  The Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources- Regional Fisheries Research Development center (BFAR-RFRDC) Region 5, and its manager, Aida S. Andayog, can help you learm some of the their top seaweed products which are really innovative.  They have been developed by food technology experts together with seaweed specie specialists.  Here are among their best products, their ingredients, and their return on investment (ROI) as provided by BFAR-RFRDC.

SEAWEED NOODLES / PANSIT				Php
	Gross Sales ( 15 packs x P20.00)			300.00
	Less Working Capital
		1 kl.	all purposed flour	46.00
		6 tsp.	lye (lehia)	2.50
		4 tsp.	iodized salt	1.00
		8 tsp.	flavoring	9.00
		1 cup	seaweed puree	2.50
		1 lit.	oil	67.50
		15 pcs.	PE Plastic Bag ( 6×10)	11.25
			Gasul Consumption	10.00
			Labor Cost	50.00
	Production Cost			199.75
	Net Income			100.25
	ROI			50%

PICKLED SEAWEED ( Eucheuma)				Php
	Gross Sales (25 bottles x P30.00)			750.00
	Less Working Capital
		500 kl.	Seaweeds cuts	40.00
		125 grms.	ginger	7.50
		75 grms.	garlic	2.00
		250 grms.	carrots	5.00
		75 grms.	green and red pepper	7.50
		1/4 gal.	vinegar	17.50
		1/4 kl.	brown sugar	8.00
		25 pcs.	glass bottles @ 15.00 / bottle	375.00
		25 pcs.	bottle sealer	8.00
			Gasul consumption	10.00
			Labor Cost	35.00
	Production Cost			515.50
	Net Income			234.50
	ROI			69%

SEAWEED CHIPS							Php
	Gross Sales ( 60 packs x P 6.00)						360.00
	Less Working Capital
			1 kl.		all purposed flour		46.00
			4 tsp.		Black pepper (powdered)		5.00
			2 tsp.		baking powder		2.00
			4 tsp.		iodized salt		1.00
			8 tsp.		flavoring		9.00
			1 cup		seaweed puree		2.50
			1 lit.		oil		67.50
			60 pcs.		PE Plastic Bag (5X7)		30.00
					Gasul Consumption		10.00
					Labor Cost		50.00
	Production Cost						223.00
	Net Income						137
	ROI						61%
SEAWEED CHOCOLATE BAR								Php
	Gross Sales (15 bar x P10.00)							150.00
	LESS Working Capital
		2 cups		seaweed puree				10.00
		1 cup		evap. Milk				15.00
		2 cups		Sugar				8.00
		1 tbsp.		cacao / cocoa				1.00
		1/8 tbsp.		vanilla				0.75
		1/2 cup		seaweed granules / pili crushed				5.00
		1/2 sheet		water cellophane				3.00
				Gasul Consumption				10.00
				Labor Cost				30.00
	Production Cost							82.75
	Net Income							67.25
	ROI							81%

2.  Get a training on seaweed product preparation with BFAR-RFRDC.  It has introduced this program with local government units (LGUs).  It has developed a Master Development for seaweeds funded by the Department of Agriculture’s Bureau of Agricultural Resaerch (DA-BAR).  That may help you align your business to government’s seaweed industrialization thrust.

3.  Learn more on product development and product diversification.  The four products above are just what we have tasted.  But the RFRDC has a host of other delicious seaweed products including candied dried seaweeds, nata de seaweeds, seaweed tart, seaweed jam, yema with seaweed, cracknels de seaweeds, and macaroons with seaweed. 

   One seaweed product, seaweed puree, can free you up from the lengthy time preparing a leche flan.  The puree can make it instantly for you! Also, get to know how seaweed can be part as extender for Halal products when mixed with beef or chicken by as much as 60%.  That you may export too to neighboring South East Asian countries!  Did you know that  spirulina which are known to have uses for weight loss, nourishment, antiviral, antiallergy, antitumor, cholesterol, and other conditions also come from seaweeds?

   Yes, one whole store can be filled up by all these really “good” goodies.

3.  Coordinate with BFAR and with your LGUs on how to get raw materials for these products. RFRDC’s objective is really to help marginalized groups earn additional income.  RFRDC’s seaweed product business has been designed to be a home-based, village-level business so that you have the chance to put it up at lower starting capital and cost.

   RFRDC and BAR are helping organize people in the community to form a common business on seaweeds. 

4.  Take advantage of assistance from government on the promotion of products and product development such as like the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) One Town One Product (OTOP). Region 5 has been a major center for the development of this business as its covered areas (including Sorsogon, Catanduanes, and Masbate) have high potential for seaweed production. But learn from them on other potential seaweed sources.

5.  Prepare for possible expansion by learning the registration process with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA, formerly BFAD).  This, along with getting the Nutrition Facts on your product label as analyzed by private laboratories, BFAR-RFRDC, or Food and Nutrition Research Institute,  is requirement in selling to bigger stores. 

6.  Food safety is a priority before anything.  Coordinate with RFRDC on important food safety activitites that can strengthen your marketing confidence. This includes product shelf life, moisture content, microbiological analysis, nutritional analysis, and even sensory evaluation.

7.  If you are interested in the seaweed farming side, BFAR trains people on different methods– fixed bottom monoline, lantay method, or raft method– whichever is suitable to your site and function which depends on water depth or if you want to put up a seaweed nursery.

   BAR and BFAR have initiated seaweed nursery farming technology training in the Bicol Region under the Community-based Participative Action Research (CPAR). It was part of an effort to direct fishermen away from destructive cyanide fishing and into environment-friendly livelihood.  These agencies are also working on tissue culture in order to multiply propagation of disease-free seaweed seedlings.   

   You can certainly go into.  The Philippines already has this rich natural resource to begin with. And Andayog boasts that the Pacific side of Sorsogon has the highest biodiversity of seaweed in the country, perhaps even in the whole world.     

8.  Listen to seaweed business success stories. The Tech Com project of BAR and RFRDC has generated numerous success stories in bringing housewives and community people in Region 5 in this business.

   Geronica, Roliza Galliguez and her barangay neighbors formed the Bacolod Enterprises and Fisherfolks Organization (BEFO).  They collected an initial capital of P300 from 17 members and produced seaweed  pickles and then seaweed chips.  Now they’re also into seaweed noodles (Carbonara-style) for which they bought from Divisoria a locally-fabricated noodle machine costing P5,000. They also produce a seaweed candy that’s mixed with squash and sweet potato (camote).

   All of these noodles are very nutritious with the mix of seaweed or malunggay.  They’re now selling it in the Bicol province and also send it to as far as Baguio.  Galliguez said BEFO has reached this far as its members have been commonly sacrificing their time and labor for the business while the barangay and the town leadership is also supporting it with the space provided for the women in the barangay hall. 

   They’re still sun-drying the noodle but looks forward to soon buying a drying machine as orders are increasing.  These seaweed-producing business groups offering nutritious food specially for the children are expanding all over this region.

   For more information, please contact Ms. Aida Andayog, 0916-716-3384 and esandayog@yahoo.com or Ms. Digna Sandoval of Technology Commercialization, BAR, 0929-343-9052.

Lifestyle: Nicomedes P. Eleazar: Your Expert Link to Tech Research & Commercialization

Lifestyle:  Nicomedes P. Eleazar:  Your Expert Link to Tech Research & Commercialization

A different approach is making the effort of technology transfer reach more Filipino farmers. 

   The strategy of making problematic people think on how to solve their problems may not be a new thing. But it certainly increases the degree of success a solution can achieve. 

   That’s how differently Bureau of Agricultural Research (BAR) Director Nicomedes P. Eleazar has been trying to bridge the gap between technological research and its application.

   “There is a social preparation (in imparting changes to a community).  We don’t just introduce a package of technology.  We also consider the social aspect which is very important.  If you prepare people, there won’t be any resistance,” he said.

   There may be some bad things that you can hear from non-government organizations (NGOs).  But Eleazar picks up on perhaps one of their greatest strengths and called it Community-based Participatory Action Research (CPAR).

   Eleazar grew up seeing how agriculture works in his family’s farm in Tagkawayan, Quezon.  As one who comes from a family who farms, and admitting to be a promdi (from the province), Eleazar knew too well that learning a technology is one thing.  And being hands-on in it, another.

   This is why he has been all out implementing CPAR which harnesses community organizing experts to take the lead in helping farmers adopt technologies by making them participate in how to solve their problems from the very start.

   With CPAR, farmers participate in optimizing their income possibilities from the planning stage to the implementation stage of a program. CPAR has a Farmer Appreciation Implementing Program that makes farmers want to be in this program.

   CPAR gets the team work, the team energy out of the organization that it helps put farmers into. 

   “We only involve organized groups,” said Eleazar.

   Collective power from an organized group is bolstered by the efforts of community development experts most of whom have taken up Social Work or Community Development as a course at the University of the Philippines (UP) in Diliman . There is, in fact, a Ph.D. on Community Development at UP Los Banos (LB) which Eleazar assures is a very important course.

   “Training in Community Development is very useful specially now that we have a focus on development programs. It’s very important when you’re dealing foreign donor institutions, aid agencies, and GFIs (government financial institutions).  Climate change is in now.  But before climate change became popular, community development has been the ‘in’ thing.”

   Eleazar himself has seen tremendous benefit from his own education and training in leading BAR into helping technologies get to the market.   See his background.

          BS Agriculture-UPLB

          Master of Science in Management (Project Management), Cranfield University, Bedford, England

          Ph.D. in Rural Development (candidate), Central Luzon State University (CLSU)

          Ph.D. Agricultural Sciences (Honoris Causa). Ramon Magsaysay Technological University

          Non-degree courses:  Animal Disease Control, Cochran Fellowship Program, Iowa State University;                             Agricultural Research Management, SEAMEO-Searca;  Project Benefit Monitoring and Evaluation                          (PRME) System for Foreign Assisted Projects, Ateneo Graduate School of Business;  Designing and                           Managing Integrated Rural Development Programs, George Mason University Professional Training           Center, Arlington, Virginia

   “My course on project management is actually very applicable in our environment because BAR is a coordinating agency.  We manage implementation of research programs and look at all the aspects of a project– technical, financial, social, and economic.”

   First of all, he took up BS Agriculture, following after his father who finished Agriculture at CLSU long before UPLB even had its first Agriculture course offering.

   And keeping his eye on their family farm has turned out to be his therapy away from his stressful days at BAR since Department of Agriculture (DA) Secretary Arthur C. Yap has been constantly making sure research commitments are put in place. 

   “That was my deal with (former DA Sec) Dr. (William) Dar and Sec. (Leonardo) Montemayor when I committed to do this work– that I should have the time to go home to Quezon,” he said.

   His farm, situated along the highway, has already once become a technology demonstration site, as you know Eleazar knows best practices. But, he stresses, this is only a “small” piece of land.  Among the crops planted in it are rice, coconut, citrus (dalanghita), Thailand’s sweet tamarind for which he has 65 trees, and pili.

   He admits to missing now some foreign conferences and trainings due to the demands of his work which he joyfully accepts because he knows this will have a lasting impact on the society.

   His dream is to see the realization of the agriculture modernization through the Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Act (AFMA).

   “We should be given P2 billion a year for research until AFMA is finished,” he said.

   And what no better way to accelerate achieving that modernization dream than doing the marketing first which is what he has done through BAR’s Technology Commercialization Center (Tech-Com).  The Tech-Com in Region 5 does not only sell farmers’ fresh and processed production in its display area.  It has also become a convergence site for farmers, suppliers, traders, industrial markets, and consumers.

   “After you’re done in your farm research and in helping farmers adopt them, enterprise development follows.  You have to teach people to become entrepreneurs. That’s poverty alleviation, and it’s the best strategy,” he said.

   He was convinced that Tech-Com is essential to technology commercialization since he was honest enough to admit, in the first place, where government had erred in the past.

   “We really had that shortcoming in R&D (research and development).  We’ve been so used to the academe dealing on research, competing for this, and then getting the works published in journals.  But after those, nothing really happens.”

   Some secrets to managing:

          Books:  The One Minute Manager, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.  Once he chooses the right people           and trains them, he empowers them to accomplish work without having to be closely supervised. 

          Hobbies and Relaxation:  Reading my favorite books and magazine; watching CNN; singing a little.  I can                    survive staying in my office all day.  During my free time, I review on the tasks needed in our (family)                         farm, how much coconut jam can be produced from the coconut produce.  I’m proud.  That’s my                             recreation.

          Exercise:  brisk walking in our subdivision

   When he retires, he will engage in food processing for his family farm which is now managed by a nephew. And he confesses, he’s already very eager to do that. 

   “When I’m no longer BAR’s director, watch out.  You’ll see me there selling pili.” 

How to keep a cooperative successful

Financial Management

Bureau of Agricultural Research Technology Commercialization Report

How to keep a cooperative successful

It is hard to start a business, even a small cooperative.

   But it is much harder to keep one going and keep it thriving for many years as what the Labo Progressive Multi-Purpose Cooperative (LPMPC) has achieved.

   LPMPC was established by Nelly C. Jariel in 1987 as a mere “paluwagan” (informal savings) among vegetable vendors at the Old Labo Public Market in Camarines Norte.  It became a cooperative in 1989.  From only P5,000 capital with 15 members, it now has assets of almost P40 million. 

   It is one of the most progressive and most respected cooperatives in the Philippines with more than 30 awards and recognition from the municipal, provincial, regional, and national levels.  From the original savings and credit operations, it has expanded to the production of pina (pineapple) fiber, pineapple juice, pineapple jam, dehydrated pineapple, and virgin coconut oil. 

   Mario M. Espeso, LPMPC general manager, reveals to Growth Revolution Magazine, some of the keys to his cooperative’s success.    

1.  Abide by regulations and standards on quality. Take and develop the best raw materials. and work hard to exceed these.  LPMPC subjected its polypina, a strong and silky fine translucent fabric, to the Fiber Processing and Utilization Laboratory of the Fiber Industry Development Authority (FIDA).

   The hand-woven pina cloth of LPMPC, made of pineapple fiber and silk yarn, have both surpassed the fineness and tensile strength standards for textile production.

   On the farming side, it is working on a Good Agricultural Practice (GAP) as being demonstrated in a five-hectare area where it is showing a crop that should have acceptable level of pesticide residue after harvest.  Elena B. Delos Santos, Bicol Integrated Agricultural Research Center (BIARC)-Region 5 director, said a package of technology is advised for use in GAP.

   It is also seeking Food and Drug Administration (FDA, formerly BFAD) registration for its virgin coconut oil (VCO), pineapple juice, and dehydrated pineapple.

2.  Go for standards and best practices.  In its factory for pina cloth or pina specialty paper– these are already standard processes:   sorting, cleaning, and washing of the fruits; boiling and washing of the material; hand and machine beating of the pulp; washing and bleaching of the pulp and removal of discoloration and impurities,. It employs other best practices in farming and other business operations.

3.  Train, educate people.  Nothing makes a person leave a more lasting legacy than training people.  For LPMPC, this has required a rigorous training of skilled labor in farming, weaving, processing work.

   “Others are trying to save, they refuse to invest in education of their members.  We have our Continuous Education and Training Fund.  We allocate a budget for this, but it’s still insufficient. Members have to be well-informed on our activities and are contented,” Espeso said.

4.  Get grants, cooperation for education and training.  LPMPC got one from INVENT of Germany.  LPMPC boasts it has educated members. Espeso himself finished Geology at the Mapua Institute of Technology.  After practising his craft in a mining company, he moved to the LPMPC and made it thrive profusely.

5.  Seek government’s assistance for projects aimed for public good.  The cooperative has obtained the help of the Department of Agriculture (DA) and on its weaving machine acquisition.  It has obtained the aid of the DA-High Value Commercial Crop (HVCC) and of the Bureau of Agricultural Research (BAR) on its needed packaging machines for its pineapple juice in PET (polyethylene terephthalate) bottle and tetra pak. 

   Moreover, it is seeking help from DA-BAR for its acquisition of a peeling and sealing machine.

5.  Make use of all waste materials.  Put up a zero-waste operation.  The major business of LPMPC now may be the pina fiber production.  But it also produces hand-made paper from the pineapple plant; bond paper, cartolina, wall paper, backlit paper, and papers according to the color, design, and specification of buyers; and specialty papers for producing invitation cards, certificates, and novelty items. The pineapple pulp can be used for jam pie, and vinegar.   

6.  Create your own niche.  With this you can price as you want as you may meet needs of customers that are not met in the present market.  The cooperative’s pineapple juice is unique in its own right– fresh pineapple juice without preservative, still full of its nutritious goodness.

   It may have the same product as those of big multinationals Dole or Del Monte.  But Espeso said they are not really LPMPC’s competition because of its plastic bottle packaging.  It is seeking FDA registration for the juice, so it can sell it to the department stores after getting a license to operate (LTO). 

   It has also created a niche for meeting buyers’ tailored requirement for  cloth width, design, and embroidery for piña cloth. This too is true in its specialty paper production.

7.  Develop improvised tools and devices, if possible, to save cost.  LPMPC has just improved its warping stool and winder for its hand-woven pina cloth.

8.  Diversify your income source.  That comes from an old adage, “don’t put all your eggs in one basket.”  That may have advantages and disadvantages (like losing focus), but it works for LPMPC in spreading risks and spreading its economic impact and benefits to people.  From its pina cloth operation, it diversified in 2007 to virgin coconut oil since the province has many coconuts.

   Since 2008, it has produced pineapple puree made of pure pineapple extract and pasteurized to a low heat and packed in a 250 milliliter (ML) and 500 ML bottle.  It has produced pineapple juice made of pineapple extract mixed with water, a small amount of sugar, and food-grade citric acid and packed into a 250 ml standing foil pouch and subsequently, PET bottles.

   Also in 2008, it started producing dehydrated pineapples and pineapple chunks.  It has studied the best moisture content for its dehydrated pineapples  by which it will be liked by customers.

9.  Market aggressively.  Join trade fairs, exhibits, selling missions. 

10.  Study, tap create, and prepare for new markets. It is studying the European market for specialty paper which has one of the biggest needs for this.  It is still targetting the export of fresh pineapples to South Korea as Camarines Norte has done once or twice.  But it is preparing for this for three years by expanding Queen pineapple planting so it can supply the needed volume in a consistent, rather than intermittent, manner.

11.  Choose the best market strategy. It has offers to sell pina cloth to Japan and Taiwan. But it still focuses on the local market because of the “faster turnover.”

12.  Invoke laws, rules that will enhance your market and operations.  LPMPC is pressing government for the enforcement of Republic Act 9242, “An Act Prescribing the Use of the Philippine Tropical Fabrics for Uniforms of Public Officials and Employees,” ratified in February 2004 but which has not yet been fully enforced up to now.  LPMPC has to strive to get the pina fiber to survive since the country depends on no other; ramie fiber is already gone, said Espeso, and “all our fabrics are 85% imported.”

13.  Promote local patronage of Filipino goods.   It is seeking government support on local patronage of goods.  An ordinance from the local government unit (LGU) may do.

   “This should be a collaborative effort.  Our industries will survive if there’s local patronage.  Many go bankrupt because there’s no support from local patronage.  This should be supported by the LGU.  It’s difficult if it’s only from an organization.  This will immensely encourage creation of jobs and promote food sufficiency,” said Espeso.

   He admits though they’re fortunate with the support of their Labo Mayor Winifredo Oco, also League of Municipalitites president.  It gets a lot of support in the form of vehicles, technical support, advocacy, and equipment.

   “Other important assistance may not be in the form of money.  Money is easy to spend, but you may use, for example, an equipment longer.

14.  Acquire globally-competitive technologies.  This will deliver excellent products and services for sustainable community development.   The cooperative boasts of using the best technology in producing VCO.

15.  Set a mission for the organization. Share the benefit to stakeholders,  to the wider community.  This has been among the cooperative’s missions– provide access to opportunities for and help increase productivity of its members. 

 16.  Value people’s employment.  They will be grateful to you for it. Consorcia Cebanto, 59, a weaver who has trained at the Cottage Industry Technology Center-Marikina, said LPMPC is a big help to her family as it gives her P60 per yard of woven cloth. She finishes up to three yards a day. 

   LPMPC’s Handwoven Piña Cloth and Handmade Paper generates employment and additional income to other cooperatives and to more than 1,000 community people including jail inmates and high school students.

   Its Integrated Queen Pineapple Processing– producing pineapple puree, juice drink, dried pineapple and pineapple jam– aims provides employment to the community and an alternative source of income to more than 500 pineapple grower-members.

17.  Promote thrift and savings.  From only P5,000 capital, its total assets as of June 30 this year was P35.98 million; members’ deposit, P6.4 million; and members’ share capital, P7.98 million.  That must be due to this value, first of all. 

18.  Tap women, hardworking and reliable people.  A lot of women want to work hard for their families but lack the opportunity. This is exactly what LPMPC has done. It has as of June 2009 a total of 2,989 members, 1,463 are farmers, 223 are fishermen, 772 are engaged in small and medium enterprises, and 531 employed. Of the members, 68% are women and 32% men.

19.  Set up a functional center that uplifts members’ livelihood and enterprises.  This cooperative has its Coop Business Development Center that implements viable businesses for its members.

20.   Ensure financial service efficiency.  This is an absolute requirement in any business’s success.  LPMPC’s success has been well-grounded on this strength. These are its services here– working capital; providential, crop and livestock production loans; post harvest facility acquisition loan; and industrial equipment acquisition loan.  Because of its success in finance, it has been able to establish strong partnerships with big creditors like Lank Bank, United Coconut Planters Bank, and National Conferederation of Cooperatives (NATCCO).

   “Even when there is no big income, some people stay with us because they can run to us in time of need.  They have a continuous livelihood or business.  Credit and savings really form part of the bulk of our operations.  Here is where you’ll see the loyalty of our people, Espeso said.

   “Our members don’t just go after their share capital.  This is not just money for money’s sake operation.”

21.  Set up a clear, workable, and win-win agreement with members.  This LPMPC does on machine use, labor services, and other operationss.  Machines are loaned or rented by members.  The cooperative purchases and sells the pineapple fiber to big traders, or processes them further into handmade paper based on a well-defined agreement. From these agreements, it provides pineapple farmers and other cooperatives additional income of P26,250 per hectare from pineapple fiber.

   In its Coconut Nursery Project, the farmer-members purchase the seedlings in cash or loan.  Its decorticating machines are loaned or rented by members.  

22.   Clearly delineate duties of officers, members, and other participants.  This would reduce, if not totally eliminate, destructive disagreements.

23.  Seek officers’ commitment.  Train your officers and even management.

   “You should have your management’s support because you’re just an implementor,” he said.

   LPMPC invites speakers for the training of its officers.  To save cost, it ties up with DA and other agencies to lend a help.  It seeks participants from other organizations— private and public companies — who will pay a minimal amount so it can minimize the cost of training.

24.  Set up related services that will support its members’ needs.  Its Economic Services include trucking, value-adding in agri-business enterprises like marketing, agri-training processing, provision of seeds and seedlings, and other farm inputs.

   It also ties up with a NGO Philippine Federation for Environmental Concern on environment-related concerns

25.  Address non-business related concerns of your members.  It has a Social and Community Services which  addresses health, education, security, insurance and housing needs of members, non-members, and the community.

26.   Provide an environment of cooperation and sense of contentment in the organization.  There should be satisfaction on the part of employees and members on what they receive.  People should learn to be trusting of each other, or no organization will survive. 

27.  Encourage productivity-enhancing atmosphere through building and infrastructure. It has its own building for the training center, separate buildings for VCO, dehydrated pineapple, machine decortication warehouse and decor center, handmade paper production, cooperative maket, and credit and savings extension office.

28.  Integrate Information, Communication Technology (ICT) in your business. It has trained a staff to become an Information Technology (IT) trainer.  It is now also training its officers and management on IT. Its members get free training on basic computer operation and internet access.  With ICT, it has reduced time for records and documentation, marketed products and services better, brought the LPMPC to the worldwide web, and opened new business opportunities.

29.  Link up–  no one can really thrive now without it.  Aside from its links with DA-HVCC and BAR, LPMPC has links with local government units (LGUs), government financial institutions, foreign aid agencies, non-government organizations, socio-civic groups (Lions, Rotary), state universities and colleges, other cooperatives, and creditors. 

   For more tips, contact 359-7314 or 0920-947-8234.

Wrapsody Pili Pastry

Bureau of Agricultural Research Tech Com Center Report

Wrapsody Pili Pastry

 

When talent and nature combined, one truly world-class delicacy came out– Wrapsody.

   Many people have known a long time ago the traditional coated pili nut as a Bicol product.

   But Wrapsody has produced a reinvention of pili into what many now consider as an excellent local version of the Mediterranean favorite baklava.

   That it is compared with baklava is enough to show the status Wrapsody, a crunchy and chewy pastry with pili filling, has been recognized for.

   Its creator, Cynthia Onglao Perena, did not come from Bicol.  She is from Quezon City and happened to have married a Bicol native, Erwin, who everytime had showered her and their children the coated pili for pasalubong.  

   But genuine talent can transform one dull thing into something exciting, and actually something most people, Bicol native or not, have learned to love upon tasting it.

   “My family, my Dad and my grandmother really loved to cook.  My father kept encouraging us to go into a food business.  But I haven’t really thought before of doing it for trade,” she relates.

   The cruel high cost of living in wider Manila one day turned out to be the trick that would push Cynthia and Erwin to one day decide to sell off a home-cooking favorite. Eight years ago, they moved back to Erwin’s hometown in Daraga, Albay to fight off Manila’s inflation.

   As pili nuts are everywhere there, Cynthia got a spark of inspiration to concoct something new out of the old nut.  She tried to look for ingredients that would make it diffferent. 

   With layers of phyllo dough (thin sheets of dough that make flaky pies and pastries) that she filled with chopped pili nuts and sweetened with caramel and syrup made tastier with butter, she one day discovered it. 

   Her first secret in its great taste is in the pili nut’s nature. She left as raw as it can be.

   “Pili has a very delicate taste.  The more you process it, the more you lose the real taste.  If you’re not a Bicolano (you might not get used to it). But it’s a very good nut.  It’s soft, and yet its crunchy.  Just sundry it, and it gives a very satisfying taste,” said Erwin.

   He boasts pili nut also gives out a superior kind of oil like the one of prized olive oil. 

   The truth is pili nut cannot be compared with just any other nut, not with peanut.  In its raw form, it is as classy-tasting as the Middle East-native almond nut. Just based on its price that can rise to as high as P700 kilo off-season, it can’t be just any nut.

   Now the second secret obviously is talent and hardwork.  Cynthia simply spends so much time cooking and making improvements on her food.  She has to spend the whole day cooking Wrapsody if she starts out the day doing it. 

   The husband and wife tandem have developed a standard for cooking the pastry.  That ensures they get the same quality and quantity each time. 

   “One degree higher (baking it) is too high, one minute longer is too long,” she said.

   From there their Wrapsody has been sold out initially bought by their four kids who are their tasters and then by the neighbors. Now it’s in LCC Supermarket along Tahao Road, Legazpi City; at the Legazpi City Airport; OK Bicol Showroom,  and at occasional market fairs and international food expo.

   As Erwin was once an employee of Philippine Air Lines (PAL),  Wrapsody is now also given away exclusively to Business Class passengers of PAL.  Wow!

   The Bureau of Agricultural Research (BAR) thinks it must be one big launchpad for the international quality of Bicol’s pili.  That will benefit entrepreneurs and all farmer-owners of pili nut trees. 

   And so, you may now also find it at BAR-Region 5’s (Bicol Region) Technology Commercialization (Tech Com)Center  in San Agustin, Pili, Camarines Sur.

   “It is our objective to develop and improve home-based and semi-commercial food processing enterprises as sources of livelihood and to generate jobs for husewives and out-of-school youth in the community,” according to BAR.

   COP Pili Sweets and Pastries has started taking on help outside the family on an on-call basis.  But really, a marketing program as that of BAR’s Tech Com is what’s needed to make it take a big leap.

   Cynthia said she does look forward to exporting Wrapsody to South East Asia, hearing about the easier effort to do this.

   By then, she should be expanding her volume from the current 300 units (12 pieces of approximately 2×2-inch piece per unit) per week.

   As a former overseas Filipino worker (OFW) at Jeddah exposed to international products, Erwin also knows too well that Wrapsody has its own big world-market potential.

   But even without that definite foreign destination yet, Filipino balikbayans coming home to the country have already been taking Wrapsody abroad, spreading a good word about it.

   Word-of-mouth has been COP’s greatest marketing ally.  One satisfied customer giving its product as a precious gift, referring it to more satisfied customers.

   With people that have initiative and innovative minds as those of Cynthia and Erwin, the call for collaboration to promote Philipine goods that are at par with the world’s best is no longer too difficult. 

   The business has so attracted aid from other agencies like Center for International Trade Expositions and Mission and the Department of Science and Technology which created its inviting packaging.

   But there are more things to do get Wrapsody be known internationally.

   Erwin also plans to seek the Department of Agriculture’s (DA) aid in certifying its product as an organic food since the pili tree where they get their products naturally grow in Bicol and enjoy no chemical spraying.

   It also needs to get its Nutrition Facts analyzed so it can get a Food and Drug Administration (formerly BFAD)accreditation which costs around P40,000.  This will enable it to expand marketing to bigger stores. 

   On the packaging side, a big volume of orders, which it doesn’t have yet, should make it invest in a packing facility.  This facility, producing 50,000 boxes at a time, costs around P50,000.

   The marketing moves should complement the already perfect recipe for which the couple had added more pili nut-based products.    

   These are the Pili Puffs, the Mini-baked Mazapan which is apparently derived from the European confection marzipan or the ground nut-filled mazapan of Latin America, the Hopia de Pili, and the Roasted Chili Garlic Pili.

   Wrapsody is sold on a per box basis everytime, selling at P100 to P150 each.  It can’t be sold by piece or that will be expensive since the Perenas only add up a 35-40% markup on the good. 

   They do have a Bento Box that contains all their pili goods.

   Cynthia and Erwin have started educating the market on how to eat the pulp that covers the pili shell that is simply too creamy, they attest. 

   That would make enjoyment of the Wrapsody pili pastry a really historic, artistic, and culture-rich experience.

   They’re thinking of making a Pili 101 an official course as they exhibit the products in stores.  The course features pili from the farm, the tree, to the pulp, the shell, the shell with the nut, and pili onto its processed form.

   Erwin has miniaturized the pili tree through bonsai technique as a portable model during exhibits.

   “The first time I saw its flower, which had a nice, sweet scent, I was really amazed.  Other people have the same feeling about it.  They’re amazed to know more about pili,” said Cynthia.

   Educating people is now likewise their lifetime mission as part of a bigger pie of making a world-class Philippine-indigenous nut internationally-known.

Experts’ Jargon

Experts’ Jargon

 

Here is Harris Moran Seed Co’s terminologies on plants’ reaction to pests and biotic stresses:

 

Immunity-  plants cannot be attacked or infected by pests or pathogens

Resistance- second only to immunity in intensity, plants restrict the development of pests or pathogens but can’t totally resist heavy infestation

Intermediate Resistance- third only to immunity and resistance, can moderately resist infestation, better than susceptible plants but less in intensity than resistant plants and can have heavy damage under heavy pressure.

Susceptible– plants are unable to stop pests and pathogens

Tolerance-  ability of a plant variety to endure abiotic or environmental stress with more limited effect on growth, appearance, and yield although, under higher levels of aboitic stress, the plant variety may be damaged.

 

 

Patent disputes and Innovation

Patent disputes and Innovation

 

If disputes are a measure of dynamism and action, this may say a lot about inventions and innovations in Europe, America, and the Philippines as early as in the 1800s to the present.

   Disputes on intellectual property rights, particularly on patents, were naturally part of the lifestyle of inventors long ago.

   As related by the “World Famous Scientists and Inventions” (WFSI), American inventor Lee de Forest, recognized as the “Father of Radio” and “Grandfather of Television,” wrangled with scientists and patent lawyers as to the originality of his inventions.  Attributed to him are more than 180 patents.

   When he was 13, he invented gadgets such as a miniature blast furnace and locomotive and a silver plating device.  As a doctoral student, he worked on a thesis, “Reflection of Hertzian Waves from the Ends of Parallel Wires.” This had to do with what is now commonly known as the radio.

   Through a company, De Forest Wireless Telegraph Company,  that he and his financiers founded, he showed businessmen and the public how the electrolytic detector of Hertzian waves that he developed could be used as a communication tool.  He later developed a more powerful receiver of wireless signals called the “audion” which enabled him to broadcast sounds.

   De Forest was known to have developed this audion vacuum tube, a two-element device used as electronic amplifier that is an important part of communication systems such as radio, telephone, radar, television, and computer systems. It became the predecessor of the more advanced triode vacuum tube as a device with three active electrodes used for signal amplification.

   The Wikipedia noted that the United States Patent 879,572 for the three-electrode device was granted to De Forest in February 1908. 

   But De Forest was a man that could hardly succeed in business. 

   “A poor businessman and a poorer judge of men, De Forest was defrauded twice by his partners,” said the WFSI.  “Throughout De Forest’s lifetime, the originality of his more important inventions was hotly contested by both scientists and patent attorneys.”

   This may have happened as De Forest apparently hadn’t fully recognized the great potential of his invention nor had he known exactly how it worked, the audion in particular.

   “(I) didn’t know how it worked, it just did,” was his famous words.

   An explanation of how the audion work was later laid out in 1914 by Edwin Armstrong.

   “When the two later faced each other in a dispute over the regeneration patent, Armstrong was able to demonstrate conclusively that De Forest still had no idea how it worked,” according to the Wikipedia.

   Perhaps tired of disputes, De Forest then later “reluctantly” sold his patents to communication companies for further development some of which, and the more important ones, were sold cheaply to American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T).  Nevertheless, the three-electrode device, known since 1919 as the triode which can amplify electric signals for radio reception, has also been known for the name De Forest Valve.

   Another American inventor, Elias Howe, who developed the first sewing machine in place of hand-sewing, was also involved in suits in an attempt to protect his asset.

   Howe grew up working in his father’s farm, gristmill (flour grinding mill), and sawmill in Spencer, Massachusetts.  In 1835, he worked at Lowell, Massachusetts for a textile machine manufacturer. 

   But it was in 1837, in his work in Boston with a watchmaker, that he got the idea of mechanizing sewing.  This led him to invent the lock stitch that used two threads in sewing and had the same concept as the looms he worked on at Lowell.  Howe went to England to work on the commercialization of his machines. 

   But back home, American manufacturers began replicating his machine in violation of his patent rights.

   He then ran after his offenders in a suit that lasted for five years until he was able to collect royalties from the machines.

   The cotton gin was a pioneering work in mass production– the assembly lines. 

   Its inventor, Eli Whitney, developed it as he saw cotton plantation workers go through the drudgery of separating cotton seeds from fibers.  In 1794, he patented the first cotton gin.

   But his cotton gin was copied by other manufacturers. 

   At the time, Whitney may have wanted to sue his copycats, but the WFSI said he never had the money for such disputes. He nevertheless got his rewards from his works in mass production as he received contracts in 1812 to make 15,000 muskets, a smooth bore long gun that was the predecessor of the rifle, through his mass-producing gun assemblage and factory.

   In the Philippines, there are rarely  celebrated or popular disputes on patents or other intellectual property assets.  However, the Bureau of Legal Affairs of the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) record showed  six patent-related cases. These only involved companies, rather than individual inventors. 

   These are the suits of Philippine Pharma Wealth Inc. (PPWI) against Glaxo Group Ltd. of England on pharmaceutical compositions; PPWI against Pfizer on method of increasing effectiveness of a B-Lactam antibiotic using penicillanic acid 1, 1-dioxide or an ester; Natrapharm against Smithkline Beecham PLC on method for treatment; Philippine-Cuvest Inc. against Bayer Healthcare AG on infusion solutions of 1-cyclopropyl-6 fluoro-1, 4-dihydro4-oxo-7-(1-piperazinyl)-quinoline-3-carboxylic acid; and the Philippine International Trading Corp. against Pfizer Ltd on improvements in pharmaceutically acceptable salts of amlodipine.

   If there were ever suits initiated by an individual inventor-entrepreneur in the Philippines, this may just be on a low-technology item such as one related to “gulaman” (seaweed-based food item) which may not mean a lot at all, according to an IPO Director General Adrian S. Cristobal.

   With hardly an important patent dispute, questions arise as to how that may indicate a lackluster environment for technological advancements in the Philippines.

C4 Rice

C4 Rice:  Rice of the Future

 

Like putting on a strength from vitamins and minerals that give 50% more potency, the development of C4 rice is turning the rice into a powerhouse.

   By simple observation, one would ask why do certain crops like corn, sorghum, and sugarcane yield more than rice does?  This is a question plant breeders asked before they even engaged in the quest to make rice a more productive crop.

   Rice is a crop classified as C3 plant while corn, sorghum, and sugarcane are C4 crops. C4 plants like corn have the potential to yield 13.9 metric tons per hectare while rice would only yield 8.3 MT per hectare, according to a comparative study.

   The C stands for the chemical symbol for carbon.

   “Plants capture solar energy and change that into plant material, sugar, in the process called photosynthesis,” said an IRRI expert.

   The Wikipedia explains that the word C4 comes from the first product of carbon dioxide (CO2) fixation in the plant which has four carbon atoms, not three as in C3 plants. Here carbon fixation is the biochemical mechanism by which plants use CO2, “binding molecules to dissolved compounds inside the plant,” to produce sugar through photosynthesis. 

   In the effort to transform rice into a C4 crop, scientists first identified the characteristics of C4 plants against C3 plants.  Two major differences are based on the plants’ leaf anatomy and their use of CO2 for growth.

   On  the leaf anatomy, C4 plants have more veins, around 20 per two millimeter field of view while C3 plants have less number of veins, only 10 to 12 in the same field of view.

   With more veins, C4 plants are more efficient, compared to C3 plants,  in photosystensis as it has more Rubisco which absorbs or binds to CO2 and oxygen in the sugar production process.   Rubisco (Ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase oxygenase) is the enzyme essential in the major process of carbon fixation.

   The C4 gene that makes it efficiently use solar energy so that the plant can have more biomass and give more grain should be transfered to the rice plant.  This may need an increase in the Rubisco level of rice plants so that they can compare their food-making efficiency with those of C4 plants.

   According to IRRI Deputy Director General William G. Padolina the C4 rice of the future may be developed through genetic engineering. 

   “The only tool we can see now that will allow us to see that kind of gene is through genetic modification so you can increase the capture of solar energy (that will be turned into) biomass.”

   On their use of CO2 for growth, C4 plants were observed to be capable of growth at a lower CO2 level at 10 parts per million (PPM) while C3 plants need more CO2 for growth, placed at 50 PPM.

   The C4 rice will have its advantages for growth even under the threatening global warming environment of drought, high temperature, limited nitrogen (fertilizer) availability, limited CO2 condition, and limited water  supply.  The growing of more C4 plants is actually seen to benefit the environment, reverse climate change, as it will assist in CO2 biosequestration.  C4 plants produce more CO2-sequestrating biomass per unit.

   IRRI Director General Robert S. Zeigler said it may take a long 15 to 20 years for rice scientists at IRRI to produce C4 rice which should give an additional 50% yield increase from the present C3 rice plants.  Up to the next 15 years, there may not be a need to develop another type of rice since the Green Revolution’s high-yielding hybrid rice inthe 1970s.   But scientists should also be concerned about a future problem that may arise.

   “If we wait until a problem is on our lap, it’s far too late.  One of the great power for contribution that science can make to society is helping solve them before they come.  Nobody notices our work because they have enough rice. We’re happy to sit in the background, do our work, make sure people’s lives will improve,” said Zeigler.

   IRRI is putting up new facilities, a new building, particularly for C4 rice. This is also stimulating a skills-stretching among scientists particularly those specializing in rice research.  It is posing a big challenge as the technology has not yet been proven.

   “It’s one kind of project that few institutions other than IRRI can really take the lead in.  It looks like a risky technology, one that  hasn’t yet been proven.  But it will give a tremendous boost to rice productivity and completely transform reliability of rice supply,” he said.

   The research, requiring hundreds of million dollars in several years, has been attracting the support of many institutions, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation which has given a $11 million grant, due to its role in poverty reduction.

   “The creation of a C4 rice plant has the potential to generate substantially higher farm yields and make an important contribution to global poverty alleviation efforts,” said United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization Senior Economist David Dawe.

   While farmers will directly benefit from C4 rice, another poverty alleviation pathway here, said Dawe, is the savings to be obtained by consumers who will enjoy lower prices due to higher  farm productivity. The urban poor, the rural landless, and non-rice farmers are rice buyers, and they will increase their income if rice price is low.  If rice price is low, employers will enjoy a lower cost for hiring workers, promoting further job opportunities and higher productivity in the industrial and service sectors.

   With higher productivity in rice production, less labor will be required in agriculture which is an essential element in making a country richer, in moving a country toward industrialization.

   “No country has ever become wealthy without removing a significant fraction of its labor force from the agricultural sector. After the initial success of the Green Revolution, rice yields have stagnated, and this slow growth retards the process of poverty alleviation. The creation of a C4 rice plant has the potential to generate substantially higher farm yields and make an important contribution to global poverty alleviation efforts,” said Dawe.

Lifestyle: Atty. Ronilo A. Beronio: The IPR Advantage

Lifestyle:  Atty. Ronilo A. Beronio:  The IPR Advantage

 

As a youngster, the dream to become a nuclear scientist captured an imagination of something grand for Atty. Ronilo A. Beronio.  But looking closer at the realities of life, he chose a path that means something more to more people– agriculture.

   Going far ahead than that, he chose a vocation that he knew would make the Filipino agronomists and scientists take a leap in professional development–that of lawyering on intellectual property rights (IPR).  That will have a true, long-term impact on the advancement of Philippine agriculture.

   “I saw that scientists need to have their IPR protected.  Here, even if you have a Ph.D., you’re treated only as a mere government employee, an alipin (a slave)  when other countries will pay billions for the technology that their scientists develop,” he said.

   He didn’t need to take up law, in the first place, to be called an expert on something. For he has long established his agriculture career before he took up this further study in 1998.  He was PHilippine Rice Research Institute’s (Philrice) deputy executive director at the time.

   But since his passing of the bar in 2003, nothing has been the same again at the Philrice, perhaps the Philippines’ first government agency that has ever had an IP Law expert in the field of agriculture.

   One should not be contented in seeing agriculture researches to thrive just in the laboratory.  They should benefit farmers, raise their productivity and income.  For this, Beronio introduced many firsts at Philrice. He initiated patent applications for Philrice technologies.  He promoted IPR law.  He began programs for the training on IPR of government personnel.

   Others are pushing for a Philipine version of the US’s Bayh Dole Act.  He is one who is firm in his stance that one can do everything now in patenting, licensing, and commercializing technologies without a need for additional laws.  He must know it, he has written a thesis, a book on it.  And Philrice has started applying it.

   He has supported the putting up of the Philrice Rice-Based Agribusiness Social Enterprise (now the Social Agro-Industrial Ventures) which is an income generating arm of Philrice.

   Income opportunities come from the sale of technology products and services including high-yielding seeds, crop protection, farm management (plant, soil, water), organic farming, plant breeding, food science, IP legal services, project monitoring and evaluation, and non-rice based initiatives such as the Philrice Coffee Shop, animal raising, and rice wine commercialization.

   Many still don’t know the world-class value of the country’s rice wine Tapuy which can compete with the Japanese’s Sake, and Beronio is one big advocate of putting that out into the bigger market.  Maybe sell to a private company one whole Tapuy-making facility, franchise the business model out, or sell someone a license to make and market it.

   Here is his educational background.

          BS Agriculture, cum laude, Gregorio Araneta University Foundation (now De La Salle Araneta University),

                   scholar of Cocofed and of Mrs. Victoria Araneta   

          MS Agricultural Economics, Purdue University, Indiana USA, USAID scholar 

          Bachelor of Laws, cum laude, Araullo University, Cabanatuan City,  Philrice scholar

          Master of Laws (LLM), San Beda College, Philrice scholar, and receving the highest thesis grade in San                     Beda’s Law Graduate School history.

   An official of government is not free from frustration as everybody knows.  First, even if one wants to do the right things to create a bigger impact on the economy, he doesn’t have the resources to do this.  And yet, at Philrice, people may once in a while get the blame for the country’s rice importation even if research really its major mandate.  Extension (intervention for farmers’ adoption of technology) is supposedly another’s.

   “Sometimes people don’t appreciate our work because we’re still importing  rice.  But if we don’t have Philrice, maybe we’re importing 50% of our rice.  We’re able to keep importation at 10 to 15% level.  (Besides) we don’t have a population management program (unlike Thailand and Vietnam that can curb rice consumption through it),” he said.

   If there is a major frustration for rice scientists, it must be the limited adoption of their researches.  Still, Beronio believes the PHilippines has no option but to push for rice sufficiency. 

   He is optimistic this can be achieved, but only if the budget is granted.

   “We’re only asking for P15 billion yearly for the next five years out of government’s P1.4 trillion (yearly budget). But we haven’t received approval for it.  It’s not a problem of technology.  It’s not a problem of our manpower (capacity nor of the) system of delivery.  We need the money.”

   “We have a self-sufficiency plan that is attainable.  But we have to support our farmers, train them and rehabilitate and build irrigation facilities.”

   Beronio is also an expert in collaboration.  Philrice is now helping Brunei and Papua New Guinea in their own rice sufficiency efforts.  This he believes the Philippines should pursue since the country belongs to a community of states where cooperation is a necessity to advancement.

   As anyone would agree, he asserts the PHilippines should put agriculture as a top priority in its endeavor to become a first world country as national leaders envision.

   “Industrialization starts with agriculture.  It is preceded by agricultural development.  Agriculture spurs industry.  It creates wealth.  I think you can’t industrialize without developing agriculture first.”

   Serious in his professional endeavor and mission and having carved a niche for himself in agricultural science IPR, Beronio is also engaged in a unique leisure– game fishing. 

   Whoever catches the weightier fish and other criteria like catching the more difficult-to-catch like Blue Marlin wins this game.  Having come from Araceli, Palawan, game fishing became a natural liking.  Tennis is another hobby. 

   Follow his life’s other details.

          Birthday:  18 May 1958

          Birthplace: Estancia, Iloilo

          Civil Status: Married to Cecilia Navarro de Jesús and father to Nathan Neil, Krizel Daneille, Ivan Joseph,

                   Angela Luz, and Roma Thalia

          Languages: English, Filipino, Ilongo/Hiligaynon, Cuyunin, Cebuano, Kinaray-a

          Awards received: Most Exemplary Research Paper Award. “Intellectual Property Rights in the Public Sector:                              Legal Imperatives for Agencies and Public Servants,” OGCC; Best Paper Award. “A Model for                                    Managing           Intellectual Property in Public Research and Development Institutions in the                                          Philippines;” Best Paper Award Perceptions of Public Researchers on IPR & their Impact on                               Generating & Commercializing Public Agricultural Biotechnology Products in the Philippines

          Books authored:  Intellectual Property Rights and Commercialization of Agricultural Biotechnology:                            Implications for Public Servants, Biotechnology and Intellectual Property Rights: An Evolving Helix of                Science and Law, Commercialization of Agricultural Biotechnology in Philippine Public Research and               Development Institutions

Submarino Rice

Climate Change Rice Report

Submarino Rice

Oriental Mindoro generally has a favorable climate for crop production throughout the year, with no distinct dry and wet seasons.

However, this dry season of 2009 farmers in Calapan, Oriental Mindoro suffered enormous yield losses. The culprit, they suppose, is climate change.

Despite adopting recommended crop management practices, their rice harvest this season was 50% lower than usual or as low as two metric tons (MT) a hectare because of unpredictable weather and more frequent rainfall that caused grain shattering.

Dr. Rolando T. Cruz, Department of AGriculture-Philippine Rice Research Institute (DA-Philrice) program leader, said the continuous rainfall, and hence, low irradiance in Calapan could have reduced crop photosynthesis that resulted in lower biomass and yield.

“More problems like this can be expected if farmers don’t help mitigate the effects of climate change,” warned Cruz.

In the book “Rice, Water, and Forests,” Cruz’s team explained that farmers are not just victims of climate change. As rice cultivators, they contribute to it.

Farm yield decreases because of increased night-time temperature associated with global warming. But aside from global warming, temperature also rises as a result of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) arising from rice production practices. Burning of rice straws and husks which emits carbon dioxide (CO2) is one of these.

Farmers’ excessive use of fertilizers and pesticides also leads to the emission of nitrous oxide, _{a greenhouse gas with a global warming potential 298 times more impact per unit weight than CO2. Finally, rice plants themselves emit methane.}

To reduce emission of GHG, particularly methane and nitrous oxide from rice production, farmers should optimize their rice yield. This is mainly through proper use of inputs—fertilizer and pesticides.

Rice plants with higher number of filled grain spikelets or those that approach their potential yield limit emitted less methane, according to a five-year successive tropical wet and dry season study since 2002 by Denier van der Gon.

“Increasing rice productivity should go hand in hand with optimum use of fertilizers and other inputs so that nitrous oxide emission will be minimized,” Cruz said.

Clearing up forests to convert them into farm lands causes emission of CO2. Increasing regulation in this land conversion should be intensified.
For Calapan and other areas where the effects of climate change is now apparent, Cruz is looking into the possibility of adjusting their planting calendar, but with careful consideration of the possible changes in crop-nutrient-pest management practices.

Ex-nurse learns benefits of flood-tolerant rice

If yields are always uncertain, a farmer may is in the losing end.

This is a realization of Gelises Ladores, 52, nurse-turned-farmer, who for 19 years has managed a 40-hectare farm with portions submerged during the wet season.
Ladores of Brgy. Sto. Cristo, San Antonio, Nueva Ecija, was a former nurse in Saudi Arabia who decided to go back to the Philippines to manage the farm of his in-laws.

To his dismay, he found out that he couldn’t grow rice in the 10-hectare farm during the wet season as these farms are submerged for 15 days at waist-level water depth due to typhoons or continuous rain. As a result, he left the 10-hectare land idle to avoid losses.

Fortunately, one day upon a visit to San Mariano, he chanced upon the group of Dr. Nenita V. Desamero, DA-PhilRice plant breeder and Philrice-IRRI submergence tolerance collaborative project leader, who were also in San Mariano.

He grabbed this time to know about submergence-tolerant rice (Sub1 rice) and went to Brgy. Papaya to see the technology demonstration farm of the Sub1 rice where he was convinced on planting Sub1 due to his to-see-is-to-believe experience.
From the 130 kilos of Swarna-Sub1 (that he bought for P25 per kilo) that he planted in his 1.5-hectare land, he harvested more than 100 cavans (at 70 kilos per cavan).
He saved 1.5 cavans of seeds for the next wet season. His remaining harvests were threshed and sold for P14 kilos as commercial rice.
“I didn’t expect that Swarna-Sub1 would yield that much. My only concern that time was to get a yield from a submerged field,” Ladores said.

He shared his successful “submergence” experience with his helper. But instead of sowing all the seeds of Swarna-Sub1, his helper planted IR42.

His helper harvested nothing from the two-hectare farm planted with IR42. There goes the lesson well-learned.
Ladores also planted IR64-Sub1 in a separate 0.5 hectare land, but harvested only 12 cavans because of pests and diseases. That must be another learning that has yet to be learned– how to conquer pests and diseases in this flooded area.
But his earned benefits from Sub1 are more– it yields high even under submerged condition, needs less fertilizer, has bigger stems and good eating quality, and is heavier when threshed which surprises other farmers.
Swarna-Sub1 can be harvested 130-134 days from planting, longer than the usual 120 day. It can survive even after 10 days of complete submergence at vegetative stage.

Openness to technology is a virtue Ladores has– maybe because he is educated in the first place having been a nurse.
“I prefer Swarna-Sub1 to other rice varieties for the wet season. But, if there are Sub1 varieties far better than Swarna-Sub1, I’m also willing to try them,” Ladores said.

Submarino Field Trials

Under favorable condition, Sub 1 will have the same yield performance as IR64, 4.5 metric tons (MT) per hectare. But under complete submergence, Sub 1 will survive and recover.

“Normally, rice submerged at tillering stage can only survive for one week while seedlings can only last for three to five days,” said Desamero.

However, Desamero advises farmers not to grow Sub 1 in blast- and tungro-stricken areas.

Before the 2008 wet season, Sub 1 was first introduced to farmers in San Antonio, Nueva Ecija, which is a catch basin of the neighboring municipalities during the rainy season.

In May 2008, more than 200 farmers from nine barangays in San Antonio received bags of Sub1 rice seeds such as Swarna-Sub1, Samba Mahsuri-Sub1, Raeline 10, and IR64-Sub1 for demonstration trials.

Armando Reyes, 57, whose farm is critically submerged during the wet season, received Sub 1 rice seeds.

For nearly two decades, Reyes had never planted rice during the wet season, as he knew that he would have nothing to harvest. However, when he planted Swarna-Sub1, he harvested 12.7 MT in his 2.5-hectare land
For Alfonso Bayangat, 55, gone are the days of low harvests. Thanks to IR64-Sub1 whose value he learned from Primo de Guzman, 73, a seed grower from Brgy. Lawang Kupang, San Antonio who was tapped by agricultural technicians to produce IR64 Sub 1 seeds.

Bayangat said that after a typhoon, his 1.5 hectare-farm was submerged for eight days at the crop’s tillering stage or 27 days after transplanting.

Flood water reached waist-level. But owing to the resilience of the IR64-Sub1, he harvested 182 cavans in his 2.5 hectare farm at 58 kilos per cavan plus 20 cavans more from ratoons.

He boasted that some of his friends harvested only 12 cavans per hectare with inbred varieties such as PSB Rc10 and NSIC Rc82.
He recalled that when the flood water started to recede, other farmers went to see his crop and were amazed to see that his rice crop still looked good.

He earned more than P40,000 from taking that risk.

Come wet season, it is a normal occurrence to see almost 60% of San Antonio’s rice fields submerged for more than a week as the town is a catch basin of the neighboring municipalities during the rainy season. Wet season had always been a sad season for farmers. That is now a thing of the past with Sub1.

To increase availability to farmers of Sub 1, 0.3 hectare has been allotted by Philrice for the production of breeder seeds and 0.5 hectare for foundation seeds this 2009 wet season. Philrice will expand this seed production areas in the 2010 dry season. The collaborative project of DA-PhilRice and IRRI funded by Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

For Central Luzon farmers who are interested to plant Sub1 seeds, they can visit or call (044-940-4381) the municipal agriculture office of San Antonio, Nueva Ecija or the seed growers in that area.

 

Philrice OPen Academy

Philrice OPen Academy

 

Text Messaging Spreads Farming Technology

 

What is the best way to reach out to Filipino farmers who may always be in the backseat when it comes to learning about new technology?    This was in the mind of technology experts at the Philippine Rice Research Institute (Philrice) when they thought about using text messaging as a means to help farmers increase their learning on technology, consequently their rice harvest.    Why not? Text messaging reaches the very remote islands of this archipelago.  This is the same technology used by Doctors to the Barrios in reaching patients in farflung areas in telemedicine.     It is cheap as a text load is retailed.  It is available to almost everyone– a farmer can just borrow a cellphone from a neighbor and text right away.       Over the past months that Philrice has been using texting, it has been helping farmers find out an answer to one of the most important questions in rice farming:    “Ano ang magandang barayti na itatanim sa panahon ngayon? (What is the best variety that we can plant for this season?)” .    Farmers’ Text Center (FTC) Agent Stoix Nebin S. Pascua said the FTC receives the most number of text messages asking about rice varieties and seeds at the start of the dry season planting.    It got 427 in November and 397 text messages on this in October last year.    To answer this question, text agents advise farmers to choose a variety that performs best in the area based on adaptability trials. Specifically, the variety must be tolerant to the prevalent pests and diseases in the locality, and it must have high yield potential and market demand.    Pascua said that farmers often prefer new varieties, believing that these will always give better yield. Through FTC, farmers are informed that yield performance is not always the reason for the release of a new variety. The National Seed Industry Council (NSIC) also releases varieties based on other reasons such as tolerance to pests, drought, flood, and other reasons based on specific environmental conditions.    Moreover, the Text Center agents encourage the farmers to seek advice from their agricultural extension workers for the best performing varieties in their area.    The Farmers’ Text Center is one of the services of the Open Academy for Philippine Agriculture (OPAPA) led by PhilRice in partnership with international and national organizations to enhance agricultural information delivery in the country through the use of information and communications technologies (ICT) whose use it is tapping to the maximum.    From only 11 text messages during its launch in August 2004, the FTC now receives an average of more than 2,000 messages a month. Since its operations, FTC has already responded to 52,840 texts messages with topics not only on rice but also on livestock, vegetables, and other high-value crops. Aside from responding to queries, the FTC also sends technology tips to registered clients.    To date, there are 12,141 registered clients who are mostly farmers and extension workers. Data show an increasing trend in text messaging received yearly, implying the potential of the technology in enhancing farmers’ and extension workers’ access to advanced farming technologies despite distance barriers. Because of this, FTC has been tapped as a supplementary platform to enhance the extension and information delivery mechanism in support of the government’s ongoing Rice Self-Sufficiency Program.    A message to the FTC only costs P1 for all networks. To receive free rice technology tips, please register by typing REG (space) Name, Age, Address, Occupation, and send to 0920-911-1398 (e.g. REG Juan dela Cruz, 34, SC of Munoz, Nueva Ecija, farmer).

Web Conferencing

There is a reason why farmers in Pampanga are more excited about learning new technologies on farming.    Yes, that’s because of web conferencing.    Local farmers in Pampanga, specially members of the Cruzian Multipurpose Cooperative Inc. (CMPCI), sought assistance from the Open Academy for Philippine Agriculture (OPAPA) of PhilRice to link them to the right experts who can help them avoid major losses during harvesting and have quality produce.    In response, OPAPA had set up a web conference last Sept. 15, 2009 from 9 to 11 am with Engr. Arnold S. Juliano of the PhilRice’s Rice Engineering and Mechanization Division as the resource person.    CMPCI farmers gathered at the office of CMPCI in Magalang, Pampanga while Engr. Juliano answered the farmers’ queries at the video conference room, FTIC Building of PhilRice in the Science City of Muñoz, Nueva Ecija.    The web conference was set-up using Skype and Yahoo! Messenger as the messaging platforms. CMPI is a member of the Pampanga Cybercom, a group of 13 farm villages availing of virtual learning through information and communication technologies such as computer, internet, and short messaging system.    The Pampanga Cybercom was established through the leadership of the Pampanga Agricultural College with Dr. Virgilio DM. Gonzales, Rizza Baltazar, and Noel Cabral as team members.    During the web conference, the Kapampangan farmers asked about the right time for harvesting, proper storage of rice grains, mini combine harvester, and mechanical dryers.        The CMPCI management was interested on proper storage of rice grains because the Cooperative is involved in palay trading.    On the proper time for harvesting rice, Engr. Juliano advised the farmers to harvest their crops when these have reached 80-85% ripening.    Other technologies that farmers should learn to use, according to him, are the Rice Mini Combine which can do harvesting, threshing, and bagging of palay; the Flatbed dryer; and the carbonized rice hull which is used as soil conditioner.    The use of web conference to link farmers to experts at a minimum cost is one of the modalities that OPAPA has been testing in multi-locations this year.    Another web conferencing that is currently conducted is in Banaybanay, Davao Oriental wherein local farmers are taught in series about the PalayCheck System. In this conference, farmers are asked to view the PalayCheck video, and afterwards, they ask their questions from an expert who is online through Skype.

First-Hand Learning by Chatting   Who can contend that tutoring is a very efficient way of learning?      This is how efficient individualized learning can be through chatting as experienced by students who have enrolled in the OPAPA e-learning courses.    Students said that they learned a lot through the online chat sessions. The chat sessions are online real-time interaction between the students and teachers.    Since chatting is based on a real-time discussion, students were more motivated to take part, as it helps them feel like “real” participants rather than individuals communicating with the computer.      Ms. Vilma Abalos, an extension worker from Umingan, Pangasinan, said that she preferred to join the chat session because her questions were answered directly by  experts.      “I don’t think I’ll get the same learning from another e-learning course that does not offer a synchronous interaction with the teacher and other e-learners,” she added.     An agriculture teacher from the Tarlac College of Agriculture also finds chatting very interesting as it adds to the course’s variety.       Mr. Edmar Franquera appreciated the learning he gained through chatting as he is now applying these in his rice field.     “Throughout the course, I always looked forward to the next chat session,” he said.    From January to July this year, Philrice tested five elearning courses.  The courses were Carbonized Rice Hull, Rice Postproduction Technologies, MOET or the Minus-One-Element-Technique, Paghahanda ng Punlaan at Paglilipat-Tanim ng Binhing Palay, and Management Options for Golden Kuhol. Enrolees were college students, extension workers, farmers, teachers, and overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs).    In all of the courses, OPAPA employed a combination of the asynchronous (non-real time)and synchronous (real time) modes of delivering lessons. However, the synchronous online discussion through chat sessions remarkably played a significant role in the learning experience of the e-learners.        This can be observed through the comparison made between the participation of the students during forums (asynchronous) and chat sessions (synchronous).    The online forum allowed the students to post their questions to be answered by the expert or their classmates at his her available time, hence this is one of the asynchronous modes.    While the weekly forum (asynchronous) had an average of two participants, chat sessions had three to five per session.    Furthermore, posting of questions, ideas, and even suggestions were mostly done during chat sessions.  A total of 694 posts were recorded throughout the chat sessions and 51 posts were documented under the forum.

Climate Change Rice

Climate Change Rice Report

Climate Change Rice

By Melody M. Aguiba

 

Long before the threat of global warming has dawned on us, rice breeders have been deep into the development of rice that could battle threats of receding harvest from climate’s volatility. 

   This has been a worldwide concern as the tightening rice supply will make food less available specially among the most vulnerable, the poorest.

   The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) projected that hunger would peak this year with 1.02 million people going hungry daily.  Such perilous situation puts more pressure on plant breeders, particularly of rice which is the staple of 40-50% of the world’s population and specifically affecting those the farmers that grow them.

   Rice production has tremendously increased from 257 million metric tons (MT) in 1966 to 599 million MT in 2000, according to International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) Plant Breeding experts G.S. Khush and D. S. Brar in a paper.   Obviously, more will be needed by 2030 when the 6.1 billion population now will have ballooned to eight billion and which would need 50% more rice.

   But climate disturbances, which is apparently being seen now in the onslaught of recent typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng, may heighten the need for different types of rice plants that farmers never used to grow.

   Studies on the effect of climate on the rice plant is not a new thing.

   Breeders at IRRI’s experimental station in Los Banos, Laguna have been conducting studies on it since 1961, one year right after IRRI was established in the Philippines.  In a later study in 1991, rice plants were enclosed in open-top chambers in order to determine the effect to rice of higher carbon dioxide (CO2) level and increased temperature.  Development efforts were geared toward producing rice that could withstand heat.

   Different results were observed– one showed higher rice yield by 27% for higher CO2 level, while another under four degrees centigrade increase in temperature showed a slight decrease in yield and biomass in the wet season.

   Leading hand-in-hand in the development of climate change-adaptable rice is the Philippine Rice Research Institute (Philrice) which has already released several related rice varieties.

   For all this lengthy time spent for the development of good breeds under erratic climate, a good of level of success has been achieved in the development of these “climate change rice.”

• Flood-tolerant rice.     Climate change, global warming in particular, is predicted to cause the sinking of certain land parts or land masses due to the foreseen melting of ice formations in the Polar Region.  But even without this ominous melting of the ice sheets, climate change is said to be already besetting the country with the unstable weather of extreme temperature rise with little rainfall exhibited in the El Nino phenomenon or increased number of tropical storms, as in La Nina.   Increased storms expose some rice lands to flooding. But there are already answers to this.

Submarino 1 or Sub1. This flood-tolerant rice, found in the rice varieties IR64-Sub1 and NSIC 194 as approved by the National Seed Industry Council, can be planted in flooded water of up to 1.5 meters.  NSIC 194 can survive flooding over a lengthier period of up to 10 days during the vegetative stage, while an ordinary rice plant can die in complete submergence in water in two weeks or in as less as five days.  IR64-Sub1, can tolerate more than two weeks under water.

Submarino1 was developed through conventional breeding by IRRI and University of California-Davis scientists out of a flood-tolerant rice from India, the FR13A which has a submergence tolerance gene, crossed  with IR 64.  Its cross with IR 64, a popular variety among farmers also developed by IRRI, makes its adoption by farmers easier.

Philrice has carried out field trials of Submarino 1 lines such as the Swarna Sub 1 which is already grown by farmers in flooded areas in India and Bangladesh.  It is producing Sub 1’s breeder, genetically pure seeds that will ensure good quality of future generation, and the foundation seeds, offspring of breeder seeds which produces the certified seeds used in commercial planting.

Likewise, with many marshlands in the Philippines, Submarino may be planted on as much as 200,000 to 500,000 hectares including marshlands in Liguasan, in the Cotabato provinces, although Sub 1 can’t withstand flooding at the flowering stage.

With it, farmers can enjoy two seasons of planting a year– on both the dry and wet seasons, raising income when they never  used to plant during the rainy times.  It also saves farmers some fertilizer cost since the fertilizer can be dissolved anyway by water. 

IRRI estimates that around 370,000 hectares land in the Philippines goes through flooding, causing average crop losses of about 250,000 MT yearly.

Without the submergence tolerance, an ordinary IR 64 can produce only less than one MT per hectare. But Sub1 can give as much as five MT per hectare, IRRI reported.

Snorkel.  At the Nagoya University, scientists developed by genetic engineering Snorkel rice which can survive flooding with its elongaged internodes, a portion of stem between nodes, that enable it to breath.  The hollow structures in the internodes serve as snorkels or breathing tools for gas exchange. Plant hormones or chemicals that contribute to plant growth including ethylene, gibberelin, and abscisic acid are involved in elongating the internodes.

“Under deepwater conditions, ethylene accumulates in the plant and induces expression of these two genes. The products of Snorkel 1 and Snorkel 2 then trigger remarkable internode elongation via gibberellin. The introduction of three quantitative trait loci (DNAs closely linked to the gene with the desired trait–flood-tolerant trait) from deepwater rice into non-deepwater rice enabled the non-deepwater rice to become deepwater rice. This discovery will contribute to rice breeding in lowland areas that are frequently flooded during the rainy season,” said the Nagoya scientists in Nature.

The Snorkel rice is capable of surviving submergence in deeper water, at several meters deeper and can survive longer in submergence than Sub 1 can.

It is estimated that 30% of rice in Asia and 40% in Africa are affected by deep water or flash floods which makes this rice very important.  This, according to Agricultural Biodiversity, may involve 3.5 million hectares globally including India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Cambodia.

• Drought-Resistant rice.  With dryer climate arising from climate change, rice must be able to survive amid higher temperature or with lesser water availability.

Less Thirsty Rice or Aerobic Rice.  With climate change, higher

temperature can lead to lower water levels in dams, thus the greater need for rice that requires less water. Rice growing requires around 3,000 liters to produce one kilo of palay or unhusked rice.  But aerobic rice can grow with only half of this water volume, making it less water-thirsty like corn.  With aerobic rice, farmers can already plant even on the dry season when there is scarce water, not only during the rainy days.  However, farmers planting it should also learn integrated crop management– crop rotation, water saving systems– in order to attain a good yield of up to four metric tons (MT) per hectare per season.  Aerobic rice may need only once a week or three-times-a-month irrigation. 

Drought-Tolerant or Rain-absent Adaptable Rice.  A rice variety in India called Sahbhagi dhan, being jointly developed by the IRRI and the Central Rainfed Upland Rice Research Station, was reported to be capable of suriviving without rain for 12 days.  As you know, rice grows on wet environment and traditionally cannot live without water even for just five days when it is in the vegetative or early-flowering stage.  This is why Filipino farmers in rainfed or drought-prone areas  only plant rice once-a-year. Drought-resistant rice takes its water from the extra moisture it can get deep in the soil through its long roots. 

At Philrice, scientists led by Dr. Nenita V. Desamero has been developing drought-resistant rice through somaclonal variation, according to their study “Exploiting Somaclonal Variation in Developing Rice Tolerant to Drought Stress.”  Somaclonal variation involves studies on variation seen in plants when subjected to tissue culture.  Under tissue culture, cells are taken out of plants and grown under controlled conditions and a sterile environment.  This is normally done in vitro, in a test tube, rather than inside a living organism.  Desamero used in in vitro culture (IVC) cells from anther, mature seed, and young inflorescence from the IR 64 rice seed as explants, which are portions from the plant, in the culture.

From this, they’ve been able to generate nine lines that had good yield, averaging 4.4 to 5.8 MT per hectare, which exceed yield of check varieties (used as benchmark) PSB Rc (Philippine Seed Board-Rice cluster; PSB is now the National Seed Industry Council or NSIC) 14 and PSB Rc82.  The lines have been subjected to National Cooperative Trials since 2008.

These varieties will have an impact on an estimated 17,000 hectares of drought-prone lands in the country where loss from harvest is placed at more than P1 billion yearly.

Moreover, IRRI Plant Breeder Arvind Kumar said there are around 1.18 million hectares of upland rice ecosystem in the country that follows a direct-seeding method (rice seeds are traditionally thrown out in planting instead of transplanting the seeds) where drought-tolerant rice may be applicable.

There are already drough-prone adaptable rice varieties developed by Philrice that came out as top varieties in the Philippines based on a Department of Agriculture survey.   One is the PSB Rc 42 (Baliwag) which follows a dry-seeding practice, yielding 3.2 MT per hectare, and has resistance to blast, bacterial leaf blight (BLB), and sheath blight (ShB) and PSB Rc 62 (Naguilian) which has nearly the same characteristics as Baliwag.

• Biotic Stress-Resistant Rice. With higher temperature, the occurrence of pests and diseases may increase.  This is why breeders have been developing rice resistant to these stresses.  Rice specially in tropical countries like the Philippines faces biotic stresses like pests and diseases– viruses, bacteria, fungi, weeds, birds, and rats. Philrice has developed rice varieties with a level of resistance to insect pests, although scientists even those from IRRI have not yet developed a rice variety  resistant to all major rice pests in the country.  Nevertheless, IRRI’s IR65, a glutinous rice used for the Filipino delicacy “malagkit,” has nearly achieved this ideal pest and disease-resistant trait.

Among the rice diseases in the country are bacterial leaf blight (BLB) characterized by infected leaf with yellow water-soaked lesion on the leaf blade margin and causes 50% loss; rice blast, a fungus that causes lesion on the leaves, nodes, panicles, and which can totally kill rice seedlings and plants at the tillering stage; and sheath blight (ShB), fungus-causing disease that hits the plant at late-tillering or early internode elongation growth stages and is manifested by small, water-soaked spots on the leaf sheath within 3 inches above the water line.  Sheath blight is highly sensitive to the environment.  Its growth is encouraged by temperatures higher than 32 degress centigrade, high humidity, and overcast skies. It can cause 14to 17% grain yield loss, according to apsjournals.apsnet.org.

Philrice-developed top varieties with pest and disease resistance under the DA survey include Baliwag; Naguilian which is resistant to BLB, ShB, tungro, and stem borers; and PSB Rc 66 Agusan which while an irrigated lowland variety (rather than drought-resistant) is resistant to BLB and is immune to  rice diseases like blast, tungro, brown planthoppers and green leafhoppers. 

As the Rice Tungro Disease (RTD), caused by rice tungro bacilliform virus and rice tungro spherical virus manifested by yellow to yellow orange leaves, stunting, and slightly reduced tillering.  It is one of the most pestilent rice diseases.  IRRI has developed Matatag which cuts down farmers’ 60-91% loss from RTD and is capable of producing a high yield of four up to seven MT per hectare.

In particular, the Tubigan 14 variety has resistance to blast, BLB and green leaf hoppers which makes it an apt replacement for IR 64 which has become popular but which due to the same extensive planting by farmers made it susceptible to many pests and diseases.  Tubigan 14 or NSIC Rc160, which can withstand heavy rains,  has intermediate resistance (technical term for moderate resistance to pest but can be subject to heavy damage under heavy infestation) to many pests including blast, BLB, and GLH.  It has resistance against whiteheads caused by white and yellow stem borers. Tubigan 14 has been found to be a high-yielder as it also has anaerobic (less water-thirsty) and lodging tolerance (resistance to wind or strong rain).

• Saline-Tolerant Rice.  With flooding goes the submergence of low land areas in saline or salty water, specially those in coastal areas.  Among PHilrice’s outstanding saline-tolerant rice varities are PSB Rc 90 or Buguey, a top variety in Masbate yielding up to 4.2 MT per hectare.

It is estimated that there are about 70,000 hectares of rice land in Bicol and Cagayan Valley that may be affected by saline water intrusion.  But more lands may be affected by sea water rice as reported by IRRI.

IRRI estimated this coastal rice-growing areas to be at around 400,000 hectares that is affected by salinity from sea water. Farmers often don’t plant this region because of the risk of crop failure, but, with the new salt-tolerant variety IR63307-4B-4-3, they can now use this land to grow rice,” IRRI said.  

“Under high salt stress, high-yielding Philippine rice varieties typically produce less than a ton of rice per hectare. Under the same conditions, IR63307-4B-4-3 can produce 2.5 to 3.5 tons of rice per hectare. However, in the absence of salinity, this salt-tolerant variety can yield 6.5 to 7.0 tons per hectare.”

Salt-tolerant rice variety can raise rice production in the country by a big one million MT yearly.

Philrice-bred Rice Varieties Released

  Philrice-bred Rice Varieties Released

The National Seed Industry Council (NSIC) has approved eight PhilRice-bred varieties for commercial production.  

   NSIC Rc216 (Tubigan 17) and NSIC Rc218 SR (Mabango 3) are the new varieties for irrigated lowland.

   Rc216 is an early-maturing variety. It yields six metric tons (MT) per hectare and matures (harvested from planting) in 112 days when transplanted. Under direct wet-seeded condition, it yields 5.7 MT per hectare and matures in 104 days. It is moderately resistant to brown planthopper, green leafhopper, and yellow stem borer. It has good milling and head-rice recovery. It is recommended not to grow Rc216 in tungro-stricken areas.

   Rc218, a special aromatic rice, yields 3.8 MT per hectare, matures in 120 days, and has good milling and headrice recovery. It is recommended to grow Rc218 in the dry season in a favorable environment.

   The three-line hybrids released are NSIC Rc196H (Mestiso 16) and NSIC Rc198H (Mestiso 17). Both are resistant to white stem borer.

   Rc196H has an average yield of 6.2 MT per hectare and has maturity of 103 days. It is highly acceptable in its cooked and raw forms. It is recommended to grow Rc196 in Nueva Ecija, Isabela, Cagayan, Bohol and Bukidnon, and similar areas.

   Rc198H yields 6.6 MT per hectare, matures in 105 days, and is best adapted to Nueva Ecija, Isabela, Cagayan, Davao del Sur, Bukidnon and Bohol, and similar areas.

   Other hybrids NSIC Rc202H (Mestiso 19) and NSIC Rc204H (Mestiso 20) were bred in collaboration with the University of the Philippines Los Baños. These are the first two-line hybrids released in the Philippines.

   Rc202H yields 6.7 MT per hectare and matures in 110 days. Rc204H, on the other hand, yields 6.4 MT per hectare and matures in 111 days. Both have good milling and headrice recovery and are best adapted to Nueva Ecija, Isabela, Cagayan, Davao del Sur and Davao del Norte, General Santos, Bukidnon, and similar areas.

   Hybrids can be best grown during the dry season, helping them overcome their relatively weaker resistance to diseases like bacterial leaf blight and tungro, rice experts said.

Saline areas

 

   NSIC Rc184 (Salinas 2), Rc186 (Salinas 3), Rc188 (Salinas 4), Rc190 (Salinas 5) are the new varieties for saline or salty water areas. Rc184 yields 3.1 MT per hectare and matures in 120 days with resistance to blast and whiteheads. Rc186 yields 3.1 MT per hectare, matures in 115 days, and has good milling and headrice recovery. Rc188 and Rc190 yield 3.2 MT per hectare and 2.9 MT per hectare respectively. Rc188 matures in 114 days, Rc190 in 120 days.

 

Flood-prone areas

 

NSIC Rc194 (Submarino 1) yields 2.5 MT per hecdtare and matures in 125 days under submerged conditions. Under normal conditions, it yields 3.5 MT per hectare and matures in 112 days. It also has good eating quality. Farmers are advised not to grow Rc194 in blast- and tungro-stricken areas.

Irrigated lowland

Reimaging Bureaucracy

Climate Change Rice Report

Re-imaging Bureaucracy

 

Mention “government employee” and a middle-aged tax collector in a dull, unflattering uniform would come to mind.

   “Government office” would refer to an old building with rows of tables and a lone typewriter.  No one seems to be in a hurry. Occasionally, a lady would pull out a compact powder make-up and peer at herself in the mirror, then powder her nose. In another corner, a woman is having her nails done by the neighborhood manikurista (manicurist); a mani and butong pakwan (snack foods peanut and watermelon seeds) vendor stand by. The male employees are outside the office, talking about jueteng and cockfight over puffs of smoke.

   Government offices have long been wrongly stereotyped that way. There are exemptions.

   There are government offices being run like private corporations whose employees regularly turn out significant outputs. They are focused on their respective workstations, making a difference, and unmindful of whether they are working beyond the prescribed eight-hour work each day.

   Such is the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) of the Department of Agriculture (DA) in Maligaya, Science City of Muñoz, Nueva Ecija and its people.

   In December 2006, PhilRice became the first government agency to have obtained these certifications– an integrated management system of quality management (ISO 9001), environmental management (ISO 14001), and occupational safety and health (OHSAS 18001).

   Results of An External Review of PhilRice Impact commissioned by the DA-Bureau of Agricultural Research (BAR) in 2007 stated that “PhilRice is worth the public investment, with a 75% return.”

   The reviewers were a plant breeder, a management specialist, a financial expert, and an economist.

   Over and above the high-quality research outputs, institutional awards, and citations garnered by its employees from various scientific organizations, the good reports about it were a result of the changes in “knowledge, acceptance, and adoption of stakeholders (farmers) and the consequent derivation of benefits.”

   “Together with the rice R&D (research and development) network, the Institute has done well, but we can do much more,” said former PhilRice executive director Leocadio Sebastian.

   One way the Institute can unleash a bigger impact and social return for farmers is to make sure it keep its employees, and not lose them to other institutions, Sebastian said. 

   It should further expand its reach through recruitment of responsive and committed personnel to work for the Philippine rice industry.

               

Quality Manpower

 

   PhilRice recruits top graduates of agricultural colleges and universities. To sustain the staffers’ improvement, it has a development program that enables them to obtain graduate degrees while studying full-time on official leave.

   At the time of the DA-BAR’s external review, there were 362 core staffers, 26 of whom have PhD, and 109 with masters’ degrees. Many more are on study leave in pursuit of higher education—16 for PhD and 30 for masters’ degrees.

   Several PhilRice scientists are recipients of major national awards from prestigious award giving bodies like the National Academy of Science and Technology, the country’s premier recognition and advisory body on Science and Technology.

 

   Braving a Threat

 

   Scientists and researchers working for public research and development (R&D) institutes such as PhilRice have the same salary scale and benefits as local government clerks or policemen.

   It is normal to have a low salary, because “rewarding” in government service does not mean “enough.”

   PhilRice wants to espouse that whatever degree or honor the employees obtained they have brought to the country, scientists in government service have to be content with the pay being the standard in Philippine bureaucracy.

   Those who could not stand the “sacrifice” would often quit and find a “greener pasture.” PhilRice for a time had to face the threat of being nearly abandoned.

   When Beronio took over, staff turnover was at an alarming 25% attrition rate. He had to address the threat of losing top-caliber scientists to private corporations and international organizations.

   The external review of PhilRice’s impact recommended taking “immediate steps to arrest or minimize staff attrition by addressing serious concerns of the R&D staff and boosting their morale and commitment to PhilRice.”

   Beronio recognizes that PhilRice employees are huge assets to civil service. There are dreams that can only be fulfilled by honest and modest government employees by going out and working outside the government service, and he is determined to do something about it.

   Through its people, Philrice has brought to the industry new rice and rice-related technologies.  It has tapped biotechnology techniques such as molecular marker-assisted breeding to develop superior rice breeds.  Its engineers have developed machines for rice farming like the mini-combine and the drumseeder.

   It has brought to commercial scale the making of Philippine-made Tapuy rice wine. For the first time, it has introduced geographic information system (GIS), a way to more accurately plan and assess rice planting, for rice farming in Nueva Ecija. 

 

 

International Philrice

 

   It is no longer surprising why Philrice people’s commitment to their mission has brought its operation to an international level.  Not just because it is working hand-in-hand with the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), but it has created its own works outside the PHilippines.

   Even before, it has been working closely with international agencies like Japan International Cooperation Agency and United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO). One project with the UNIDO engages industries to enter into agreements that will result in higher income for rice-based farmers; for instance, tile-maker Mariwasa’s establishing a biomass facility in Batangas makes use of rice straw, rice husk waste of farmers. 

   As a first in the Philippines, it works with Scholten and Franssen in a system of more accurately evaluating the true impact of a poverty-reduction project or a grant to the community through the Social Return on Investment (SROI).  This system assures donors they are really making a difference in poor communities even if this may not instantly be in monetary form.

   But its promotion to an international work may have begun just this year as it started extending technology assistance on rice farming to Brunei and Papua New Guinea.  It is signing an agreement with IRRI to train extension workers in Africa.  It has a hybrid rice exchange agreement with China where 10 hybrids may be commonly used by China and Philippines. 

   DA Sec. Arthur C. Yap said the Philippines’ help to other countries shows to the international community that their financial assistance to the Philippines has not been put to waste.

   “We have the technology, and we can also roll these out to other countries that are situated in same situation as we do,” Yap said.

   Beronio said this is the way to go as the PHilippines needs to go into cooperation with countries on a complementary level.

   “We belong to a community of nations.  We should help another country without expecting help in return. But of course Brunei is also helping us in our peace process (with Muslim Mindanao,” he said.

   Other countries’ effort toward self-sufficiency is also strengthening Philippines’ resolve to become self-sufficient.

   “Even people from developed countries, urbanizing countries are trying to achieve self sufficiency. The Africans are eating more rice.  Brunei said ‘we cannot eat our oil, we cannot drink our oil, and we can’t eat our money.’  Supply is tightening.  Time will come when we may have nothing to import.  I don’t think we have an option but to become self-sufficient even, whatever the cost.  It will be for our own long-term national security,”  Beronio said.

Wealth for War-torn Mindanao

Wealth for War-torn  Mindanao

“Where is Jaiton?”

The agricultural technologist (AT) asked as the Technical Cooperation Project 4 (TCP4) team of the Philippine Rice Research Institute (Philrice) visited his site in Adjid, Indanan, Sulu.

Where is Jaiton Jawali?

In his 0.5-hectare vegetable area, Jaiton, a 5’4″ tall man, could be difficult to find. He may be under the trellises of string beans, at the back of his makeshift house, or in the woods. He is always busy. He may be somewhere camouflaged by vegetable leaves. Good life for him is being with his family, and in his vegetable garden.

He lives to farm. He farms to live, to enjoy life. His half-hectare area is filled with vegetables. He has 400 hills of eggplant, 200 hills of pole sitao, some sweet pepper and fruit-bearing trees like santol. On the side, he’s drying up some string beans to serve as seed source for next planting and growing pechay seedlings. His days are always full. He loves vegetable farming.

And why not?

On the average, he earns P25,000 from eggplant, P18,000 from pepper, and P15,000 from string beans. These three vegetables are his bestsellers. Because of his vegetables, he now has good savings for his family.

“Jaiton has more money than us,” said Zenaida Pawaki, agricultural technician (AT) in Indanan.

To keep track of his expenditures and income, Jaiton writes everything in his record book. This way, he sees his earnings and draws strength from it.

What’s the secret?

A farmer must be very dedicated and industrious, said Jaiton. In his case, he spends most of his time in his farm so he sees if there are things needing action. He makes sure that he will not be pestered by insect pests and diseases.

Jaiton sprays soap mixed with water on his string beans to ward off bugs. If insect infestation is severe, he sprays pesticide as the last resort. He wants his vegetables to be free from chemicals, as much as possible.

He also uses attractants against fruit fly. He hangs it all over his bitter gourd garden to trap the pest.

The TCP 4 advantage

If before, vegetable planting was never a profitable venture for him, the TCP 4 training taught him otherwise. Jaiton is thankful for his learned knowledge on vegetable production that has given him new hope to better their lives. He said his aspirations are quite simple. He just wants to see his children have decent jobs later, which do not necessarily have to be so grand. They can be a teacher, an extension worker, or a journalist. He would be blissful seeing all of them successful—something he’ll owe to his vegetables.

Now, where is Jaiton Jawali?

He is in Indanan, Sulu proving that in Sulu, one can hear not only of kidnappings for ransom, but also of productive farming.

The TCP 4 for the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) is a collaborative project of Japan International Cooperation Agency, PhilRice, and the Department of Agriculture (DA)-ARMM.

During the terminal evaluation held in Cotabato City last September, Japanese Evaluation Team Leader Dr. Hideyuki Kanamori said the TCP 4 for ARMM surpassed the targets set five years ago.

It has created unexpected impact beyond those set in the project development matrix.

“The project aimed for household food security; the farmers worked harder to bring their products to the market,” said PhilRice Executive Director Ronilo Beronio.

TCP 4 aims to provide enough food for the farming household in ARMM, which remains the poorest region of the country. Twenty-two Palayamanan model farms were established all over ARMM.

Palayamanan model farms showcase how farmers can increase their income by planting vegetables and growing livestock.

That is on top of their rice farms which used to be the only source of income for most of these farmers before the TCP taught them to harness the richness (yaman) of their palay (rice) farms, so goes the word palayamanan. Rice farming as the sole source of livelihood could never be enough to enrich their lives.

Palayamanan is PhilRice’s banner program for rainfed areas.

To complement the model farms, 138 Farmers Field Schools (FFS) were conducted. In the FFS, farmers met weekly to discuss rice and vegetable production. There were also additional topics based on their requests. The FFS allowed farmers to share their experiences with one another and to ask questions with the FFS facilitators, oftentimes the ATs who were also trained by the project.

More than 4,000 farmers have been trained on rice-based farming systems. Some of them were sent to Luzon for study tours. The farmers visited the large vegetable plantations in the Ilocos region and seed centers like the Institute of Plant Breeding in the University of the Philippines-Los Baños and East-west Seed Company in Bulacan.

Three hundred fifty-seven ATs were trained under TCP 4. This enabled the ATs to sharpen their knowledge on rice and vegetable production even if most of them never had technical background on the subjects.

“I did not have formal training on vegetable production before TCP 4. Now, I can handle lectures on rice and vegetable production confidently,” said Al-Rasid Abdul, AT from Tawi-Tawi.

Moreover, 128 Bangsamoro women were trained on food processing. TCP 4 likewise provided reading materials in the vernacular and aired radio programs to complement the weekly FFS.

Results of the impact assessment showed 86% of farmers in Maguindanao, 77% in Lanao del Sur, 84% in Basilan, and 65% in Sulu adopted the rice farming technologies taught by TCP 4.

In Lanao del Sur, there are huge areas that remain untapped for rice production.

Alexander Mangondaya, agricultural promotion officer in the province, said the project has convinced the farmers to try new rice production technologies so they could earn more.

Farmers in Lanao del Sur had the highest increase in income, 120%. Maguindanao was second with 80% increase in income. Basilan, Sulu, and Tawi-Tawi had 54%, 42%, and 47% increase in income, respectively.

Meanwhile, farmers in Maguindanao, one of the top 10 rice-producing provinces in the Philippines, had 71% yield increase. For instance, from 1.36 metric tons (MT) per hectare, rice yield after TCP 4 went up to 2.43 MT per hectare in the uplands. For irrigated lowland, rice yield went up to five MT per hectare.

Rainfed areas in Lanao del Sur, had rice yield of up to 3.57 MT from 1.84 MT per hectare. In Basilan, average yield after TCP 4 in irrigated lowland was 2.67 per hectare which was higher than their average yield before of 1.81 MT per hectare.

Meanwhile in Sulu, rainfed lowland areas had rice yield of 2.02 MT per hectare from their 1.11 MT yield before TCP 4.

Impact assessment in Tawi-Tawi focused on vegetables as rice was not a major crop in the province.

Unexpected ripples

All over ARMM, many farmers have expanded their production so they could earn more. Adjid Jubael, a farmer-participant in Basilan, for instance, earns on the average, P40, 000 from ampalaya alone. Adjid sells his produce in the Garlayan Public Market in Maluso, Basilan.

Moreover, there are already farmers who have formed themselves into cooperatives. Jamil Amer,

APO in Lanao del Sur said the Bamboo Landers Movement (BLM) in Buadiposo, Buntong is a group of TCP 4 farmers who graduated in 2007. BLM sells indigenous microorganisms, planting materials, and vermicast.

Amer said TCP 4 prepared them for bigger opportunities so they could improve their lives.

From Maguindanao to Tawi-Tawi, many farmers have acquired some assets like television, DVD player, and other appliances. Some were even able to build more decent houses because of their income from their produce, said the evaluation team.

Dr. Rodolfo Escabarte Jr, project director, said TCP 4 was among the first project of its kind to penetrate some former rebel areas in ARMM. These areas were Camp Abubakar, formerly the largest camp of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), and the Sumangat Island in Tawi-Tawi, a known MILF-dominated area.

The University of Southern Mindanao, Mindanao State University, provincial and municipal local government units in ARMM helped in implementing TCP 4.

‘Awakening’

When people decide to help themselves, the defining glory of development sparks and shines. Their pooled power can surely precipitate changes in their lives.

Such is the case in Buadiposo, Buntong in Lanao del Sur when TCP 4 2007 training graduates formed the Bamboo Landers’ Movement (BLM), a service-oriented group devoted to helping the farming community in Buadiposo. They maintain a seedling nursery and vermicompost and sell products for organic farming.

The BLM nursery

“We want to help ourselves and other members of our community,” said Palawan Akoon, 29, one of the leaders of the group.

In the nursery, they plant sitao, pechay, okra, and other vegetables. Per harvest, they have a net income of P25,000 each from pechay and okra, their bestsellers. They sell seeds to farmers in nearby barangays Sugod and Marantao.

“Our seeds go far because we sell only high-quality seeds,” said Akoon.

Other farmer-members related that their customers now are mostly from referrals. They also started from individually asking people to buy their produce. Now, they get reservations even before harvest. They gave away their contact numbers to facilitate orders.

New networks, products

It didn’t take long before their efforts got noticed by the Al-Mujadilah Development Foundation (AMDF), a non-governmental organization based in Lanao del Sur working on rural development. AMDF linked BLM to another non-government organization (NGO), Tacdrup, based in Davao City. Tacdrup sponsored trainings on indigenous microorganisms which BLM is selling now.

Fermented plant juice (FPJ), caphos, ornamental and organic herbal nutrients, and fermented amino acid are some of the indigenous microorganism products of BLM. These are either from food wastes like fish bones, vegetables, or spices.

The processes are very simple and are more or less the same: chop, mix, store, transfer to container, and voila! The product is ready to be sold. FPJ, for instance is sold at P100 per one-liter bottle.

Growing

BLM has written manuals in the Maranao language to guide their customers on how to use their products. They are presently looking for funding agencies to help them expand their operations. Their members are likewise eager to attend trainings to update their farming knowledge. As of this writing, they are preparing their organization’s papers for registration as they believe that through it, fund sourcing and networking with other organizations will be easy.

Akoon said that the good thing about their members is that they also have their own vegetable gardens in their backyards. They have all imbibed the lessons in their farmers field school— that they should always have ready access to food that they themselves produce.

Jamil Amer, the agricultural promotion officer who was assigned in the area, maintains his ties with the people in the community. He said that he still receives text messages from them asking if there are updates on rice production that they need to know. For Jamil, what happened in Buadiposo is fulfilling as the farmers now are taking the initiative to take a step further using what they learned from TCP 4.

 

 

Its forerunner, the TCP 3, implemented from November 2004 to November 2009, is also leaving immense progress in farming systems in three pilot sites in Nueva Ecija, Agusan del Norte and Agusan del Sur, and the Ilocos provinces. The Ilocos sites raised productivity in rice-based farming areas; those in Nueva Ecija, intensive irrigated rice double (wet and dry) cropping areas; and in Agusan provinces, adverse rice double cropping areas.

All these used technologies that were developed under the TCP 1 and TCP 2 which include mainly the location-specific technology packages, a set of recommended technologies customized according to the needs of the community. The package also fits with the availability of their resources.

TCP 3 has raised productivity of farmers with more than 60% of farmers increasing their yield by an average of one MT per hectare, raising their income by 90%. TCP 3 produced five manuals, techno-guides on rice and vegetable, and also a training manual for ATs. It has trained 269 ATs, 242 farmers in technology demonstration farms and 609 farmers in expansion sites.

An exceptionally high 90% of farmers adopted at least three components of the technology.

Both JICA funded projects are now being expanded nationwide on 13,642 sites over the next five years as part of the country’s aim to raise the level of rice sufficiency by 2013. This should raise sufficiency at perhaps the 95% level with rice production reaching to 21.8 million MT from 16.8 million MT in 2008.

‘Crutches’ for life

With a wooden leg, American gymnast George Eyser won two golds, silver, and a bronze in the 1904 St. Louis Olympics, Missouri in the United States.

Minus the global prestige and the giant stadium, Kalim Lamug, 52, a TCP 4 cooperator in Brar, Maguindanao is an equally impressive human being. He does not have a left leg, yet he makes it big in vegetable production. Kalim is now one of the most sought-after vegetable producers in the Dalican Public Market in Brar.

New “foot” from TCP 4

In 2007, facilitators saw the determination of Kalim to learn during their sessions in the Farmers Field School (FFS). It does not surprise them that he is now an established vegetable producer. JICA likewise noticed his achievement and gave him a wooden left foot.

But then again, TCP 4 gave him more than just a wooden leg. It gave him a crutch essential for life: farming knowledge that is now giving him thousands of pesos every harvest.

Bitter gourd is Kalim’s “sweet” bestseller. He experienced earning P40,000 from it.

Technologies that indeed work

Pests coexist with Kalim’s vegetables. For bitter gourd alone, the fruit borer is a headache. At times he is left with no choice but to cut the damaged fruits and dispose them far from his vegetable area. The insect pest has enough instinct to resurface and start devouring the other fruits again.

Kalim wraps young bitter gourd fruits with plastic to ward off wasps. He also uses light traps to catch insect pests. At night, he places a basin of water mixed with pesticide and a kerosene lamp near his vegetables. Or, he resorts to using attractants: muscovado sugar plus pesticide spread over small plastic sheet that he hangs in the trellises.

Fruit borers find it hard to resist the attractants, he said. He also wraps the bitter gourd fruits with banana leaves making sure that the uppermost part is covered, as it is the favorite entry point of borers.

Instead of using plastic trays for seed sowing, Kalim uses banana leaves rolled into a cylindrical container held together by a rib of the buri palm. This is very common among ARMM farmers.

Competitive farmer

It usually takes one day before his vegetables reach the market. To remain fresh, he places them on the table and sprinkles them with icy cold water. Sprinkling must be done thrice or more until around 7 pm to maintain the original color of the vegetables. At night, there is no need to sprinkle water.

Come next day, he pays someone to drive his padyak (muscle-powered tricycle) to bring his produce to Dalican market.

Before, he just displayed his produce with no target buyers. A store owner in Cotabato City Public Market noticed his vegetables and was amazed with their quality. The guy had bought his merchandise, and from then on, always placed his orders ahead.

House and other dreams realized

Kalim is now building his house out of his income from vegetables. From a shanty, flimsy structure, he is slowly piling up the hollow blocks for a more “war-enduring” house.

Moreover, his children are now going to school. One of them, who plans to go abroad, is attending high school in Manila to whom Kalim sends P3,000 monthly.

Farmer with a heart

Kalim, at the time of interview, was found staying at the FFS “classroom.” His relatives were staying in his house, as two weeks ago they were displaced by war. He decided to stay in the FFS classroom instead to make sure that it won’t get damaged by his relatives.

Kalim and his wife are likewise active in humanitarian activities. His wife facilitates distribution of relief goods to families displaced by war.

Kalim has lost his left foot, but what he has so far achieved will render many two-legged men stunned. He is an extraordinary man living and walking his dreams for himself and for his family with the crutches that he got from TCP 4.

Surely, his is a life worth emulating.

The TCP has not only been influential in uplifting farmers’ lives in Muslim Mindanao which is the of program of TCP 4. It was originally envisioned to seek a solution to low productivity and low income opportunities from farming, rice-based in particular. Benefit for the whole Philippines

Climate Change Protector

Climate Change Protector

 

It was an undeveloped seaside forest where only a handful of plant or wildlife specie could survive.

Nobody thought for a long time that it can be a rich source of biodiversity and of cultural heritage. For the way man cultivates his natural resources reflects his values and culture.

Then one day, environment specialists sent on a mission to find out what that bay in Sta. Rita, Batangas had, found there was only three species of mangrove that lived there then– the aroma, pipisik, and nipa.

There were just a few species found in the intertidal zone among which were small crabs, bivalves (including scallops, clams), and gastropods (marine snails).

“It was bounded by creeks, by a fish pond in the east and the west. The terrestrial ecology was reduced to non-forest grassland with a small patch of mangrove that could not likely proliferate through the scarcity of sea specie,” according to the report.

It turned out that this mission that started in 1996 under an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) requirement of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) would transform an abandoned coast into a habitat.

The swampy land was to metamorphose into an area where mangrove species, birds, crustaceans, and fishes can thrive.

First Gas Power Corp. (FGPC), which runs two natural gas-fired power plants there, was duty-bound to maintain its environment.

Power plants including the company’s 1,000 megawatt (MW) Sta. Rita and 500 MW San Lorenzo combined cycle gas turbine plants are usually subjected to strict environmental monitoring by government and non-government organizations.

Much more so with the FGPC power plants in Batangas as both plants combined supply a sizable share of 23% of total power demand in the Luzon grid.

FGPC decided at the first report of the EIA that this coastal area should really be revived for its potential biodiversity. Moreover, it can be a source of an alternative livelihood for community residents which should become the company’s partners in this endeavor.

After completing a baseline study (preliminary survey on the environment), it wasted no time in rehabilitating the 9.9-hectare swampy perimeter area. It subsequently put up a plantation using species suitable in the saline water. It planted mangrove trees at a rate of six to 10 trees per 100 square meters.

“The only way for us to become sustainable is to take care of our environment. Mangroves protect from eroding land areas close to the shore. They are a breeding ground for different types of species. Birds live with them,” said FGPC Vice President Ramon J. Araneta.

Mangroves are ideal places for wildlife species to feed, breed, spawn, and hatch. They help create an ecosystem that synergizes with the likewise shoreline-protecting coral reefs and seagrass beds. This way, mangroves protect people from storm surges.

Mangrove trees are sources of firewood, charcoal, timber, and are raw materials for paper and chipboard. They are sources of medicines and dyes and are used as feed for livestock.

They have tremendous economic value just from their filtering function of trapping destructive chemicals.

Plain how the objective of FGPC may have been in trying to turn the coasts of Batangas Bay into a mangrove forest, the process involved tedious planning.

The company had to educate its community and other stakeholders on the importance of protecting the mangrove. It had to involve them in the propagation of the mangrove trees. It had to source seedlings of the plantation species that can grow in the area.

The company was serious in all this. It put up in September 2007 its own tree nursery that produces 10,000 seedlings per year at a cost of P7 per seedling.

It also identified the types of soil there– loamy sand, sandy clay loam, sandy loam, and sandy– and what could possibly grow in them. It had to do site matching before actual planting of the mangrove tree seedlings.

Planting of different species like Bakauan-bato, Tabigi, Bakauan-lalake, Bakauan-babae, and Saging saging followed.

After the planting, monitoring and inventory had to be done to observe the growth and survival of the trees.

In 2007, an inventory showed 28 species grew in the area which was 80% of the total number of mangrove species known to grow in the country.

An interesting specie, the sonneratia caseolaris or “pedada” which has flowers with red petals and with a fruit known as a vinegar material now blossoms in the bay as much as they are found in the coasts of Zamboanga and Cagayan provinces.

“There was an abrupt increase in the number of species from 2003 to 2005. Tree density increased to 29 trees per 100 square metera or 2,900 trees per hectare,” according to a report.

Soon enough, birds nested in the mangroves’ thickening forest cover. In a rapid assessment of avian community in November last year, 46 bird species identified as resident, endemic, or migratory used the mangroves for food or as resting places.

Brightly-colored Kingfishers, Maya bird, and Pacific Swallow were sighted in the bustling habitat.

“Monitoring observed the establishment of avian biodiversity in the area. The flora and fauna biodiversity changed with the microclimate due to the shade of the mangroves. Plants that were unlikely to thrive in the coast’s previous condition began to rise,” said the inventory report.

Some olive ridley sea turtles or “pawikan” was found nestling in the area. Thirty-seven hatchlings were recorded which shows the ecological soundness of the bay with the presence of the mangroves.

And with the environmental benefit came an added advantage in the company’s development of the mangroves– a livelihood program from aquasilviculture.

Conflicting interests in potential coastal forest areas is not unusual as some people would want to keep the area as a settlement or use it as a fish pond.

But aquasilviculture strikes a balance between people’s interests. With it, a part, around 60% of the saline water area, can be planted with mangroves for conservation efforts while the rest, 40%, may be grown with fishes and mudcrabs.

“Some people destroy the mangroves and replace these with fish ponds. But mangroves and fish ponds can co-exist,” said Melchy Enriquez of the FGPC environment and chemical service.

Aquasilviculture can be profitable. The South East Asian Fisheries and Development Center-Aquaculture Department indicated that an average gross income of $580 per hectare per year is earned by farmers in Indonesia. Their net profit from it is placed at $356 per hectare per year.

In September 2008, crab fattening started in the FGPC’s mangroves over a one-hectare fenced area. This is becoming an alternative source of livelihood for the community people as the program occasionally requires workers. FGPC has taken an experienced crab grower in the locality, Conrado Aguado, to tend the farm in a productive manner.

This way, the community people are now at the same time protectors of the environment.

The crab fattening has also become a favored program at FGPC because it yields fresh, sweet, and a delightful dish served during special corporate events.

Global warming has just been intensively felt in the country with the onslaught of typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng. Because of this, campaigns for the protection of forests including mangroves have become an in thing.

Mangrove forest trees absorb carbon dioxide both above ground and on the soil surface. A carbon stock assessment in the FGPC mangroves revealed that a total of 4,662 metric tons (MT) of carbon has been so far sequestered by the existing mangrove stands.

Its potential to absorb more polluting carbon dioxide increases as the tree ground cover increases. The carbon sequestration potential for the entire 9.9 hectare-mangrove area is estimated at 14.85 MT quarterly or 59.4 MT per year.

Mangroves all over the Philippines, spanning over 160,000 hectares as of 2003, are estimated to have a great potential to sequester carbon and store it in trees’ biomass and soil.

While most mangroves in the country in the early 1900s, placed at 450,000 hectares, have substantially been obliterated, there is a

a resurgence of a concern to restore them.

“Much of what has been left are second growth forests that now need immediate rehabilitation to arrest further degradation. The need of the time calls for a shared responsibility and an active participation of the different stakeholders, government and private sector, in protecting, managing, and enhancing natural resources,” said FGPC.

With the increasing awareness on the importance of restoring mangroves, there may be hope for the Philippine environment and business in the future, after all.

“A key component of industrialization is the protection of the environment. This should ultimately lead our people to exert more efforts in conserving it,” said Araneta.

Diet Secret Cafe

Diet Secret Cafe

By Rebekah Manansala

If you are still wondering if we have Philippine-made healthful products that make us truly proud, see what nutritionist and entrepreneur Norita Badong has come up with out of sweet sorghum.

Not only are Norie’s baked products at Mediterranean-inspired Diet Secret Cafe on Mayo Ave. in Naga City healthy food from sweet sorghum and moringga (malunggay). They are delicious too.

Some of her products are now also for sale at the Regional Technology Commercialization Center (RTCC) in Pili, Camarines Sur put up by the Bureau of Agricultural Research (BAR) to promote world class Philippine products.

Diet Secret Cafe has all those luring sweeties one would look for just about every after meal– chips, cakes in all flavors (including Black Forest and ube), pasta, pastries, bread, and even known junkies.

But it makes these rather different– in ingredients, in taste, in food value. Take them as you like and take advantage of their nutritional benefits.

Sweet sorghum is very high in fiber and in nutritional value much as moringga is a super-nutritious food that it’s known to be a wonder herb. Sweet sorghum has those hard-to-find nutrients such as iron, calcium, and potassium and was the vitamins of the olden days when pills were not yet existent. Moringga is known to have seven times the Vitamin C in oranges, four times the calcium in milk, four times the Vitamin A in carrots, two times the protein in milk, and three times the potassium in bananas.

Norie stresses she doesn’t have anything against wheat flour, specially the whole wheat. But she asserts one doesn’t get much from overly-processed white wheat flour as everyone would agree.

While commercial bakery products use well-milled wheat flour that renders the food stripped of its nutrients, Norie uses sweet sorghum for flour whose nutrition property is inherent in its physical form.

“They’re already taking out the bran (outer layer of grain containing fiber, omegas, starch, protein, vitamins and minerals), the hull, the wheat germ (in white flour), so you’ll end up with empty carb. But sweet sorghum doesn’t have a hull,” and so it retains the nutrients in its grains, she said.

The use of a non-wheat flour may be an absolute minority in the Philippines. But Norie is looking for ways through her own research and development (R&D) so that the goods her products made from non-wheat flour will taste just like wheat flour.

While it is difficult to use grainy flour like that of sweet sorghum flour, a key is in using this at a lower mesh sieve to make the product softer to the bite.

Norie has been developing products from non-wheat flour for at least five years as she wanted to use raw materials that are already here, aside from their being nutritious.

That makes the country richer as she substitutes wheat imports with local materials and give livelihood to Filipino farmers.

For a long time, we have been used to bread made of wheat flour, of which our daily pan de sal for breakfast is made. But we don’t grow wheat in the Philippines which is why we import it at a whopping more than one million tons a year (worth some $200 million)!

Norie has been using starchy vegetables like camote (sweet potato), cassava (kamoteng kahoy), and arrowroot (the root crop uraro or araro). Crops like these– arrowroot and sweet sorghum– have high amylose starch, making them apt for diabetics, hypertensives, the obese, and the diet conscious.

“The beauty of uraro is it has a high amylose starch, so it can be perfect for diabetics. Your body doesn’t metabolize it readily, so the calorie that it yields is very slow. It’s low glycemic too since it’s high in fiber. It’s in fact being used to prevent colon cancer,” said the health-conscious chef.

The type of sweetener is the other healthy ingredient in her food. All her sweeteners come from natural sources like the stevia plant which is available locally in ready-to-pour form or in herb form as a dip-in sweetener. Her other sweeteners are coconut sap sugar and xylitol which can be extracted from fibers of fruits and vegetables including berries and birch.

“We try to imitate sweetness using our sugar-free, cholesterol-free ingredient. We don’t use synthetic sweeteners,” she beams.

At their price, Norie believes her products, which are also egg yolk-free and use non-dairy based butter (olive oil butter, canola), are far cheaper than their real value.

“Considering you get the health benefits, won’t you pay a higher price for these?”

She believes, though, that there is a big room for bringing down prices for delicacies that use local raw materials by producing them massively.

Diet Secret Cafe has started contributing to marginalized farmers’ increased planting of sweet sorghum since Norie heard their value and propagation plans from Ateneo de Naga-Small and Medium Business Enterprise (SMBE). Sweet sorghum is presently grown in Pacol, Naga on around 18 hectares under the SMBE program that hosts a scholarship for the underprivileged.

Norie’s love for cooking started when she was very young, at three. And her love for business makes this passion encompassing as Diet Secret Cafe also gives employment to marginalized women whom they train in food production and processing.

And to make these healthy flour taste how it should, Norie reveals three secrets, maybe four. The first is indefatigable hardwork, the second is continuous improvement, primarily arising from her family’s constructive criticism. The third is cultured talent.

That hardwork for baking and cooking has been evident as she took up a second course, Nutrition and Dietetics at the Universidad de Sta. Isabel, atop her first course, Physical Therapy, just to get a license and prove her mettle in this arena.

Any baker knows the difficulty of working with non-wheat flour, but there she has it!

When developing a product, Norie would work non-stop, without sleep at all for three to four days. She couldn’t help but reformulate and reconstruct what has been unacceptable until the product is molded into the desired taste.

And if members of her family don’t find it acceptable, it won’t get through the market.

Now this must be a mix of the inseparable success formula of nurture and nature:

“When it comes to food, but not in others, I have a very photographic memory, (which is) based on the taste. I have in my memory 15,000 recipes. The fascination over the convergence of flavors, aroma, texture, and colors of food had all my senses engaged,” she discloses.

Finally, there is a business skill in it– Norie has seen this is profitable because of the prevalence of diseases in the Philippines to which Diet Secret cafe is an answer.

Soon, you will find Norie’s goods in the organic market of Mara Pardo de Tavera in Legaspi Village and other organic shops in Greenhills and Salcedo Village.

Isn’t it about time we become proud of our own by grabbing them?

Main Education Highway

Main Education Highway

By Melody M. Aguiba

In the 1990s, a review indicated that the Philippines was spending significantly lower for education than its neighbors– only 1.3% of gross national product (GNP) while Thailand was spending 3.6%; Indonesia, 3.7%; and Malaysia, 6%.

Despite the low investment, the review found out that a high 97.78% of children of grade school age attended elementary school; enrollment in all levels (elementary, high school, and college) was at a peak 15.4 million or one-fourth of the population; and the literacy rate of Filipinos 10 years old and above was at 89% which was high relative to the country’s neighbors.

Amid these positive findings, the Congressional Commission to Review and Assess Philippine Education (EDCOM) then recommended the founding of the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) to govern college or higher education.

This was along with the recommended founding of a department of basic education ( now the Department of Education or DepEd) and of the Technical Education and Skills development (TESDA)– technical and vocational education.

But another review made eight years afterwards by the Presidential Commission on Educational Reform (PCER) reported that the three agencies that government had created — DepEd, TESDA, and CHED– had to be coordinated.

“Many critiques view the trifocalization of the education system as one the creates cross-cutting problems specially since the basic premise is that three different people with the same Cabinet rank report to the president and manage various levels of the education ladder,” according to a workshop of the Presidential Task Force for Education (PTFE).

The absence of cohesiveness among these three agencies has apparently worsened the negative state of Philippine education that the EDCOM already found out in the 1990s:

Disparities in access to education, formal and informal, prevailed at all levels in favor of rich, urban, high-income students, and communities. The percentage of non-completion of primary education was highest in depressed regions.

Students from rich, urban, and developed communities had higher achievements records. Pupils on average learned only 55% or less of what must be learned.

Muslim, cultural communities, and special learners suffered from neglect.

Non-formal education was inadequate.

Science and technology (S&T) education was inadequate. Innovations in education and technology hardly found their adoption in schools.

Mismatches occurred between the supply and demand for educated and trained manpower, while education in general was irrelevant to individual and social needs.

Teachers were inadequately trained.

Graduate education was mediocre, limited, and underdeveloped.

The People Competitiveness Summit in November 2007 separately reported the following:

Few scientists and engineers are doing research and development in the country in proportion to the population.

Poor performance of secondary students in Math and Science reflects the dismal state of its teaching.

More non-majors are teaching Science subjects which is a major cause of the weakness in Science.

It is conclusive that without an integrated education that prepares primary students towards higher education– high school to professional schools– it may be difficult to prepare children to become capable of meeting the requirements of higher education.

Worse, when encountering the difficulties early in life and without seeing a vision of the future, kids may be discouraged along the way from pursuing big dreams in life.

Could it be one of the major reasons why the Philippines has been left behind among countries’ pursuit toward industrialization and toward becoming a first world country which was then the aim of “Philippines 2000″ back in the early 1990s? The answer is obvious.

This objective of integrating education from pre-school to college and graduate school is one of the main reasons why the Main Education Highway (MEH) is envisioned by the PTFE.

This integration meshes the academe and the business world or industries. It closes the gap between education and job requirements of companies. And it opens the country’s door to a knowledge-based economy.

The PTFE is now coordinating the three education agencies in a “Harmonized Philippine Education System.”

Consequently, it is implementing the MEH in the aim of raising Filipinos’ skills in order to have higher income and opportunities that will lead to the country’s economic development.

“Asia will be the home of the next scientific and technological revolution. Effective planning necessitates defining the country’s position, said Presidential Assistant for Education Mona Dumlao-Valisno and PTFE chairman.

“One of the pillars of a knowledge-based economy is the formulation of a national innovation system of firms, research centers, universities, and other organizations that can keep up with modernization.”

The MEH envisions that the Philippines will have a world class capability in information and communication technology (ICT), biotechnology, materials science, and microelectronics– by 2010, although that must be too close to achieve now.

“By 2020, we will have established a well-developed S&T (science and technology)-based small and medium enterprise (SME) sector, world-class universities in S&T, internationally-recognized scientists and engineers, and model status for S&T management and governance,” Valisno said.

A program aligned with the MEH is the Basic Education Sector Reform Agenda (Besra) of DepEd which has these major thrusts:

1. School-Based Management: DepEd will allow each of its 42,000 overseen schools to become decision makers in introducing innovation in education relevant to the needs of their communities.

2. Competency-Based Teacher Standards: recruitment, training, and deployment of teachers based on competency which will also be a guide to teachers’ salaries and benefits and their training from licensure to retirement.

3. Complementary Services for Early Education, Alternative Learning, and Private Education which is now under study.

Under the MEH, after the 10-year normal primary and secondary education, a student can either choose to take a Technical-Vocational Education Training (TVET) which is a non-degree program for less than four years or a four-to-six year college education that can be followed by a master’s or doctorate education.

But the TVET is not only for high school graduates. It is also offered by DepEd schools. Its aim is to improve technology-vocational program even in high school so that a high school student can increase his chances of a better livelihood even if he quits high school at any level.

The TVET, which is governed by TESDA, can also accept college dropouts, college graduates, and returning overseas Filipino workers (OFW).

Aside from the 121 TESDA Technology Institutes which offers TVET, offering TVET education are other TVET providers totalling to 4,515 of which 2,786 are private institutions.

State universities and colleges (SUCs), local government units, and other government agencies offer TVET.

TVET is being designed too to have programs for women, persons with disability (PWD), and indigenous people (IP).

“TVET graduates (will have) validated competence to perform skills according to standards defined by industry. Hence, the registry of certified job-ready TVET graduates will be available to prospective employers, both for local and overseas employment,” she said.

As with the technology-vocational program, improvement in higher education should address job-skills mismatch. The MEH is attracting students to enrol in courses needed by industries through incentives to students like scholarships.

The thrust is to direct students to S&T courses that will enhance specialization on industries like biotechnology, nanotechnology, and materials science.

“The Main Education Highway is a strategic platform towards the goal of producing world class graduates. The MEH continuum starts from pre-school, to basic education, to middle-level or technical-vocational educaiton and higher education. It incorporates two elements: tighter linkage of tertiary education with industry and provision of lifelong-learning mechanisms and interventions,” said Valisno.

But rather than a concrete road or highway, the MEH bolsters the use of education for economic progress by ensuring that industries lead the way in the education sector’s direction, in upgrading its quality, and in determining college or vocational schools’ courses and curriculum.

“A successful linkage between industry and academe will result into a more realistic curricula for various disciplines, train faculty, efficiently use equipment, and impose transparency in the use of funds,” she said.

The following, according to the PTFE, can also implement these industry-academe linkages:

Industries’ training initiatives for their employees

Corporate universitites– originating from the United States, it also exists in Europe and Asia and are managed by companies, harmonizing education with the company’s business.

The programs of Ambassador Donald G. Dee, special envoy for trade and negotiation, and of the PHilippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI), the Employers Confederation of the Philippines (ECOP), and the Universal Access to Competitiveness and Trade (U-ACT) that identified nine pilot industry sectors. These are business process outsouricng, tourism and hospitality services (including education tourism and medical tourism), electronics, engineering (agricultural engineering), construction, maritime, shipbuilding, health care, and wholesale and retail.

Community e-Center Porgram of the Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT) which includes Internet in Schools for public high schools; e-Care Centers for training Persons with Disabilitites (PWD), e-LGUs Community e-Centers for Local Government Units (LGUs), and Regional ICT centers for the use of ICT in education, commerce, and governance.

The Philippine Research, Education, and Government Information Network (PREGINET) of the Department of Science and Technology-Advanced Science and Technology Institute (DOST-ASTI) which has 76 partners including 29 from research agencies, 14 from the academe, and 33 from government. It taps the network infrastructure of the Telecommunications Office (TELOF) and has networks with international research agencies like the Asia Pacific Advanced Network and the Trans Eurasia Informaiton Network.

Valisno said government has allocated for 2008 almost P200 billion for education, the largest among all departments, including P140 billion for DepEd, P19.64 billion for SUCs, and P400 million for scholarship.

That is raising budget allocation for education to 2.7% of GDP in a wider aim to accelerate GDP growth to 7-8% by 2009-2010 and reducing poverty to below 20% by 2009.

So, have you heard about the 11-year old boy who completed college with a degree in Astrophysics? Yes, Moshe Kai Cavalin finished at the East Los Angeles Community College at an age when most students would only be in Grade 6.

Now that kind of achievement can only be possible in an innovative educational system that encourages it. Who knows such system may be what MEH is there for?

Education Plus!

Education Plus!

The Main Education Highway may be exciting enough, but the Education Plus! proposed by Dr. Mona Dumlao-Valisno may be even more fascinating with its invitation to offer our world to foreigners and learn with them.

“Education Plus! is not a novel concept. Traveling to learn dates as far back as the Roman times with tours to Egypt and the ‘Grand Tours’ during the Renaissance,” said Valisno, who herself traveled to obtain a Ph. D in Education, major in Measurement and Evaluation, at the University of Toronto in Canada as a Colombo Plan Scholar.

That was after completing her Education at the the Philippine Normal College and her master’s degree on Education (specializing in administration and supervision) at the University of the Philippines.

This education tourism program will establish the Philippines as a Center for Excellent International Education similar to how Singapore has become after putting up 16 well-known universities that accept foreign students, she said.

That may not be a very far-fetched dream as the University of Western Australia has just opened its Philippines campus in Makati. This can be the start of the founding of offshore campuses of internationally-recognized universities here.

“With the implementation of the program, more avenues for attracting foreign universities will be opened up,” she said.

Since the presence of every foreigner creates one job, it will further enhance job creation efforts toward poverty alleviation.

Education Plus! will boost the country’s foreign exchange earnings from the $4.9 billion visitor receipts in 2007 that the Department of Tourism reported which includes spending of foreign students.

On the whole, this will create a climate attractive to investors in various industries. It will inspire collaboration in research and development and elevate Philippine education to a globally competitive level.

The Philippines has a competitive advantage as a center for learning and can succeed in education tourism if it will focus on these advantages.

For one, the country is already a destination for learning English specially for South Koreans who come here for English as a Second Language (ESL), a program which may attract other Asian students as well, Valisno said.

Next, the cost of living in the country is relatively low, and the country has a culture where foreigners can practically feel at home.

A focus on technical-vocational courses and even on higher education may become the needed pro-active approach. You always hear people say that many Asians including Thais and Vietnamese attended Agriculture courses in the Philippines before they even became an agriculture success.

Culinary Arts and Pilot Training are short-term courses available here for tourists. Multinational companies also train their employees here on technical-vocational courses. Through the GOTEVOT of the Technical Education & Skills Development Authority (TESDA), foreign government employees also get trained locally.

Expatriates send their children to basic education in the Philippines where grade school or high school teachers can be at par with the world’s best. Filipino teachers are in fact being imported by the United States.

The country can follow after the path set by Singapore which only introduced Singapore Education in 2003 and now accepts 90,000 foreign students.

It can be inspired by Australia’s foreign education program which thrives on its Vocational-Technical Education (VTE) and its English Language Intensive Courses for Overseas Students (ELICOS) which attract students from China Hongkong, Thailand, South Korea, and Japan.

“Australia’s educational services was valued at over $9 billion in earnings for the financial year 2004-2005, much bigger than their wool, wheat, and beef industries,” said Valisno.

The Bureau of Immigration and Deportation (BID) is already seeing a rise in the number of foreign students in the country with 4,174 foreigners with Student Visas as of November 2008, up by 1.5% from 2007. They came mostly for technical-vocational courses and short term courses.

All of these potential programs can be expanded in light of abounding opportunities to cater to tourists that haven’t experienced how it is to live on any of the Philippines’ unique 7,100 islands.

 

Reconstruction toward a Tiger Economy

Reconstruction Toward a Tiger Economy

 

For him, the first requirement to reconstruct Metro Manila, and then to turn it into a progressive economy, is for the leadership to have a political will.

   That will require a leadership that can address corruption, criminality, and climate change.

   The rest of the needs for rebuilding Metro Manila, out of the onslaught of disastrous typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng, have long been detailed in historic and scientific urban plans for the metropolis.

   These urban plans go back to the city plan in 1905 of American Architect Daniel Burnham and a comprehensive Metro Manila plan (Metroplan) in 1976-1977 that well accounted the great flood of 1970.

   Integrated with the will to put into reality these plans, Arch. Felino A. Palafox Jr., managing partner and founder of multinational urban planning-architectural firm Palafox Associates, believes the elements of making Philippines a great nation are all there.

   “We were No. 1 in Asia in 1935.  We’re No. 2 in the world in 1965.  We’re No. 1 in the world in marine biodiversity, No. 1 in the world in the number of sailors.  I’d like to believe we’re No. 1 in building.  We’re No. 2 in BPO (business process outsourcing) and call centers, No. 2 in the longest coastline, No. 5 in mineral resources, No. 1 in human resources, said Palafox.

   “Filipino expatriates overseas are serving kings, queens, presidents, and prime ministers. They are the preferred employees of the world. If we Filipinos work hard as those Filipinos abroad, I think we can be a great nation.”

   But first, according to him, let us make our people a priority in all our plans for economic development.

   For some time, Palafox has been advocating  a development where the Filipino workforce will be given a premiere position by providing them an affordable housing right in the urban area so that they will have easier access to their workplaces– and from there increase their productivity.

   “Like Paris and Venice, the city of Manila should have medium-rise (residential) buildings, not single family homes. But what we did was we constructed one, two-story homes.  We went urban sprawling, unlike our progressive-thinking neighbors Singapore, Hongkong, Japan, and Korea.  They went vertical urbanism.  Eighty-two percent of Singaporeans live in public housing for a 100-year lease. (With us,) we’ve practically covered the whole ground.  That’s why even our drainages are all clogged. We have no more open spaces,” he said.

   When the Americans left, we have forgotten about the 1905 Burnham plan which must have made Metro Manila a beautiful and a culture-rich place to live in.

   The Pasig River should have been designed after Paris’s River Seine, the best known river in France and a great tourist attraction; the esteros of Manila, after the canals of Venice, a city tagged by a New York Times author to be “undoubtedly the most beautiful city built by man”; and Manila Bay, after Italy’s Naples Bay which is a World Heritage Site.

   Instead of taking on a European pattern for the water resource-rich sites, Metro Manila has been patterned after Los Angeles.

   “It’s a big planning mistake under Burnham’s standards,” Palafox said.  “Los Angeles was designed for automobile and has the land resources we don’t have. America produces its own cars, we don’t produce our own.”

   Makati was designed for automobiles, rather than for pedestrians, even if 80% of people go to Makati via public transportation while only 20% use their cars.

   The first mode of transportation in Metro Manila should be walking, followed by bicycle.  This is healthier for people and the environment.  The third is public transport (trains, buses), and the last is by private vehicles.

   Metro Manila should have first of all built condominium-type housing for its workforce. This may be patterned aftter Massachussett’s Anti-Snob Zoning, administered by its Department of Housing and Community Development, which allowed the construction of affordable housing within the urban area for low and moderate-income families.

   “This is why they don’t have social unrest in Boston, unlike in Los Angeles where the poor is outside the gated community of the rich,” he said.

   Changes in the rules of building is also a major requirement to rebuild Metro Manila.

   “The Building Code has to be reviewed.  In New York, they require a cistern for every building to harvest rainwater so that release of rainwater will not be simultaneous and to reduce flooding.  You can postpone release of water in your house, and use the water for irrigation, fire protection, and recycling.”

   There are legal provisions in the developed world for building water retention ponds so water release  does not cause flooding.

   In the Philippines, there are no differences based on geographic feature in vehicle parking provisions in the Building Code.  Provisions are the same for Makati, Jolo, and Batanes, even if Makati has more cars than anywhereelse.

   Subdivision rules are the same, regardless of topography, whether you’re in a hillside or in a flat area which is 70% more saleable while hillside houses, being usually less costly, can afford to and should have more open spaces for planting trees.

   In a 23-point recommendation to reconstruct Metro Manila filed with Pres. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and the Reconstruction Commission (RC) headed by Philippine Long Distance Telephone Chief Manny Pangilinan, Palafox’s foremost advice is to construct the Paranaque spillway long proposed in the Metroplan.

   Rather than resigning to the idea that Ondoy typhoon’s destruction was “an act of God,” Palafox asserts that these destructions are actually under man’s control.

   How evident that must be since such deep flooding in Metro Manila that submerged surrounding Laguna Lake towns, the Marikina Valley, and the northern part of Manila (Navotas, Bulacan) occured already in 1970 and way back in 1919.

   “We saw in 1975 that these areas are liable to flooding which already happened in 1919.  In 12 out of 17 years that we studied, we found out these places were going to be flooded,” said Palafox.

   Taking stock of what happened in this 1970 calamity, the Metroplan prepared over 14 months from January 1976 to
February 1977 a master plan for Metro Manila that included construction of the spillway. Commissioned by the then Department of Public Works, Transportation, and Communications to Freeman Fox and Associates (FFA), the Metroplan was funded by World Bank and tapped about 40 Filipinos and 20 foreign technocrats.

   In “Problems Related to Water,” FFA proposed the five-kilometer Paranaque spillway.  For this, P188 million was allocated under Presidential Decree No. 1062 signed on Dec. 15, 1976 by former President Ferdinand E. Marcos.

   PD 1062 considered that the flood control and drainage form part of the infrastructure needed to accelerate socio-economic development.

   Thus, PD 1062 allocated P720 million for 13 flood control projects nationwide of which the biggest was the Paranaque Spillway.  The Napindan Hydraulic Control Structure in Rizal, now called Manggahan Floodway, was actually constructed from the P100 million appropriation by PD 1062.

   PD 1062 flood also provided fund for the following flood control projects– Tarlac River, Guiman-Porac-Caulaman River in Pampanga, Asingan-San Manuel in Pangasinan, Samar Integrated Area, Schistomiasis River, Lake Mainit, Mag-Asawang Tubig in Oriental Mindoro, Tagoloan River in Misamis Oriental, Agno River in Pangasinan, and Cotabato River.

   The Paranaque spillway is considered as the least costly route to channel Laguna Lake’s excess water to Manila Bay, being the shortest. But the spillway has not been implemented at all since this may have been blocked by influential residents of Paranaque, according to analysts.

   By 1983, the Metropolitan Manila Commission’s Office of the Commissioner for Planning cancelled the Panaque spillway project  under the Capital Investment Folio report.

   Now, there is a need to implement the project.

   “We cannot afford without it, we’ll lose billions of pesos and hundreds of lives.  How can you quantify that?  A cost-benefit analysis will show there will be far more benefit than cost,” said Palafox. “Laguna Lake is like a bath tub with 21 faucets (21 rivers spilling water into it) without a drain, like toilet without flush. That drain will be the spillway.”

   But from the original P188 million, the Paranaque spillway now needs P20 billion to be constructed. 

   A proposal has come up constructing a spillway that would discharge flood water from the Laguna Lake to the Pacific Ocean.  But this involves an infrastructure several times more costly than Paranaque with more than 50 kilometers passing through the mountainous terrain of Sierra Madre in Quezon.

   “I think it’s ridiculous and very costly.  Imagine doing the spillway in the mountains,” said Palafox.

   Most of  Palafox’s recommendations filed with the Office of the President (OP) and RC 22 have long been embodied in documents filed with several agencies of the government, including some major projects under the 3,133-page Metroplan that has been shelved for 32 years.

   The 100-day plan from last Sept. 26 when the Ondoy flooding happened involves dredging of rivers, esteros, and lakes; construction of pontoon walkways (ramps or floating systems); relocation of people to higher ground; design of the spillway; and master planning of Metro manila.

   The short term up to 2010 involves enforcement of setbacks and easements along shoreline which must include two buildings in Malacanang to be pushed back in order to allow for a 10-meter easement from the Pasig River.

   The medium-term plan up to 2016 creates green islands from dredged materials to house the urban poor.  Landfill and water treatment facilities are established, and the spillway is finally constructed.

   For the long term, catch basins must be reforested.

   Under the rules and regulations for these short to long term planning, government should establish a 100-year flood line, control (prohibit building) development in flooding-prone areas, build higher than the 100-year flood line and in consideration of the predicted one meter water level rise arising from climate change, build elevated walkways and sky-bridges that would connect buildings above flood waters; flood-proof (design and construction) houses, schools, and other structures.

   His 6 to 12 recommendations are implement the 1905 Burnham Plan, Metroplan, and 2003 Manila Megalopolis Concept Plan 2020; create a master plan for flood control, drainage, sewerage, and pollution; implement pollution abatement measures, reforest hills and mountains, and revise subdivision regulations.

   While the reconstruction and redesign of Metro Manila may entail a huge amount, many multilateral financiers are ready to lend to the Philippines specially as it has been hit by a disaster, according to Palafox. 

   Besides, the country is acknowledged by global leaders as among the most vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change and global warming even if it is not a contributor to it, being an unindustrialized, non-energy intensive country.

   Palafox urges that the government now grab the financing for disaster which is normally good for six months.  Or a disaster may hit another country and that amount may be transfered to another, just like Palafox’s experience of losing grant fund supposedly for the typhoon disasters in Quezon.

   There are many other fund sources aside from the China loan for $15 billion eyed by the RC.

   “Three big companies from Europe just came here offering their help.  They can help in engineering, construction, new technology, and in making projects bankable for fund sourcing.  These are multinational companies that may be bigger than us in GDP (gross domestic product),” he said.

   These companies may seek donations from their government for certain equipment that would be useful in the reconstruction effort. It is estimated that some P30 billion in cost of property has been destroyed in the country by the recent typhoons. 

   Palafox himself is donating a big share of his professional fees.

   “I offered to the president a big portion of my professional fee.  Of course I have to be paid also because I’m paying salaries of people.  But I will give a generous discount for fees for architecture, urban planning, master planning , and engineering.  What is important for me is to get people’s cooperation and the needed information and data and that everything is done professionally,” he said.

   A graduate for his high school at the Christ the King Seminary and earlier intending to become a priest, Palafox opted to rather pursue Architecture at the University of Sto. Tomas in his love for it as a “functional” art. He finished it in 1972.

   Right after having been part of the Metroplan, he was offered a job by the Dubai government to become part of Dubai’s highly-advanced urban planning and since then imbibed a global concept for building specially lately, towards environment-friendly, green architecture.

   Going back to Manila to end up as Ayala Corp.’s chief architect, Palafox decided he could do more by putting up his own.  He then built the only Filipino architectural firm that landed in the World Architecture’s Top 100 as Top 94 as of 2006.  That is in terms of highest fee earnings, biggest firms, and busiest market sectors. The company is also a holder of  a TUV certification and ISO quality management and environmental management certificates.

   Palafox Associates has designed structures in practically all the world’s populated continents– Asia, North and South America, Australia, and Europe.  In the Philippines, the company completed conceptual development plan for many local governments– Sagay City, Guimaras, Roxas City, Nasugbu, Cavite, Bulacan, Puerto Princesa, Iwahig in Palawan, Pasig River, Quezon City, and Paranaque.

   It designed mixed-use complexes– Rockwell Center, Makati Avenue, Exchange Plaza, Zuellig-Sime Darby, Cubao, Subangdaku in Cebu; residential communities– Sta. Elena Golf Course, The Country Club, Manila Southwoods, Splendido Taal, Forest Hills; business parks– The Millennium of Davao City, Bacolod, Iloilo Corporate Center; commercial centers– SM, Robinsons, Waltermart.

   Palafox took up further studies to fortify a strength that he had all along– first a master in Environmental Planning at the University of the Philippines as a United Nations scholar and then an Advanced Management Development Program for Real Estate at the Harvard University in 2003.

   While some people who hear him take a vocal and strong stance against corruption and government inefficiencies accuse him of being interested to run for politics, Palafox rather veers away from real involvement in government. He rather stays as a consultant of the RC, even for free, than be a part of it.

   He believes the country can compete with Singapore as a transport hub as Clark and Subic were found to be highly strategically positioned by the Americans before they left these more than 10 years ago.

   “There are 92 million Filipinos versus four million Singaporeans.  Clark and Subic are bigger than Singapore. Hire a Lee Kuan Yew to run them, and they will be competing against Singapore. Singapore is smaller than Laguna Lake and is just the size of Guimaras.  It just happened to have excellent, benevolent, visionary, honest leaders.  The quality of leadership is excellent.  They don’t have obsolete laws and have more effective implementation.”

   Government should review the designs of major airports, even those that are being constructed, specially in light of climate change. 

   “Majority of our airports are under water because they are designed worngly.  We have millions of Filipinos abroad. How can we send and receive them if majority of our airports are flooded?  How can we encourage tourism if majority of our airports are flooded?”

   To effectively enforce laws and prevent criminality,  government should start protecting the welfare of policemen.  Palafox said they should be given decent housing within the urban area. And those killed while on duty should be duly buried in the Libingan ng mga Bayani.

   “They’re treated like second class citizens when they’re supposed to be enforcing laws, preventing criminality.  How can you prevent criminality when 62% of our policemen are squatters or live in squatter areas.  And 80% of police precincts are squatting.  They don’t own the land.”

   Palafox has been talking with the Habitat for Humanity, Gawad Kalinga, and big landowners to seek for the construction of decent housing for them.

   But his hope is really to see spaces in military camps provided for these law enforcers as much as for low-income urban workers.  

   “Our military camps, located in very expensive urban areas, are under-utilized.  We have single-story buidings for generals.  Why not multi-story?  It’s just institutional constraint.  We have huge military camps, government institutions in the wrong places like he Quezon Institute for tuberculosis which should be elsewhere. 

   “The largest real este owner is government.  Maybe 10-20% of Camp Crame and Camp Aguinaldo could be (multi-story) housing for policemen and soldiers. Maybe generals should just be given playing rights in private camps.  Give up the golf courses for urban housing.  Make it affordable for them.  It doesnt have to be freehold, maybe 100 year-leasehold, or three generations.”

   A big headache for many people engaged in beautification for decades now,  the Pasig River should be freed of its illegal settlers if it has to improve immensely.

   “We need to move illegal settlers including the two buildings of Malacanang.  I told the president, if a good leader must be good, he must be an exemplar not exempted.  The two buildings of Malacanang  are encroaching on the Pasig River’s 10-meter easement. So before you move the 10,000 squatter families, you should start with Malacanang.”

   Yes, the Philippines can indeed be a great nation, even a tiger economy in just six years, if only it will have very hardworking people and a leadership that will address  corruption, criminality, and climate change. 

   China may be known to also have widespread corruption, but still enjoys brisk growth rates that has already made it a power economy.  Yet China and emerging economy Vietnam have both very strict rules against corruption, according to Palafox. 

   “They put people into prison.  Corrupt people, they execute them.  So is Vietnam.  In Vietnam, they will not only put the one receiving bribes to prison, but also the ones giving bribes.  They execute them.  I was there when that happened, not just bribe taker but also the bribe giver.”

   It looks obvious why Palafox has reaped all his success, local and international.  He took all the learnings first and applied them.  He took care of important things– of his clients, of his people, of his family from whom he gets his strength in difficult times.  He integrated every little knowledge with each other, and knew that each person in the society has worth.

  A book is now being made documenting his successes, after the one that was published by Tower Publications, released in 1998, sold like hotcake.  That book started selling at the Ayala Museum at P2,800. Before it got out of stock, it sold at P4,500.

   For his requirement to reconstruct Metro Manila through a leadership that would address corruption, criminality, and climate change, Palafox said he cannot name his candidate yet.

   “All the candidates are either my friend or my client.  Manny Villar is my client.  BF (Bayani Fernando) is my client.  Cory (Aquino) was the most honest president we ever had.   Roxas is my client. Loren is also a friend.”

   So he cannot name his candidate, maybe not yet.

   But he affirms he goes for honesty first, even before a person’s capability.

    “Honesty and integrity is our core value.  With honesty, you can hire good, capable people.”  

Lifestyle: Dr. Gisela-Padilla Concepcion

Lifestyle: Dr.  Gisela-Padilla Concepcion

Work isn’t just all about money

Her eyes gleaming, Dr. Gisela P. Concepcion fondly recalls how her father, Dr. Nicanor Padilla, would tell her when she was young: “You will be a chemist, and you will make soaps and cosmetics.”

This prediction by her medical doctor-father would prove to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

But Dr. Padilla went beyond just uttering positive words of foresight on his children. He raised them in discipline—even all by himself as he lost his wife, Gisela’s mother, while his children were still young.

Himself a businessman (into real estate), he prodded them into aspirating for great things, yet accepted his children for all they wanted to be.

” When I grew up and was more interested in biomedical things, and I wanted to just be a teacher and be in the academe, he realized that was also worthwhile. That was my father, he did not encourage his children to pursue courses that would just make money easily or make a lot of money easily.”

Padilla’s foretelling of his five daughters and one son didn’t all turn out to be true. But of Gisela, it simply became a reality when four years ago, she started working her way through exploring the use of indigenous herbs for cosmetics and health care.

The other person Gisela speaks affectionately of for leading her into a field where she obviously excels as she has been leading this nation towards a more science-oriented society is her high school teacher.

” With most scientists with a measure of success, they always point to something in their childhood that inspired them to pursue science. In my case, it was Mrs. Torres, my third year high school Chemistry teacher. She’s very old now. She recognized I was good in the subject.”

Some facts and thoughts:

Education: Assumption Convent (high school); B.S. Chemistry (University of the Philippines), cum laude, 1975; Master and Ph.D. on Biochemistry, UP.

Getting children into Science: For science, it’s important to also have a very good Math background. The appreciation of a child that the world can be described quantitatively and consistently is very important. The activity of observing something consistently, in a controlled way, and in a way reproducible is really the basis of
science—that things in the physical, natural world are verifiable, reproducible, measurable, and quantitative.

The child must have an appreciation of that as opposed to things like superstition or fantasy.

Children: Gabriel (oldest to youngest), civil engineer; Beatrice, diplomate in internal medicine, currently on fellowship in nephrology in Chicago; Benjamin, assistant vice president, HSBC; Carla, B.S. Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (UP); Martin, first year high school, Ateneo.

Role of early education in interest in science: The inclination to science, the natural curiosity really comes from the person. But the early environment could probably contribute to stimulating (this). Bea and Carla went to a very good grade school and high school, Poveda, which trains students to think and do things independently.
Leisure: watching movie with my husband on weekends

Gisela herself has not convinced her children to take up science or science-related courses, but showed them interest in it by example.

” I just let them be. They’re on their own, just like a balance between the amount of supervision that you give them and the amount of work that you do by yourself. I suppose when you work hard yourself, then you’re a living example to your children.”

As she started her own company, Biomart Asia Inc., she led the same value of hardwork, teamwork, and decisiveness to her team of UP researchers-graduates that she employed outside of UP.

” We brainstormed on a lot of things. We would meet at night, late at night. We would decide on products to develop and even on packaging. Because it’s a small group, it was easy for me to decide to implement what we talked about.

Filipino Cosmetic Biotechnology

By malourdesaguiba

Filipino Cosmetic Biotechnology

By Virginia Ann T. Burgos

Biomart Asia, a local firm specializing in body care products, has become a successful venture all because it has parlayed biotechnological processes to beat competition.

Dr. Gisela Padilla Concepcion, a professor and a researcher at the University of the Philippines Marine Science Institute (UPMSI) who is also Biomart Asia president, has made a mark in the industry through products that are considered at par, if not better, than French products.

Concepcion and her team of biotechnologists have maximized the use of locally-available, cheaper, natural ingredients like malunggay (moringa oleifera), takip kuhol (centella asiatica), guava (psidium guajava), and many other herbs that contain anti-oxidants and flavonoids.

They have also isolated and characterized compounds from marine organisms and profiled chemicals that contain anti-cancer and anti-diabetes compounds.

Biomart Asia’s lines of products are all Biogenins-based.

Biogenins was created and trademarked by Biomart Asia. It refers to a general class of phytochemicals or plant secondary metabolites consisting principally of compounds found in most fruits, vegetables and woody plants. These phytochemicals have been shown to have potent anti-oxidant activity, provide UV protection, and possess anti-bacterial and anti-inflammatory properties.

Concepcion launched one of Biomart Asia’s product lines, the Herbal Woman, with only three products, the body wash, facial wash, and the feminine wash.

From then on, the company flourished and offered far superior quality products at very reasonable prices. “I want to teach people that good things need not be expensive.”

One of Biomart’s most promising products is the body contouring cream, which is a rich blend of herbs with fat burning properties that would help reshape target areas of the body.

Biomart Asia has come a long way in the business through biotechnology.

It has created two other product lines, Metroman, which offers the basic hygienic needs of men like the deodorizing and anti-bacterial body wash, and the body gel that moisturizes the skin and at the same time protects the skin from harmful UV rays.

The Tubtime Line was also created to pamper pets with products like soap and shampoo that were especially formulated for pets. They contain substances that repel insects or pests and protect pets from parasites.

Through that success of Biomart, Concepcion has proven that biotechnology and biochemistry, indeed, are very promising fields in which Filipinos can venture into and excel.

Concepcion considers biochemistry as a way of life since she has been a researcher throughout her life, working particularly on anti-cancer substances. Now that she has succeeded in manufacturing wellness products, Concepcion believes the market can benefit from her company’s products.

Concepcion is also an advocate of scientific enterprise, and she encourages her colleagues to propagate knowledge by having their papers published.

In which she co-founded, Philippine Science Letters (PSL), Concepcion encourages more Filipino scientists and researchers to come out with their papers and show them to the entire world through the interactive journal. She notes that there are a number of studies by Filipino scientists and researches that have not been published due to funding issues. PSL offers a solution to this issue.

PSL is a new peer-reviewed on-line Pinoy scientific Journal, featuring the science being done in the Philippines and the work of Filipino scientists abroad. To ensure the high quality of PSL, 30 Filipino experts in various fields have agreed to serve as reviewers of the research works that are expected to pile up in the site soon. On their shoulders lie the task of evaluating, validating, and offering advice to the authors.

Concepcion said PSL will accept short studies or those that are limited in scope and performed with limited budget, as long as they are of good quality. PSL will be privately funded until it reaches its desired performance level and will solicit support from private and government foundations to prevent hindrances to its operation by bureaucratic procedures and politics.

PSL is the window to a better quality of life through the technologies and innovations of Filipino scientists. It offers collaboration with other experts.

” If the fundamental science is good, then it can eventually yield good technologies –good products and services that are useful to the country.

Prospects in Electronics

Prospects in Electronics

It may be a while before the Philippines can give birth to a revolutionary technology of global status.

But a Filipino engineer believes many electronic applications can be developed in order to solve local problems, raise business efficiency, or enhance consumer convenience.

“I don’t think a worldwide standard like GSM will come out of the Philippines anytime soon. There is an opportunity however to innovate at the application level. There are plenty of areas unique to the Philippines where an innovation can be done,” said Chicho Mantaring , Integrated Microelectronics Inc. (IMI) vice president for design and rngineering ( Philippines ).

Agriculture is one such area. Sensor networks can be developed, for example, that determine the extent to which fields need to be irrigated. From there, one can automate watering systems.

Another area is health care monitoring. This is highly appropriate in the Philippines where there are many isolated communities among its more than 7,100 islands.

When a doctor is not accessible, one can get hooked up to a low-cost instrument that can get your vital signs and send the information wirelessly to a medical center in Metro Manila where somebody can make a diagnosis.  The Ateneo Innovation Center and the University of the Philippines have projects related to such remote health care monitoring.

One of the recommendations of the Electronics Panel of the Joint Congressional Commission on Science, Technology and Engineering (COMSTE) is to install thousands of units of photovoltaic solar energy systems in off-grid areas. The project wishes to take advantage of the presence in the Philippines of Sun Power Corporation, a large California-based solar panel manufacturer.

“You can take these solar panels and build applications on top of them. If you need utility power, you build an inverter to convert solar power to AC power. The system however can be used for other things like to run a condenser that generates clean drinking water or to run the compressor motor of a refrigerator.”

Solar energy should be economically viable since there is almost grid parity or a comparative equality in cost between that of solar and of fossil fuel-based power.

Potential producers of renewable energy such as solar energy look forward to government’s support— including perhaps the linking of producers to markets and the realization of incentives set out in the Renewable Energy Law.

IMI helps its customers bring their products to market faster and at a lower cost by providing design and engineering services.

“In the Philippines , we specialize in short range wireless systems, imaging, test equipment development and embedded systems.”

IMI’s D&E group designs non-core peripheral blocks such as keyboards, displays, enclosures, and application software to support its original equipment manufacturer (OEM) customers. This allows OEMs to focus on improving their core technologies.

As its OEM-customers traditionally just tap electronics manufacturing service (EMS) companies to assist them in peripheral technology designs, the EMS firm will not always hold intellectual property rights (IPR) over the designs.

Even for Filipinos engaged in the design of integrated circuits (ICs), their foreign-based counterparts usually hold the IPR over the designs.

“I used to run a company that designed ICs. When I quit this company 10 years ago, there were 200 engineers doing IC design. I think there are over 300 now. But it’s a captive design house for a Japanese firm,” he said.

Prior to his IMI post, Mantaring led a group of Filipino IC designers at Rohm LSI Design Philippines, Inc. (RLDP), a local subsidiary of Rohm Co. Ltd. of Japan which, as of 2007, was among the top 25 largest semiconductor firms in the world.

However, a top RLDP official said the company is no longer engaged in heavy IC design work. Nevertheless, an RLDP staff recruitment website claims to offer career opportunities in the design and development of ICs as Rohm develops analog, digital, and mixed-signal circuits in bipolar, CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductor), and bi-CMOS processes. Rohm’s ICs are found in leading brands of audio, video, multimedia, communication, and computer products.

Mantaring said that similar to systems analysts and programmers who are tapped to develop software for global companies, Filipino IC designers can provide IC design services for global electronic manufacturers.

Other Filipino designers engaged in IC design for foreign firms are with Sanyo in Tarlac, Canon Information Technology, and Bit Micro.

“If these outfits had their total engineering work force in Japan , for example, it would be too expensive and they would end up being uncompetitive.  So they create design houses in the Philippines where manpower costs are much less. Bit Micro is an example of a company based in Silicon Valley that transferred their engineering resources here.”

Will there be value in developing high level IC designers in the Philippines capable of creating intellectual property?

“In any scientific endeavor, you need people that can do baseline activities, those that will do advanced activities, and those that will do cutting-edge activities. We have resources that can do baseline activities. But if you want to transcend to the next level, you have to have people that can do the more advanced activities, he asserted.

“IC design has its advantages. Anybody can put together a product using off-the-shelf components. So how do you create differentiation in the product? One way is by having proprietary technology embedded into a microchip.”

Professors at the University of the Philippines Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering (EEE) are envisioning that with the Department of Science and Technology-funded Engineering Research and Development for Technology (ERDT) program on IC design, Filipino engineers will in the future be able to attract fabless companies.

Fabless companies are known for coming up with products from design to manufacturing and are marketing these products even without wafer fabrication facilities. They are outsourcing the fabrication part to large companies like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp. (TSMC).

The Philippines can actually start attracting fabless companies (like Qualcomm), according to UP Asst. Professor Marc D. Rosales, with its expected increasing number of IC designers that are tying up with designers abroad and that are exhibiting Filipinos’ capability to do this.

Qualcomm, the world’s top 1 fabless company according to the Global Semiconductor Alliance, is a digital wireless communication company that has 7,200 United States patents for wireless technologies.

And when a really bigger group of local IC designers or some fabless companies are present, maybe the future of a fabrication may be talked about, according to Symphony Consulting Inc. President Victor Gruet, although many people really think of that as something extremely impractical locally.

What may be possible now is really just for more smaller Filipino companies to work on embedded systems specially since engineers with these advanced skills have the advantage of mobility, thereby involving less capital requirement.

“If it is possible to have BPOs (business process outsourcing), then it’s possible to have software (development businesses). If software is possible, then embedded systems is possible, and if there is (design of) embedded systems, IC (design) is already possible. That happens (in stages) from the marketing and promotion standpoint in terms of level of complexity. Unlike in a factory, (the advantage of an electronics design business) is manpower is transportable,” said Gruet.

However, the easy mobility advantage of skilled labor can also be a disadvantage since people leave the Philippines for more promising jobs abroad.

Those in the IC design program of the DOST-ERDT consider that the design of ICs will play an important role in the development of a more high value-added electronics sector locally.

Mantaring believes skills on customization of components really do create higher economic value for enterprises.

“If you want to develop a component (such as an IC) that you can’t buy off-the-shelf, you design it yourself. When you design in silicon however, it should be for very high volume because it could cost you up to half a million dollars to develop, prototype and fabricate, he said.

“It’s no joke to design highly advanced ICs.  But if you know your volume is 10 million units or 20 million units a year, you can very easily spread the development costs over the unit cost of the chip.”

There is an alternative for customizing components for low-volume requirements.

“You can employ field programmable gate arrays (FPGA) or programmable logic devices (PLD). There is some overlap in the methods for developing an IC and when developing using FPGAs. So if I develop a custom component using FPGAs, I can eventually migrate that to silicon if demand rises.”

There is a distinction between the design of embedded systems and the design of ICs.

An embedded system is an electronic system other than a computer that incorporates a microprocessor or a microcontroller. A microwave oven, for example, uses a microcontroller to control the display, the user buttons, and the cooking cycle. Many toys now incorporate microcontrollers and are therefore embedded systems.

IC design is a tool for developing embedded systems, although it is not the only tool available.

Advances in IC design is what allowed microcontrollers to find their way into applications other than computing, thus the embedded systems. Microcontrollers are ICs that incorporate all the essential components of a computer such as the microprocessor (the CPU or brain of the computer), memory, and input output into one package. End

In the big league in electronics

In the big league in electronics

Little is known of Filipinos making it big in a worldwide industry that’s worth $1.3 trillion.

Stunningly, one Filipino firm turns up in it, an Ayala-owned company classified under electronics manufacturing systems ( EMS ).

Integrated Microelectronics Inc. (IMI) made it in 2007 as the top 27 in the Manufacturing Market Insider’s (MMI) List of top 50 EMS companies which entities from Taiwan and other developed countries dominate.

Unlike semiconductor manufacturing service (SMS) companies, known for the mass-produced integrated circuits (IC) or microchips that run computers, EMS companies are less famous.

However, anyone in the electronics industry knows that behind big original equipment manufacturers (OEM) —really big names like Nokia, Hewlett Packard, and Sony – are EMS companies that do many things for OEMs.

Yes, OEMs still do majority of their branded work at 69 percent of total production, measured based on cost of goods sold (COGS).  But the remaining part is an avenue that gives way to much bigger opportunities for dynamic companies like IMI.

“The EMS and the ODM (original design manufacturers) companies account for only 23 percent of the total cost of goods sold of OEMs.  This means there’s still ample room for growth for the outsourcing industry,” said IMI President Arthur R. Tan.

Needless to say, IMI is Philippines ’ biggest EMS firm as there is apparently no other Filipino company that is at MMI’s top 50 list.

IMI began as a small entity that assembled ICs in 1980.  Until lately, it only operated in the Philippines– in Laguna.

By the end of 2004, it started assembling liquid crystal displays used in cellular phones.  The same year, it got accredited as an international supplier of a top OEM producing automotive electronics products.

Worldwide, IMI now has 13 manufacturing plants with more than two million square feet in production area.  It still has its biggest operation in the Philippines (Laguna, Cavite and Cebu ) where it has six plants, employing 18,000 of its total 24,000 people, according to IMI Market Research Manager Sherwin C. Nones.

Five plants are in China (three in Shenzhen, one in Jiaxing, and one in Chongging), and one is in Singapore .

Its prototyping and new product introduction facility in Tustin , California aims to help its OEM customers get their products’ time-to-market faster as much as its other production facilities have this goal.

“We want to be nearer our American OEMs.  When a product has to go to mass production, we move it to China or to the Philippines ,” said Frederick L. Blancas, IMI strategic planning and marketing senior manager.

IMI  made a big step when it took a decision to begin establishing a global footprint in order to meet customers’  needs.

Its earnings soared to $182 million in 2005 from $109 million in 2004.  Its earnings as of 2007 was at $423 million, up from $393 million in 2006.

The company has been growing at a rate faster than the global EMS industry at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 39 percent compared to the industry’s only 13.5 percent.

Its biggest market are Japanese companies, 49 percent followed by North American firms, 21 percent while European firms’ share is 17 percent.

Its biggest market segment is on optical disk drive (ODD–hard disk drive, blue ray disk drives), 34 percent.  Consumer products take up 20 percent; industrial products, 18percent; communication, 15 percent; automotive, nine percent, and medical products, four percent.

The company has earned the trust of the world’s biggest electronic brands for having established a niche in an area where it does not compete with OEMs while giving its clients their customization needs,  boasting of its being the “Flexible Experts.”

“We don’t want to compete with our customers.  We want to focus on our core competency,” said Blancas.

Its global operation has provided it the advantage of sourcing materials where it has the least cost and the economies of scale that come from volume manufacturing.

“Whether  it’s advantageous for us to go to China depends on our customer’s supply chain.  If what we’re building goes to the next supply chain which is somewhere far in the logistics requirements (we will move where it’s advantageous), said Rafael Nestor V. Mantaring, IMI vice president-design and engineering.

“One of the keys to a successful EMS is material pricing.  If you don’t get good prices for raw materials, you can’t sell it at a competitive price to your customers.  The only way to get good material pricing is through a global presence.  That’s why the big companies are really big scale.”

One of IMI’s most important strengths now is having entered into strategic alliances with design engineers worldwide, anywhere where it is present— Philippines , Singapore , China , US, and Japan .

It also has a design and engineering group now in Germany as it has been into a merger and acquisition (M&A) mode to raise competitiveness.

With an engineering capability, it helps OEMs bring down the cost of materials which is a big advantage in high-volume manufacturing.

“One of the enablers of low cost of production is for you to have custom components, not using components that you can buy off the shelf specially if volume is very high,” said Mantaring.

In early 2005, IMI bought out assets of US-based Saturn Electronics and Engineering Inc. (SEEI).  SEEI designs electrical and electronic systems for automotive, appliance, and communication industries.

“This acquisition gave the company a prototyping and new product introduction facility in the US, and provided it with access to a tremendous engineering team which had 18 years of experience as well as some patents in areas as flip-chip, precision placements, and very high component density boards,” said Tan.

The other major thing happened when in December 2005, IMI consummated its acquisition of Speedy-Tech Electronics of Singapore which further planted its feet in the ODM field.

Having a strong design and engineering backup through an  ODM operation was really IMI’s long-nurtured intention.

The IMI  corporate group did see the importance of an  in-house design and engineering team when it founded one in the Philippines more than 10 years ago.  This in-house firm merged with a logistics company whose owner later gave way to IMI’s full ownership of the design team.

IMI’s acquisition continued on when it acquired in October 2006 M. Hansson Consulting Inc.

“This enhanced IMI’s value-added services and capability to be a complete vertically integrated solutions provider,” said Tan.

It is further strengthening this design and engineering alliances.

“We’re currently setting up or acquire a group in Europe ,” said Mantaring.

By 2006, IMI was projecting to become a $1 billion company in revenue by say 2011.  This may be subject to revision, putting the target off beyond the earlier target since the international market has been hounded by financial woes.

“We’ll still have growth in revenue from 2007 to 2008.  We have longer term targets up to 2020,” said Blancas.

As the COGS in electronics products is foreseen to grow at 7.8 percent yearly up to 2012 or to $1.4 trillion, IMI projects expansion in areas where it already has its strength—in ODDs, in automotive, and in industrial and medical electronics.

As it’s already almost a standard for new cars in Japan or Europe to have automotive cameras with sensors that warn a driver of nearby vehicles, this may take up an important part of its future manufacturing, according to Nones.

The production of cameras in magnetic resource imaging (MRI) is another expansion area in medical diagnostics.  Home automation requirements such as systems that enable one to turn on or off a home appliance at a distance using zigbee radio frequency devices also has an important market potential.

There are likewise opportunities for “green technology” or environment-friendly technology such as in solar energy.

IMI further aims to capture more markets in Japan with the increasing trend in outsourcing of Japan-based OEMs.

But it will also have its focus.  Those market leaders in high-growth industries that have important requirements for customization, those that require more complex technologies, will be its priority.

It faces the challenge of competition from the emergence of low-cost manufacturing locations in Vietnam and India .  But rather than being threatened in the first place, it has the option to locate in these sites where cost competitiveness can be significant.

With its astounding growth based on global standards, it’s not surprising how this Filipino company has received the Circuits Assembly’s 2007 Service Excellence Award for Highest Overall Customer Rating and is one of ASEAN’s 12 most admired companies. End

Small Enterprise Technology Upgrading Program -DOST

Technology intervention

http://mb.com.ph/node/224224/

Creating ‘added value’ that small enterprises need to survive cut-throat competition

By MELODY M. AGUIBA

October 11, 2009, 2:58pm

RP climate change grant from US Pres Obama

http://mb.com.ph/articles/224235/da-eyes-grant-climate-program

By Melody M. Aguiba

The Department of Agriculture (DA) is pursuing a $120 million grant for the acquisition of remote sensing and agricultural crop testing facilities under a climate change program of United States Pres. Barack Obama.

Inspirations from Pede Lu, Pagadian City publisher

Pede Lu, Pagadian City publisher

I’ve been so happy for having been invited by the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) to join them in a tour of their projects on SETUP (Small Enterprise Technology Upgrading Program) in Zamboanga. One of the truly educational part of the trip is our visit to the fish pond and fish drying facility of the owner of the provincial weekly newspaper Pagadian Times. This is because I’ve learned a lot from the publisher himself, Mr. Pede Lu.

It is very inspiring that Mr. Lu has led Pagadian Times through about 30 years of ups and downs in publishing, surviving even during the Martial Law days, the only local publication that survived those times. He gave birth to it, let it grow, and accompanied the progress of Pagadian City all these times since he founded it in 1970. With hardwork, dedication, and pure love of the craft of writing and of truthful journalism, he nurtured it using his own funding from his earnings as a tractor dealer.

This is a true inspiration for us in the publishing industry specially in the Philippines as they say that most traditional Filipinos still recognize only the printed word, rather than internet-published articles, as a legitimate publication. But of course we advocates of technological advancements believe even we should progress toward tapping the online tool more in order to expand our world and do that at a substantially cheaper cost, if not totally free.

Mr. Lu himself didn’t want his story to be published. But it is a story that compels retelling since it is has been an instrument of community work in his area. First of all, Pagadian Times survived Martial Law’s rule that banned newspapers by private publishers as it published the former administration’s presidential decrees. It practised the byword, “when there’s a will, there’s way,” rather than just preach it.

It proved true Proverbs 10:4 that said that “the hand of the diligent maketh rich.” It was only after about five years since it was founded that the newspaper began receiving a considerable amount of income from legal notices. But before that, Mr. Lu worked hard selling tractors to see through the growth of this newspaper. More to come on Pagadian Times when I have the time to write about.

 

Jovita Corpuz Visualizes a Bank for Social Policy

Jovita Corpuz Visualizes a Bank for Social Policy

 

 

I n 2001, someone had to take the dirty job of going after farmers who borrowed from government so that collections from them may be churned back to the rural economy.

It was Jovita M. Corpuz, executive director of the Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Credit Policy Council (DA-ACPC), who set her heart to conquering the huge debt problem confronting DA.

It wasn’t an easy thing though. A sizable 50% of the debt under DA’s former Directed Credit Program, mounting to P6 billion, were more than fi ve years old. But this credit chief is made of tough material. To her, this job is marriage, a vocation, having skipped the traditional one.

This commitment, along with the techniques of using experts, enabled her to raise already P1 billion, and counting, from that thought-to-be un-collectible.

Her belief on the importance of agriculture to the society, the source of food and sustenance of a nation’s workforce, drives her to pursue what is both work and advocacy for her

“The budget we’re allocating for our farmers is very small. The demand for credit is so huge compared to what we’re now giving,” she said. Believing that one has to earn another’s trust by paying his debt, she knows farm credit should be poured into agriculture.

 

 

 

Her heart is for whatever she can do for the deprived sector, and she takes real risks for this. “I’m willing to take the risk,” is a constant utterance from her, whether in lending to farmers without collateral or in hoping to let the private sector aggressively invest in farm credit.

She is a collaborator in her undertakings–dealing with cooperatives and agencies directly working with farmers. The Innovative Financing Scheme (IFS) that she conceived was precisely for getting everybody, even non-traditional farmer-lenders, into agricultural fi nancing. She drives people to work, “it’s they who work, not me,” she said, although she works 24-hours a day.

“I text people even at 1 or 2 a.m. because I might forget my thoughts. We in the technical group think even while in the bathroom.” Corpuz appreciates those who work with her, giving collecting agents a considerable 30% for hard-to-collect old loans.

She goes for output, not just time spent at work. Banning of computer games or Facebook in the offi ce is not her thing.

“Whatever you do, just do what I’m asking you to at the quality and time that I need it,” she said. But never was she ever angry in a way that would cause her to raise her voice uncontrollably. “Have I ever raised my voice?” she asked her co-workers. “It just rises up by only one decibel higher.”

And of course, there are many venues to relax, get-to-know co-workers, and exhibit off-work talents in her offi ce. She took an education in Agriculture seriously.

“Some people think Agriculture is easy. We look down on it as a course. I’ts one for the dumb. But it’s hard. It’s Science, Physics, Statistics, Soil Chemistry, Irrigation and Drainage, Crop Physiology, Soil Physics.”

But even if it’s diffi cult, she believes it is bound for the country to train agriculturists if it has to take off economically.

“Even after this global fi nancial, agriculture will still be important in our economy because it produces our food and medicine. There are so many applications. Even if its share in employment in developed countries is small, only 10 percent, its contribution to the economy is huge; 50 hectares is a small farm for them,” she said.

Corpuz started from the bottom in the DA bureaucracy when DA needed in 1972 Agriculture graduates. Since then, she has been representative at Land Bank’s Trust Committee; DA Credit, Insurance, Guarantee and Investment chairman; Bureau of Agricultural Research assistant director; executive committee chairman for the Value Chain Improvement Project; and consultant for a Japanese fi rm on Marketing Survey of Vegetables in the Philippines.

With her known contribution in agricultural fi nancing, she was awarded Distinguished Alumna for Agricultural Credit and Rural Financing by UPLB. Even the international fi nancing community looks up to her and appointed her president of the Board of Trustees of Asia Pacifi c Rural and Agricultural Credit Association Center for Training and Research in Agricultural Banking (APRACA-CENTRAB).

Her VISION: To help establish Philippines’ fi rst and only Bank for Social Policy. HOBBIES: Singing. Dancing. I know all kinds of dances–Pandago sa Ilaw, Tinikling, Walkie Talkie and LA walk. All of us here know how to dance LA Walk.

STRESS RELIEVER: Mahjong in the computer, other computer games MUSIC: Songs of Josh Croban, Mozart, Bethooven

And her EDUCATION: MS Economics (Candidate), La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia; Master of Agricultural Commerce, Lincoln University, Canterbury, New Zealand (Colombo Plan Scholarship); Agriculture (Agriculture Economics)University of the Philippines-Los Baños.

Vaccines

Vaccines

 

 

Designing a vaccine by manipulating a virus’ epitopes (an epitope is a site to which an antibody binds) introduces a novel vaccine-making strategy that can attack viruses even with their continuing mutation.

Flu vaccines are traditionally designed every year in order to fight mutations of a virus whose symptoms, strength, or duration may vary each time.

Have you ever wondered why you could get the flu every year, or have to get a flu shot every year so as not to get sick? That is because of the constant mutation of the flu virus.

In designing a more potent vaccine that can withstand mutations, Dr. Eduardo A. Padlan of the UP Marine Science Institute and a former research scientist at the US’ National Institutes of Health in Maryland does it by manipulating the epitopes in two identified molecules of the flu virus.

The two molecules are the hemagglutinin and neuraminidase which are found on the surface of the flu virus that infects cells.

Since the hemagglutinin is the first molecule that enters the victim cell in our body, antibodies produced by our own body, or those induced by vaccines, aim to stop the function of hemagglutinin. But because the virus mutates, our antibodies no longer work to fight the mutated virus.

In order to make a vaccine work for a longer period of time, not just one year, Padlan said scientists had to identify the immunodominant epitopes (the parts which are most reactive to antibodies) in the two molecules where mutations in the virus actually occur.

“If we could locate the immunodominant epitopes in the hemagglutinin and neuraminidase and generate new molecules in which those epitopes are no longer immunodominant (we can do this by protein engineering, whereby we replace the residues in the immunodominant epitopes with amino acids whose presence results in lower attractiveness to antibodies), we could use those engineered molecules as vaccines,” he said.

With protein engineering, vaccines could be directed at producing antibodies that attack the parts of the hemagglutinin and neuraminidase that do not change.

“As long as the virus continues to localize its mutations in its immunodominant epitopes (of course, it cannot know that our vaccines no longer contain those immunodominant epitopes), we have a weapon against it,” said Padlan.

Filipino scientists are hopeful that the country can produce a universal vaccine out of Padlan’s strategy. The development of a vaccine against seasonal flu based on the strategy is being funded by DOST.

Stem Cell Therapy: A Globe Tek Approach

Stem Cell Therapy: A Globe Tek Approach

 

 

In the middle of the global stem cell controversy, a Filipino multinational company, Globe Tek Pro (Global Technology Professionals) has taken a strong stance in favor of the use of induced umbilical cord stem cells as against that of embryonic stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells.

“I have aligned myself to the latter group (umbilical cord stem cells) very strongly because I worked on embryonic stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells. The good news is they grow rapidly, and they are truly potential. The bad news is they cause cancer, well-documented, and I have direct experience with it,” said Bernal at a Philippine-American Academy of Science and Engineering (PAASE) conference in Manila.

The Ukrainians initially did not disclose that their patients injected with embryonic stem cells or induced pluripotent stem cells have developed brain turmors– neoblastoma (rare cancer in children), glioblastoma (most common and most aggressive type of brain tumor in human).

“Recently, the Russian co-investigators of these Ukrainians published a paper that those patients who received induced pluripotent stem cells and fetal aborted stem cells are five years later developing brain tumors,” he said.

Bernal has been closely following the development of stem cell research, being constantly in touch with stem cells experts who are present in international conferences of stem cell researchers attended by PhDs and of an international society of stem cell therapists composed of medical doctors.

Most medical practioners believe that it is irresponsible for physicians to ever treat patients with a technology that they know has been reported to cause cancer.

“The use of induced pluripotent stem cells as of year 2009 is not safe for human administration. When we inject them (embryonic stem cell or induced pluripotent stem cells) into mice, what we get is cancer. The genes introduced are oncogenic (tumor-forming). They include vectors that are transcriptional antivators that lead to proliferation of cells that are often uncontrolled.”

Experts in globally-known institutions have been trying to do genetic manipulation on cells in an effort to mass produce them. But this has rather led to the introduction of cancer cells in the body.

Now that more evidences show that the use of induced umbilical cord blood stem cell has successfully treated 12,000 patients involving 75 diseases, the global effort is on putting up storage centers for umbilical cord blood, also cord blood banks.

Experts are selecting cells in their natural way of maturation and are using molecular markers to be able to identify specific characters in these cells using natural inducers. Through these techniques, cells go through differentiation (the process of turning cells into the desired cell that would regenerate damaged tissues or organs of the body). These are used with perfect matching ‘techniques’ between the cord blood donor and the beneficiary.

Globe Tek Pro believes the Philippines can develop a competitive edge in the use of umbilical cord blood stem cell because of the technology’s labor intensiveness which the country can offer.

However, he warns that integrated effort has to be carried out between many local institutions. Its strength is in the manpower that have to be trained in a way that they would have the focus on particular areas but that they should also have the more comprehensive and global view of technology applications.

“The Philippines cannot afford to do fundamental research for research’s sake. It has to direct its efforts into revenue generating projects that would be applied in various areas, not only in health, but in agriculture, manufacturing, IT (information technology),” he said. Rather than competing with China or India, efforts are being made to collaborate with these countries which are otherwise threats to the domestic industry.

“That collaboration could also result in a mutual benefit. We have limited resources. And we cannot keep asking government to set up megastructures, he said. “For the sake of efficiency, we have to connect the various institutions and promote their individual strengths but have synergy between both private and public institutions. The PAASE with its connections in the US, Philippines, and also now in Europe will allow us to assess technologies globally to ensure that what we’re promoting and expanding are cutting-edge and globally-competitive. This will be the keys to the survival of our scientific industry.”

Globe Tek Pro claims its own technology (in partnership with the Medical City and its research arm, Ateneo School of Science and Engineering) in disease treatment is globally-competitive.

“This is not Philippine technology. It’s what we have scoured from North America, from my base in California. This is a technology that we have assessed in different countries in Europe from my base in Czech Republic. We take the best from China, Russia, and Australia. And then we improve on it by introducing our own unique innovations. The procedures that we use are unique and proprietary which is why patients from US, Europe, Russia, Australia, Hongkong, Malaysia come to us, said Bernal.

“We developed it ourselves. We were the ones who developed it at Harvard. It’s not something that we borrowed from people. I”ve been working on these technologies in the US for 30 years. But it’s our technology, whether it’s done in Boston, or California, or Paris , or Rome, or Prague. It doesnt matter, it’s still ours.”

The technology on regenerative medicine and umbilical cord blood stem cell may be expanded in the country beyond its current application in Medical City, National Kidney and Transplant Institute, and Lung Center of the Philippines. “Medical city itself with Ateneo set up a very advanced and comprehensive bioregenerative engineering program that is globally competitive. We’re gonna expand that model to the rest of the country. It could be an organization like PAASE that would spread the information and provide the training venues, the research, and application collaboration.”

Medical City has ethical and safe practices in regenerative medicine that are aligned with Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP), Bernal claims. Its operation on regenerative medicine, the stem cell processing and the cord blood banking, has gone through scrutiny of the GMP regulation by the Biosafety Committee of the Philippines through the Department of Health.

Having practised bone marrow transplantation since 1967 and umbilical cord blood transplantation for more than 15 years, Bernal himself attests to the safety of these procedures when used with best practices. Bernal is editor of Drug Resistance in Oncology and of Lung Cancer Differentiation, both published in New York.

Programs between Globe Tek, Department of Tourism, Department of Health, Department of Trade and Industry, Department of Foreign Affairs, and the Department of Science and Technology have started to campaign for the Philippines’ attractiveness as a medical tourism site with these advancements.

Government’s effort to promote medical tourism is critical to making an impression on the international market that the private sector is not merely making self-serving statements but that a national program that equally secures the interest of the tourist is in place.

“It is the DOT that has been welcoming our tourists,” he said.

Thailand and India have become leaders in medical tourism and production of medicine. But unlike Thailand, the country may not at all emerge a leader in cosmetic surgery. It cannot lead in coronary artery bypass, said Bernal. Neither should the country compete just on the basis of lowering prices as India developed cheap generic medicines.

“We make allowances for ability to pay. But we’re not competing globally on the basis of lower prices because when you compete on this basis, you’re going to lower quality. We offer the top technology. That’s what we focus on. We’re offering the highest technology with the best chance of improving survival.Cost is a secondary issue.

” Just because the Philippines is a poor country does not mean it cannot offer medical services at its highest level.

“We have to correct our image that we are a poor country, and we can only do this and we can only do that. We are in fact capable of high-technology and of some of the highest technology in the world. We developed our own innovations that are more advanced than what you can get currently in Germany or in Boston, he said.

“We need leaders who are going to devote resources and who have enough vision and insight to see the opportunites in this area for their institution and for the whole Philippines. We have some of the best doctors in the world. It is not dependent on machines, and even if we it is, we have the machines anyway.”

Finding its own peculiar niche is important.

“We’re not in the level of India and Thailand, so there’s a big room for improvement. We have to provide technologies that people around the world cannot do. And that’s exactly what we’re doing. I’m based in the US. It’s hard for us to do these things in the US.”

To be able to excel in regenerative medicine, the country needs to train its scientists on these specific fields– cell biology, biochemistry, molecular biology, organic chemistry, biophysics, bioinformatics, and biomedical engineering, according to Bernal.

And while only the affluent can seem to afford treatment of serious diseaes, the nation’s regenerative medicine program should also look after the disadvantaged.

“What we gain from paying foreign patients who are good candidates for therapy will fall back to be able to assist those who cannot afford,” said the Globe Tek Pro chief.

 

Three Screens

Three Screens

 

TV, and now internet. addicts too.
Have you ever hoped you can watch TV or access the internet all the time?
This is precisely how technology forecasters see it. That up to the next two-three decades, every person will have “three screens” near him.
Nielsen’s Three Screen Report in the first quarter indicated that the average person (survey done in America) spends 153 hours monthly on TV at home.

That is on top of three hours of online video at work or at home for 131 million viewers, while 13.4 million viewers watch video at 3.5 hours monthly through their mobile phone, a leap of 52% from the previous year.
AT&T’s Three Screen Digital Lifestyle is integrating communication and entertainment so that they become available just anywhere– on TV, the PC, and the wireless phone. The three mediums may be using three separate and distinct networks at present.

“But in the near future, the lines between networks and access technologies will be blurred. And communications and entertainment services will be delivered to the ‘three screens’ in an integrated and familiar way,” according to AT&T.
With internet’s even increasing ubiquity, more companies are tapping Filipino programmers to work on software specifically for mobile internet applications that can work side by side with the PC. Google, Globe Telecom, and Morph Labs have been holding workshops in an aim to employ people skilled in it.
One Filipino-American, Arnel Guiang of Guiang Corp., is establishing a presence here to support his California-based operations. A big part in Guiang’s incubation work with Microsoft’s mesh.com involves synchronization of files in a person’s desktop and his mobile phone. Mesh is already doing synchronization, file sharing, and common access between one computer and other computers connected to the internet.
But Guiang is working on automatic updating of files between the desktop and the mobile phone.
The company has developed mTools which includes Mobile Home (mHome) which edits and upload files, contacts, settings, appointments and tasks online; mShare, transfering files from mobile phone to another mobile phone, mobile phone to computer, or computer to mobile phone; mSync, to back up files online through Guiang’s web interface on the mobile or on the computer; and VingTalk, a communications platform converging messages for voice and text.
It appears that the problem with developing software for mobile internet is that there are 15 operating systems, unlike the only three operating systems (Windows, Mac, and Linux) in PC, said Guiang. But this is also turning out to be a challenge.
“There are so many technology to build for all the operating systems. There is no one way to do it. The best thing to do is to cover a big share of it, so you can claim 60-70% of the market. It’ s hard to cover 100%. In the US, 15-20% are on iPod, another 20-30% on Blackberry. All the rest is divided evenly. If you cover the two (iPod and Blackberry) alone, you cover a big percentage of the market base. That’s a great challenge,” said Guiang.
He hopes Filipino programmers will get into the mobile software applications, knowing that by 2015, all mobile phones will be internet-capable. Guiang’s market will be enterprise-based mobile phone makers like Nokia, carriers, internet giants, OEMs (original electronics manufacturers), and TIOs (Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman). And the Three Screens? That Guiang said will be a real thing for the next 25 years.

Contact us

Please reach us through telephone numbers (632) 628-1736, 359-7314, 212-9597 and mobile numbers (63) 920-715-7186, 919-245-8140, and email growthrevolutionmag@gmail.com, analizacmendoza@yahoo.com, melodyaguiba@yahoo.com

Growth Revolution Magazine and Directors Lalaine M. Legaspi, Melody M. Aguiba, Yolando B. Aguiba

Growth Revolution Magazine Corporate Profile

A positive reinforcement such as a commendation to an exemplary work is a far more powerful reinforcement toward continuous improvement than other types of reinforcements, experts believe.

The carrot evidently wins over the stick.

This too prompts Growth Revolution Magazine to single out developments on science and technology, success models and best practices in related sectors and envision these to be communicated to the Filipino education-loving community who can help implement poverty-reducing developmental programs.

Developments in science and technology, models, best practices, and successes should be communicated if they need to inspire further action.

A subtle form of communication was said to have been the key to the survival of a group of prisoners at a Nazi camp. Filipinos may not be in a prison, but the prison of poverty has shackled the lives of many who now await bits of good news that evokes glimmers of hope.

Vision:

Create a rich information exchange environment on science and technology and related sectors toward accelerated poverty reduction and economic development

Mission:

Become the premiere venue for disseminating information on science and technology and sectors related to poverty reduction in a manner that is informative, educational, and entertaining.

Story Thrusts:

Poverty Reduction Wholistic approach to economic development through features on success models and situationers on science and technology and closely linked subjects that are all relevant to poverty reduction– education, health management, skills development, industries, financing, infrastructure, governance, and corporate social responsibility. Believing in the ultimate importance of governance and leadership, it zeroes in on concrete, government projects in an apolitical manner and highlights the lives of people who are contributing to development. Sustainable Development and National Solidarity Features models, best practices, and situationers highlighting care for the environment, Filipino culture, entertainment, arts, and traditions. The publication encourages features that foster national pride and national unity. These subjects can come from inspirations from history when Filipinos felt that tinge of national pride from knowing Juan Luna, for instance, won an international acclaim for his painting “Spoliarium” that transcended racial bias.

Publication Staff

Edited by multi-awarded journalist (Economic Journalists Assn of the Phils., Binhi, Joe Burgos Biotechnology Awards, United Nations Environment Programme) Melody Aguiba, it is harnessing top Filipino talents– pro-active, and development-oriented writers/contributors. Behind the editorial are specialists on design and layout, computer-aided/web design, and marketing. The company’s editorial board chief and financial management consultant is Lalaine M. Legaspi, a practising CPA in a Toronto Stock Exchange-listed firm in Canada. Its IT consultant is Yolando B. Aguiba, a first placer in the 1988 Aeronautical Engineering Board examination who just has to complete his thesis for an MS-IT at the De La Salle University.

Generous to Feedback:

The publication envisions to be a top venue for progress-focused feedback from both technical and non-technical people who wish to contribute to enlightening of the most number of people through a more mass-understandable language.

Circulation:

Growth Revolution Magazine envisions to become the most circulated technology-oriented socio-economic magazine in the Philippines. It is, in fact, presently the only technology-oriented socio-economic magazine of general circulation in the country. From its present National Book Store distribution, it aims to become available in every visible magazine stand in the Philippines. It is working more intensively in becoming a top search site through its website on Philippines-related technology information. Through this website, it will be an affordable, globally-accessible means of accessing information in its aim to be an instrument of equalizing opportunities.

Target Readers: The education-loving class: science and technology community, policymakers, government and private sector leaders, educators, parents, and students.

Frequency:

Initially published quarterly, release may become more frequent given growth plans.

‘Pinoy Henyo’ in Taxonomy

‘Pinoy Henyo’ in Taxonomy 

 By Melody M. Aguiba

Everyday, a popular Manila noontime TV show excites its audience with a game that in a way makes ordinary people think like scientists. “Pinoy Henyo,” really, is not for the uninitiated.

Contestants couldn’t possibly give within the time allowed the right answer for the word he has to guess, unless he thinks in terms of Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species– as in classifying things from general to specific. If Pinoy Henyo is not for the simple, classifying things in the science world, known as taxonomy, is the opposite of what people think it may be.

The discipline is not just for the genius. It has varied implications to society than most perceive it has. It has impact on our food–whether it will be abundant or in dearth, thus on the effort to reduce the number of poor people living undernourished. It has an impact on our industries, on our environment.

“(We need to) identify taxonomic needs in industries, agriculture, forestry and fishery, trade and tourism. (We need an) assessment report of biodiversity information inventories for decision-making in biodiversity conservation and its sustainable use,” said Asean Centre for Biodiversity Executive Director Rodrigo U. Fuentes.

It also has an impact on human health, specially if one knows alien species (non-endemic or non-indigenous in a country) can invade a territory. Such must have taught us a hard lesson when we imported “Golden Kuhol,” native to Brazil or Argentina, or the “Janitor Fish” belonging to a fish family native to the Madeira River drainage of South America’s Amazon River, that destroyed our rice lands and fish ponds.

“Taxonomy is a critical tool for combating the threat from invasive alien species, which is now considered one of the greatest threats to biodiversity, and to the ecological and economic well-being of society and the planet. Invasive alien species cause economic or environmental harm or adversely affect human health. They impact upon biodiversity– elimination of native species – through competition, predation, or transmission of pathogens – and the disruption of ecosystem functions,” said Fuentes.

Information on plant and animal species in any place in the world is a global concern because it is an input to how leaders can manage resources in light of the immense need for man’s daily sustainance and for the environment’s sustainability. The Global Taxonomy Iniatiative (GTI) sends many countries collaborating in identifying species in a way that contributes to global pacts like the poverty reduction-focused Millennium Development Goals. The following are international efforts on taxonomy.

United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)-Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)-Global Taxonomy Iniatiative (GTI).The CBD-GTI aims to generate information on taxonomy that may be shared between countries which aims to reduce threats on biodiveristy.

The top threats to biodiversity are invasive alien species, climate change, over-exploitation, landscape and habitat change, and pollution.

The objectives of CBD-GTI include enlightenment of young minds on the importance of taxonomy through stories and through lively images and the popularization of biodiversity concerns in the public even in helping the poor.

As part of this, a GTI project in India demonstrates a livelihood program that veers away the community from destroying the environment.

Instead of tapping natural resources in order to earn some income, tribal artisans are able to earn an average monthly income of R900 to R1500 from bamboo basket weaving from the Lantana Craft Training Program.

Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). The GBIF builds an informatics architecture for a global information network.

It keeps a website, http:/data.gbif.org, where one can find information on species which may be specific to a particular country. This offers information from an institution, on a dataset or project network with its 1,450 datasets shared by 217 data providers. Examples of dataset are bird collection or bird specimens. GBIF indicates that scientific names of organisms are important in information search.

“The key to modern biological information is the scientific names of organisms. And the electronic catalogue of the names that GBIF is building is fundamental to searching within and among types of data indicated,” according to GBIF.

Asean Centre for Biodiversity (ACB).A major problem in Asia is the absence of experts on taxonomy; thus, the inadequacy of knowledge on decision making for species’ conservation and sustainable use.

“Asia in general does not have the capacity to understand and manage its biodiversity. For the past two centuries, taxonomic description of Asian taxa occurred outside the region,” said ACB’s Dr. Filiberto Pollisco Jr. ACB organizes international and regional efforts on creating this biological information, on organizing trainings, establishing standards for collection, and coordinating training workshops for sector-specific concerns as those for quarantine and agriculture.

These are the problems in Asia: Lack of research funds, 95%; inadequate staffing levels, 89%; high running costs, 84%; and difficulty of access to taxonomic literature and libraries, 80%. It is important to find out the terms of endemicity and the threats in marine and coastal biological diversity specially in barely monitored areas like small islands, deep sea vents, sea mounts, and interstitial environment. Inland waters, fresh water ecosystems, also have to be inventoried.

References for agricultural pests and diseases have to be collected. “Many issues are best addressed on a regional rather than on a natinal level since species and ecosystems often extend across national boundaries,”said Pollisco.

Paris Herbarium-Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle (MNHN).

The French National Herbarium claims to be perhaps the world’s richest in historical material with eight to nine million specimens including more than 400,000 type specimens of vascular plants.

It works with 200 scientific institutions worldwide. Its collection is made up of several private collections of former professors who worked in the King’ Garden. It had natural history cabinets in the 16th and 17th centuries that botanists and pharmacists referred to. Some of its collections came from exploration expeditions in the 18th to the 20th centuries.

Its inventory includes dried and pressed specimens including those of fruits, seeds, woods, fragments in alcohol, slides, or silica gel for molecular analysis. To preserve its collections, parcels of plants are subjected to deep freezing at -140 degrees celsius in order to protect them from pests.

The Vascular Section, composed of phanerogams and pteridophyta, and the Cellular Cryptogams Section, composed of algae, lichens, and bryophyta, are repository of new samples. It is said that botanists associated with the Paris Herbarium had a passion for exploration that made them discover plants in Indochina in the 19th century.

An example of this is the discovery of plants in 1858 during the Franco-Spanish armada’s support of Catholic missions in Tourane Bay. It is no wonder that the museum has 1-1.5 million specimens from Asia.

Institut de Recherche pour le Developpement (IRD).IRD maintains collections important in the taxonomy of the Pacific terrestrial flora and fungi and marine flora and fauna. It has 75,000 specimens that came from New Caledonia, Vanuatu, Wallis and Futuna, and other Pacific islands. It has engaged in coastal marine faunistic and floristic sampling campaign including a deep sea fauna sampling on up to 60-meter depth.

Its Young Fish of New Caledonia Project is studying 1,800 species of fish in New Caledonia where it faces a problem on the absence of efficient tools for identifying larval and juvenile stages of the species.

Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS).Believing that names are the backbone structure for all Biodiversity Information Systems (BIS), ITIS experts are showing the importance of taxonomic descriptions of species to ecology, to the economy, and to conservation.

Its “Species 2000″ project creates a validated checklist of all the world’s species through a Global Species Database (GSD). The Species 2000 and the ITIS Catalogue of Life (www.catalogueoflife.org) now have 63 participating GSDs with a record of 64% of total known species or a total of 1.16 million species of animals, plants, fungi, and microorganisms.

Its global portals include the GBIF, EoL (www.eol.org), CBOL (Consortium for the Barcode of Life), IUCN (www.iucn.org), BHL (www.biodiversitylibrary.org), and EBI (European Bioinformatics Institute)/GenBank. Its European Union infrastructures include LifeWatch (www.lifewatch.eu), ANAEE (Analysis and experimentation on Ecosystems), and ELIXIR (www.elixir-europe.org).

Use of the portals by individual users totals to 40 million hits yearly. A Phase 2 of the Catalogue of Life Programme costing around E12 million will complete a world coverage of the Catalogue.

This project, to last up to 2014, will be a cyber infrastructure that has a worldwide, multi-hub network from cooperations with China, Australia, Brazil, and North America under the 4D4Life (Distributed Dynamic Diversity Database for Life). Its e-services will have popular and educational biodiversity science features.

Sud Expert Plantes (SEP).SEP helps French-speaking tropical countries on preservation of their plant biodiversity through capability building. It has presence in 22 countries in four regions. The SEP, which is being implemented up to 2011 since 2007, is funded by the French Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs at E3 million.

Biodiversity Information Facility-National Institute of Biological Resources (BIF-NIBR).

China Plant Catalogue (CNPC).The CNPC in Beijing has identified 6,418 plants that have economic importance. It discovered 781 new species over the last 10 years. It consolidates the work of 30 institutes nationwide with more than 100 taxonomists and 75 authors of Flora of China.

 Its plans are to update and expand its database, make its web user-interface more useful for a wider audience, and enter into more national and international cooperation.

 CNPC’s Chinese Virtual Herbarium (www.cvh.org.cn) which started in October 2005 already received 5.1 million views or 8,000 per day.

A national survey of inland wetlands is being conducted by South Korea’s NIBR, recognizing that wetlands have ecological and economic value owing to their function on purifying pollutants and controlling floods.

 A $6 million 2004-2009 wetland conservation program funded by the United Nations Development Program-Global Environmental FAcility aims to develop technologies for wetland survey and restoration.

 Sand dunes are also being given importance in Korea as these protect coastal lines and function as sand deposits and ground water reservoir (due to sands’ multi-pores) and provide ecological balance amid severe heat, wind, and salt.

NIBR’s survey program covers 133 sand dunes which studies physical and chemical characters of surface deposits and flora and fauna (insects, amphibiants, reptiles, birds, animals) in these sand dunes. NIBR’s building, completed in January 2007, has 17 major specimen storage areas with a holding capacity of 11 million specimens. The storage facility runs on an automatic temperature and humidity control system for preservation purposes.

Its partners are IRD, Agricultural Research Centre for International Development, National Center for Scientific Research, National University of Laos, Institute of Tropical Biology in Ho Chi Minh City, Royal University of Phnom Penh, and National Science Council in Laos. Its researches are on bamboo of Indochina, botanical study of Zingiberacea (ginger family of flowering plants), ecology of forest in Laos, plant usages in Cardamom mountains (southwest Cambodia), development of identificaiton tool for pollen grains, and architecture of conifers.

 While the Museum was founded in 1793, its history of collection of specimens dates back to around 1650.

Rich Ground For Pharmaceuticals

Rich Ground For Pharmaceuticals

 By Melody M. Aguiba

 

A haven for lovers of the natural, the inactive Mt. Isarog volcano, deemed as Southern Luzon’s highest peak at 1,966 meters above sea level, is visited for its cloudy morning fogs, clear streams, fresh and fl ushing waterfalls, sulfur springs, a deer farm that keeps Australian deer species, a butterfl y farm, monkeys, chirping birds, and orchids all-around.

Found in Camarines Sur, its accompanying national park is a protected area under the NIPAS (National Integrated Protected Areas System) Act.

Behind what is visible, Mt.Isarog may be an opulent source of medicinal or pharmaceutical raw materials which scientists at the University of the Philippines-Manila and Ateneo de Naga are now looking at. But the end-use of the rich fl ora and fauna for drugs is on the tailend of a project fi nanced by the Department of Science and Technology- Philippine Council for Advanced Science and Technology Development (PCASTRD).

It is establishing a database of natural resource which takes a scientifi c approach of mapping the resources fi rst and later identifying through molecular markers their active compounds.

“We’re standardizing the system and putting the infrastructure in place. We can use this for drug discovery, but that’s not the priority. That may be third or fourth (phase),” said Dr. Reynaldo V. Ebora, PCASTRD executive director.

The natural mechanisms of life are being used as a basis for discovering what may be later useful to human health. Plants have defense systems against predatory animals, perhaps a poison disgorged on an incoming invader.

Or a chemical that sends signal to isolate a part of the plant infected by a pathogen so that the entire plant would survive. These natural compounds in the plant may have ingredients for a drug. Government allocates more than P29 million for a bioinformatics program which includes this Mt. Isarog natural resource mapping.

The budget includes those for acquisition of software and equipment– HPLC (high performance liquid chromatography) and capacity building for training of experts. Dr. Marilou Nicolas, bioinformatics project leader and former UPManila Arts and Sciences dean, said the Philippines, rich as it is in biodiversity, has to build its own molecular marker-assisted drug discovery capacity. Or it may lose the economic benefi ts from its indigenous resources.

“Other countries started out sending their plant species abroad to test a compound for a specifi c purpose, such as for treating stomach ache. But they lost their claim on other active ingredients because there was no agreement on the use of other compounds in the plant,” she said.

icolas was talking about rosy periwinkle, a native plant in Madagascar’s tropical forests, whose vinblastine and vincristine compounds have been found to help leukemia patients to survive. Madagascar natives traditionally used the rosy periwinkle as diabetes treatment.

But they lost to western drug makers its economic value “Worldwide sales are worth over £75 million a year, but virtually none of this money fi nds its way back to Madagascar, one of the poorest countries in the world,” according to the Living Rainforest. UP Manila is also collaborating on bioinformatics with UP College of Medicine which is dealing on health informatics “We’re determining bio-marker for breast cancer,” she said.

Editorial: Our Privilege

Editorial: Our Privilege

   It is such a privilege for us that a respected government research and development (R&D) institution, the Bureau of Agricultural Research (BAR), has extended to us a P189,500 grant in support of R&D publishing.

   True, science and technology (S&T) and their immense benefits may have been ignored in this country in the past.  But the advent of S&T modernization appears to be upcoming as each Filipino everywhere is contributing his talents and assets to ensure that the Philippines will find its unique niche in science and help many of its poor get out of poverty through it.
   BAR is funding extensive agriculture-related R&D projects that have all-encompassing impact on many aspects of the economy- biofuel and energy, pharmaceuticals and medicine, livestock and poultry, food , employment and livelihood, natural resources conservation, and indigenous resource utilization.  These works are of prime importance to us who believe that communicating R&D to both leaders and laymen is pertinent to development. 

   “Supporting dissemination of information on research and development is part of our mandate,” said BAR Executive Director Nicomedes P. Eleazar.

   The  Department of Science and Technology’s P2 billion funding for the National Science Complex, the Philippine-American Academy of Science and Engineering’s efforts on the transfer of human knowledge from international R&D institutes to local institutions, and the Constitutional Commission on Science, Technology and Engineering’s policy and budgetary support for R&D are among the many collaborative works on R&D.    

   Noticeably, there may never have been an extensive support for S&T in the Philippines from the mainstream media, the dailies,  than what we‘re seeing now.

   Our publication, aiming to become a game-changer and believing in the power of communication to influence change, wants to be a vital part of these developments.

   We’re working on articles that are more useful to our daily lives, realizing that science is with us everyday, giving us enormous benefits we hardly notice. Our Daily Living Guide storiesguides you on the practical use of our very own medicinal plants, on the foreseen consumer benefits of the Renewable Energy Act, and in the use of your website to earn money which is becoming very popular now.

   With our still limited resources, we want you to get updated faster and better on Philippine-based R&D through our efforts to increase the presence of our printed magazine in more newstands on top of our presence at National Book Store.  I myself have been lured by my favorite Discover Magazine because it was (along wth Popular Science and Popular Mechanics) accessible at my college’s library at the Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila (PLM).  That must have made many poor but deserving students in my alma mater get fascinated in the beautiful wonders of science and have helped them find their own special place in it.  We want to be as what one scientific journal had envisioned– to become a tool in providing community among people through science information.

   A truly super-powerful medium, the cloud (internet), through its complex and numerous facets,  is also a medium that we’re trying to tap more fully.  The need to get connected through it will intensify as will soon be accessible to everyone through mobile phone  as one of our stories here suggests.

   Cancer and its treatment involve a deep science which technical people– medical doctors and scientists– may feel only they have the right to talk about.  But cancer can strike not just the scientists and the doctors, but anybody.

   Finally, I am reminded of Bible verses in Matthew 13:31, 32 that truly inspire me: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed which a man took and planted in his field.  Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches.”

   Our faith that leads us to work with others in team spirit, no matter how small it is as a mustard seed, brings leaps of growth nobody could ever imagine it could thrive into.

Reforms in Agriculture Financing

Reforms in Agriculture Financing

The national government, the Department of Agriculture (DA) in particular, may need to take a look at its entire financing organization in order to effectively deliver credit to those that need it most.

At present, there are three finance-oriented agencies attached to the DA– Quedan and Rural Credit Guarantee Corp. (Quedancor) tasked on guarantee, Philippine Crop Insurance Corp. (PCIC), on insurance,and the Agriculture Credit Policy Council (ACPC), on policy-making and overseeing of DA’s former Directed Credit Program (DCP) fund.

“Quedancor and PCIC are government corporations, while ACPC is a policy-making body. Maybe we should look at the (entire) structure.

We may need to merge the policy and guarantee operations. This (reform) may come from the higher authorities,” said Department of Budget and Management Dir. Nora C. Oliveros.

Corporations, even highly-diversified conglomerates, have, in one way, been successful in building profitable empires because despite the autonomous operation of different businesses, these companies are able to find integration or a similar vision for all independent entities at the very top of the hierarchy.

That integrating structure may be found in the likes of the Ayalas’ Ayala Corp. or the Gokongweis’ JG Summit. In contrast, complementation and support between the insurance-guarantee-credit-policy making functions in agriculture may not be maximized in the present structure.

“There should be a very close coordination between the three (insurance, guarantee, credit). But even PCIC is a (government) corporation. And even if you have a policy, ACPC cannot dictate on these corporations because they have their own charter. (That’s why) all these should be under one apex,” said Oliveros who sits on the executive committee of ACPC.

With its partnerships with the private sector on lending, ACPC is apparently in the right track in providing an enabling environment that would make the private sector want to invest in rural agriculture. This in turn makes credit more accessible to small farmers.

ACPC has tied up with the state-owned People’s Credit and Finance Corp. (PCFC) in a P200 million microfinancing program and in another P300 million microfinancing program with cooperative banks through Land Bank of the Philippines (LBP). Both PCFC and LBP are wholesaling loan funds released by ACPC. “It is a wrong perception that ACPC is retailing.

Neither is it wholesaling. It is Land Bank (and PCFC) that are wholesaling. PCFC has 100 microfinance institutions that are very good in loan retailing and are competing with Bumbays (or loansharks).

It is not ACPC’s function lend,” said Joselito S. Almario, director of the National Credit Council-Department of Finance (NCC-DOF). In a way, this microfinancing program of ACPC is introducing an new scheme that revolutionizes lending to small farmers that has never been done before.

First, the program expands the scope of financial institutions that can retail loans for as long as they have credit and collection expertise. ACPC’s Innovative Financing Scheme (IFS) includes as conduits to microfinancing cooperative banks, rural banks, people’s organizations, non-government organizations, and even traders and millers.

Before this new ACPC policy issued in the second quarter of 2009, there were only two government financial institutions that can wholesale ACPC-overseen funds before–LBP and Quedancor. Now this also includes PCFC, Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP), and SB Corp.

Second, this new policy not only covers lending for farm production but for multi-faceted purposes that all contribute to farmers’ becoming more effective in farm production. It can finance any off-farm enterprise (like sari-sari retail store).

It can finance the acquisition of farm equipment like a drying machine by an individual farmer or a farmers’ cooperative. It can finance construction of small irrigation systems or small farm-to-market roads. And it can finance the one that farmers need desperately– cash for everyday needs.

“In the present microfinance setup, we’re looking at the household cash flow, not the project and the business activities, whether it is viable or not.

We can support an agri household by not directly funding agri activities. Financing is for agri-based households which will help tide them over until their income (from farm production) comes,” said Almario.

Small farmers cannot lend from formal institutions that require collateral which they don’t have. They need that cash badly to pay for the daily food and transportation fares of their children. He stresses that accessibility of this type of formal credit by the private sector to small farmers is very important.

Or else farmers resort to loansharks’ higher interest-bearing loans which can carry 100-200% interest rates! Formal microfinance institutions can lend them at a lot less interest at just a third to sixth of loansharks’ rates. Aside from the Bumbays, higher interest-bearing loans are also offered by some millers-traders.

But the millers and traders do not actually need government’s money to retail since they too are awash with cash. The important thing in this PCFC-ACPC partnership is that government is able to reach small farmers through PCFC’s many conduits.

These conduits, just like millers and traders, have the exact physical presence in the outskirts and have the machinery to educate people to work on their farm and off-farm businesses, pay their debts, manage their funds and grow their small business, and join people’s groups for business synergy.

Oliveros said it is obvious government also has to look at its direction for guarantee. LBP is only temporarily taking over the guarantee function of Quedancor which is still undergoing restructuring since its suspension of operation. Over the long term, there should really be an institution devoted to guarantee.

But first Quedancor’s reason for failure should be determined. “Guarantee is a support vehicle for the credit program. It expands accessibility of credit to farmers. (So) government should really look at the guarantee program and what happened to Quedancor.

We should study why it failed, why its guarantee program didn’t work. Almario said Quedancor met its failure as it has gone into retailing even if its main mandate is on guarantee.

A guarantee encourages microfinance institutions to lend to small farmers since government assures loan retailers of payment by up to 85% if farmers ever fail to pay them. But Oliveros said there must be a lot more reason to Quedancor’s failure.

In the first place, Quedancor had to engage in retailing in order to diversify its income stream and augment its income from its funds. ACPC Executive Director Jovita M. Corpuz is envisioning a Bank for Social Policy which will look after the affairs of very small farmers. Corpuz also envisions integration of insurance, credit, and guarantee. Oliveros affirmed these programs may really support small farmers.

“The (Bank for Social Policy) could be (possible),” she said. “(And) maybe we need to merge guarantee (functions) and ACPC instead of separating them. Why should these agencies be separate? I really don’t know, but we should study this because you don’t see (the whole picture if the credit-insurance-guarantee functions are separate). But these are just suggestions. We’re not in the position to dictate it,” said Oliveros.

Almario and Oliveros sit on the ACPC’s executive committee. Amid more needed reforms to advance the interest of small farmers, Almario said government has gone a long way in adopting a more market-oriented system embodied in the Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Act (AFMA).

FMA abolished the DA’s Directed Credit Program (DCP) and introduced the Agro-Industry Modernization Credit and Financing Program (AMCFP) whose oversight is done by ACPC.

 

Credit for Farmers

Credit for Farmers

 

“A failure, is in a sense, a highway to success as every discovery of what is false leads us to seek earnestly after what is true, and every fresh experience points out some form of error which we shall afterwards carefully avoid.”

The poet John Keats said this well, and maybe it’s what the signals are telling us to do.

That is to accept that we failed to uphold our own farmers’ welfare when we tried to keep up with international pressures that stopped us from providing support for our own farmers while every richer nation subsidizes its own agriculture sector. And that is if we will ever try to correct our failure in order to move to success.

A farm credit think tank, the Agricultural Credit Policy Council (ACPC) of the Department of Agriculture (DA), follows after this.

“We haven’t really reviewed our policy. We haven’t recognized that in developing countries like the Philippines , there are more market failures. The economic principle that ‘market forces will allocate resources effi ciently’ only applies in a perfect setting. But that doesn’t apply even in America ,” said ACPC Executive Director Jovita M. Corpuz.

Nothing proves this better than the evidences. Twenty-four years since the World Trade Organization began in 1995, the US still allocates subsidies called Overall Trade Distorting Support (ODTS) totaling to its already capped $22.7 billion (based on US Farm Bill data) as of 2007.

But the US is not the only country that subsidizes its farm sector. Thailand and Vietnam comprehensively support agriculture. It is no wonder that these are two of the world’s biggest rice traders and have progressed aggressively in the rest of their other farm sectors.

“We found out that Thailand through BAAC (Bank of Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives) provides subsidies to its farmers. BAAC’s default is refunded by the government. If farmers can’t pay, government refunds it,” said a fi nancing expert. BAAC has offi cially enlisted 92% of its individual farmers, each with an identifi cation, for fi nancing purposes.

Vietnam has its own Vietnam Bank for Social Policies (VBSP) geared at a more socialized lending scheme than the more commercial operations of Vietnam Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (VBARD). VBARD, somewhat an equivalent of the Land Bank of the Philippines (LBP), also enjoys government subsidies and access to central bank credits. But the VBSP functions more as a social institution that creates economic solutions for the very poor.

In the Philippines , ACPC sees the need for credit and fi nancing specifi – cally in this very poor sector among the smallest of farmers who may never be able avail of a loan with formal institutions within their lifetime.

“I hope to distinguish the credit program under AMCFP (Agro-industry Modernization Credit and Financing Program) from a regular credit program,” Corpuz said.

The AMCFP, created under the new Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Act (AFMA), is a more market-oriented credit program that lends based on demand. AFMA prohibits AMCFP to set up a pre-determined credit allocation for each farm crop that was practiced in the pre-AFMA Directed Credit Program (DCP) of the Department of Agriculture (DA).

But AMCFP is still more of a developmental loan facility, not the profi toriented loan program of commercial banks. Besides, if government aims to ultimately help raise productivity of the least of farmers in the country totaling to more than fi ve million, it may not be able to escape responsibility of taking a risks.

“This is developmental There should be a risk that government should take so that you’re able to convince private banks to invest. You can tell banks that those they think to be highrisk borrowers can repay our loan. It’s not really high-risk to lend to farmers if you inculcate in them the proper values,” she stressed. Even then, ACPC believes that a more socially-oriented bank like Vietnam ’s VBSP should be created.

With only around 3% of commercial loan portfolio being spent for agriculture a Bank for Social Policy is a necessity. “If ACPC can advance into bank for social policy, there will be a direct intervention for farmers’ livelihood along with a package (for agricultural production) because (commercial) banks only lend to those who have a collateral. But these people can hardly eat, and you’ll even give them high interest-bearing loan,” she said.

Defi nitely, fi nancing, micro-fi nancing in particular, is just one aspect in spurring agricultural development. It cannot go alone. But it has to go together with pre and post harvest facilities, irrigation, infrastructure—farmto- market roads. But even in its basic form, only a trickle goes down to the countryside.

AFMA provides for the creation of a credit facility for entrepreneurial activities of young Agriculture graduates. But even this is hardly funded, Corpuz said. Many agricultural cooperatives engaged in collateral- free lending to farmers have indeed been profi table which models agricultural lending’s attractiveness.

Some c o o p e r a t i v e banks have assets in billions. ACP C partners with these cooperative banks where it takes the chunk of an 80% risk.

” W e take this big risk because that is the cost of development. Our h o p e is that if we improve the situation of our borrowers, we later allow them the reward of availing of mainstream fi nancing later,” she said.

ACPC has entered in a P300 million counterpart funding work with cooperative banks which is programmed to grow four-fi ve times into a P1.5 billion revolving facility. But the big risk that it took too was a P400 million fund it released for the now frozen Quedan and Rural Credit Guarantee Fund (Quedancor).

It will be able, though, to recover investment there through foreclosure of Quedancor’s assets. “The Council allowed that because Quedan services the high-risk group of farmers that we’re also lending to,” she said. ACPC may have been “privileged,” as some may think, to have been tasked by the AFMA to collect the old loans under the DA’s DCP up to the 1990s. Of the collectible, P6 billion, it has regained P1 billion so far.

But the effort that went with this was tremendous as more than 50% of the receivable are more than fi ve years, and thus hard to recover. This fund it uses to bankroll fi nancing- related activities including capability building of farmers and fi shers, of agriculture-based enterprises (ABE) and of other non-government organizations. Microfi nance may be formally defi ned as one with a maximum of P250,000 loan. But the minimum is really surprising.

“I’ve heard in one of our projects in CECAP (Central Cordillera Agricultural Program) that it lends out as low as P50. Microfi nance is differentiated from a regular loan in the fact that it also has a savings, capacity building,” she said. ACPC budgets P300,000 to P1 million for training farmers into becoming more responsible borrowers.

It also trains them in risk management, collection of bad loans, management information system, and project management. “If a project is well managed, it will earn more,” she said.

ACPC funds assistance in organizing farmers into cooperatives that form strong bonds toward enhancing agricultural productivity.

The entry of private banking institutions is one hope of ACPC to bolster micro-fi nancing in the outskirts. “I can see that in the future, and I’m willing to take the risk that private banking fi nancial institutions can become wholesalers as long as we really put up safety measures or guidelines on who can be allowed to do it,” Corpuz said.

Another way of creating fresh money into rural agriculture is through liquidation of agrarian reform lands. Advocating the law for agrarian reform land title’s use as collateral, ACPC also believes that opening up the acquisition of agrarian reform lands to private commercial banks will hasten land reform.

Obviously, more landowners will be willing to sell their land if there is a higher land valuation for their land. In essence, only the state-owned LBP is allowed at presence to broker sale of agrarian reform lands.

Given the money, ACPC’s vision too is to create a program that integrates three important fi nancing services— credit, insurance, and guarantee. Farmers need the credit for production— to buy the seeds, inputs, and all; the insurance to assure him he will get paid even if a calamity destroys his crop.

The guarantee encourages credit retailing institutions to boldly lend out to the risk sector, knowing it can receive payment even if the farmer fails to pay it. “If AMCFP has the money, and we can let the wholesaler and retailer setup work, then all loans should have insurance in a perfect setup,” she said.

ACPC has conceptualized the Innovative Financing Scheme (IFS) which enabled even non-fi nancial institutions like traders, millers, cooperatives, and state universities and colleges to be engaged in fi nancing. The IFS’s three programs are the Special Agricultural Financing Window- a collateral-free rediscounting facility for small farmer; Rural Household Business Financing Program, a DA-ACPC, LBP facility; and the DA’s Hybrid Rice Credit Assistance Program for small farmers through traders and millers.

But it all boils down to how much it has in its hands. AFMA mandates ACPC should receive an allocation of an initial P2 billion and P1 billion each year for the fi rst fi ve years since it was installed. That it needs to become the Bank of Social Policy that it envisions to grow into to be able to help farmers.

 

Money for Food

Money for Food

 

 

The agriculture sector is defi nitely essential to economic growth and citizen welfare as an estimated 5.5 million rural households (one-third of employed persons) depend on it for livelihood (NSO, 2002). It accounts for a signifi cant 15% of GDP at P596 trillion (current prices, NSO 2002).

It is one sector that needs all the help it can get specially in fi nancing. Department of Agriculture (DA) Sec. Arthur C. Yap answers Growth Revolution Magazine’s questions on funding food production and issues related to DA-associated funding agencies.

GRM: Crop insurance, widely available in developed countries, has an important impact in raising production as farmers are assured of an income despite a threatening weather.

 

 

What is DA’s plan on it?

ACY: What we’re trying to seek here is more private funds fl owing into farm production But how are we going to do that if we don’t give full support to crop insurance? We’re studying how much budget we’ll put in insurance premium. I’m looking at P300 to P500 million for PCIC (Philippine Crop Insurance Corp. We have other initiatives with senators to strengthen crop insurance.

GRM: Are there other schemes for insurance funding that can help eliminate uncertainties in agricultural production?

ACY: I was asking World Bank for their country strategy for the Phiippines. I told them they must also give money for crop insurance because this is the only way to fl ush more mainstream funds down. I told them ‘Maybe the aid that you can give the Philippines should be weather-based insurance. Give us money to determine water table, amount of rainfall, amount of typhoon, soil suitability, so we should have a database.’ (In relation to agricultural production), I also asked funding for remote sensing, for GIS (geographic information system) from COCAFM (Congressional Commission on Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization). We want to subject that to bidding for any bidder who wants to make an offer. We want to build it through BOT (build-operate-transfer). Yes Philrice has a remote sensing system, but it’s very limited.

GRM: How is the Agricultural Guarantee Fund Pool (AGFP, issued under AO 25, Apri1, 2008) funding agriculture since it was signed?

 

 

ACY: I’m meeting with Land Bank to evaluate the AGFP, so we can go to the bottom of why rural banks are imposing so many requirements for its availment by farmers. Why do they still have to impose strict requirements when that fund is already 85% secured? Maybe the P4 billion Malampaya fund that the president gave to Land Bank would hasten its usage. Technically, the P4 billion should revolve at least 100%, so that should be P8 billion. But funds can revolve up to three times, four times. That could reach to P16 billion. Land Bank should lift restrictions so this fund can be released. That’s supposed to be fl ushed down to the countryside. Second, I’ll check the allocation why cooperatives get only one-third, and the large companies still got the large chunks. PCIC should join us in this AGFP meeting, so it can offer insurance services to fl ush out more funds.

GRM: The AGFP also mandated GFI’s (government fi nancial institutions) including PAGCOR (Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp.), Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Offi ce, Social Security System, Government Service Insurance System, National Power Corporation, and Philippine National Oil Company to allocate 5% of their 2007surplus for food security. Is this happenning?

ACY: I have to check with (Land Bank President) Gilda Pico because (this has to be followed). This is a law where Ma’am (Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo) asked GFIs to commit.

GRM: People look up to Land Bank for fi nancing with its big available fund. What can move more funds into farming?

ACY: There’s always a need to improve Land Bank. Government should never stop trying to fi nd noble solutions to learn from. Theres’ always a room. That’s why the objective is how do we play with pricing policy of commodities so that we can encourage the maximum pricing of agricultural goods without affecting the basic food security requirement of the people? I think in terms of priority, that is the most important priority because if there is a more liberalized pricing scheme, that will allow farmers to make money from their produce. Then you will also allow mainstream fi nancing to come in. Mainstream fi nancing doesn’t want to come in because there are many x factors in agriculture aside from the pricing policy and the heavy hand that government exercises on food. Then you have a question right now on the weather, another very very volatile factor which you can’t control. Without duly pressuring infl ationary forces to play in the economy, there should be no more price caps. You should allow the farmers to price what he thinks is profi table for his products for him to produce more. That’s what I would like to see. For that to happen, your retail prices and your market should also behave in such a way that would allow this environment to fl ourish. That’s one thing I would like to see. But that doesn’t mean you will allow prices to be volatile because if prices are volatile, it will also defeat the farm gate prices. Farm gate prices should be stable and predictable also for farmers to want to plant. Second, volatility affects consumer food security. Then that would impact on infl ation. Then if it impacts on infl ation, it impacts on our GDP and our GNP. So that has to be played well in order to assist farmers.

GRM: Financing experts cite Thailand’s Bank Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives (BAAC) having a learned a lot from our own Land Bank that lent extensively to farmers several years back. But now, BAAC is comprehensively fi nancing agricultural activity even among Thailand’s smallest farmers who are members of coperatives. BAAC, experts claim, contributes largely to Thailand’s leadership in agricultural production and world trade. On the other hand, Land Bank has gone into commercial banking, weakening its impact in rural farming.

ACY: I don’t know, but maybe we should revisit a proposed program (of former DA Sec. Luis P. Lorenzo Jr) on a 1:1 counterpart funding of Land Bank (with other institutions). I don’t have all the answer to it. All I know is that we have to fi nd a way. If we need to give farmers support, let’s fi nd a way where we can really give that support properly, if it’s fi nancing, then give it. If it’s production or infrastructure support, we’ll go into it. But I’m not ready to make a commitment that there’s one silver bullet. It may still be a combination (of solutions), so when you ask, ‘Are you ready to do that?’ Not until we have all the facts in.

GRM: We don’t have much price caps on agricultural prices, have we? It is imports that really affect prices.

ACY: Yes, but in rice, we don’t really allow price (to spike). NFA’s (National Food Authority’s) price and supply stabilization function usually caps prices. For corn, not so much cap because we really lack it. But even for chicken and all of these, we’re basically okay, except of course you have that MAV (minimum access volume) for imports that also somehow adds some volatility in the market which is why I want MAV’s rules to be redone. I want any serious importer to be given a chance to import. We dont want them to lose to the predatory little importers holding on to the MAV.

GRM: What is DA doing in guarantee?

ACY: Economic managers already approved rehabilitation of Quedancor (Quedan and Rural Credit Guarantee Corp.) It will continue in its guarantee activities, but it has to downsize to 200 from 800. DBM (Department of Budget and Management) will fi nance the retirement. Those who don’t want to retire will be transfered to other DA agencies that need the manpower.

GRM: What else in fi nancing intervention is DA doing?

ACY: ACPC (Agricultural Credit Policy Council) gave P300 million to rural bankers.

GRM: What is DA’s direction in fi nancing or credit policy under ACPC?

ACY: ACPC should be using all its resources to galvanize and come up with a more extensive program and plans, on what should be done for microfi nance to be fl ushed down to farmers and cooperatives more. If more training is needed, then they should lobby for more government funding, for the training, for coming up with more innovative programs. It doesn’t have to be DA-based, it can be intergovernment based. Maybe the PDAF (Priority Development Assistance Fund) of congressmen should be used for counterparting. I’m just thinking of that at the top of my head, thinking out aloud. I will talk to ACPC about this.

GRM: How are multilateral funding institutions helping the sector since they also impose stiff penalties if absorption of their loan is low?

ACY: Multilaterals right now are still going towards infrastructure support.

GRM: Is that for easier monitoring purposes? ACY: It’s more physical, not through other programs. GRM: How does

DA put more curb on graft and corruption? ACY: We invite the private sector to participate in our bidding. That’s why in this recent controversy with Reuters (allegations on rice import overpricing), I had to explain to them that for you to allege there’s a conspiracy in the pricing here, then you’re also alleging that the private sector is involved because the Bishop Businessmen’s Conference and the Procurement Transparency Group are part of the process. So I think we just need to have a very open policy in inviting the private sector to watch and watch over all the biddings.

GRM: Is there any other fi nancing assistance that DA is extending to farmers now that you haven’t so far mentioned?

ACY: (I’m seeking an) advice on exactly how much additional subsidized premiums we should give to farmers in 2010, so I can include it in the budget right away. It’s one of those things that are at the heart of our problems. These are the problems we’re trying to grapple with.

Auto Transmission Hub

Auto Transmission Hub

By Bernie Cahiles-Magkilat

Local manufacturing industries have long been threatened by global competition. Some have totally shifted into trading, while others just died a natural death. There are a few left but are struggling to maintain their footing.

One such industry is the local automotive sector, although it is also under threat by global liberalization as shown by the steady inflow of imported completely built-up units that now account for half of the total cars sold in the market.

At best, the automotive sector’s most tangible investment is in transmission manufacturing facilities. As a major car component, the transmission is a building block to the country’s cherished dream of fi nally building its own car.

Automotive transmission is a device in the power train of a car that provides different gear or drive ratios between the engine and drive wheels. Its principal function is to enable the vehicle to accelerate from rest through a wide-speed range while the engine operates within its most effective range.

As a major automotive part, transmission accounts between 10- 20% of the total car parts depending on the vehicle model.

I N V E S T ME N T S

Japanese car companies have invested in transmission facilities in the country.

Toyota Automotive Parts Inc. (TAP) has invested P10 billion to produce transmission for export in Laguna. Honda Parts poured in P1.3 billion to start production of manual transmission, case and gear. Isuzu Parts also put in P1 billion also for its transmission facility. Asian Transmission Corp. (ATC) invested P378 million for transmission and engine.

TAP, the auto parts manufacturing arm of Toyota Motor Philippines Corp., is not only producing G-type manual transmissions but also constant velocity joints at its plant in Sta. Rosa, Laguna.

TMP vice-president Rommel Gutierrez said its expanded transmission plant in Sta. Rosa, Laguna is now operating at full capacity with total output of 180,000 units per year.

The company’s P5.6 billion expansion, which was completed only last year, would double its production output to 330,000 units each year.

The multi-billion Sta. Rosa facility is Toyota’s fourth R-type transmission production plant in the world in addition to Aisin Al Japan,

Aisin Al Thailand and ToyotaKirloskar AutoParts in India. The group also produces transmission assemblies for the Toyota Innova model and the Hilux pick-up truck.

TAP’s transmissions are exported to Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Pakista and even South Africa.

“TAP has made substantial inroads in the markets. The demand is almost global,” Gutierrez said.

Honda Parts Manufacturing Corp. (HPMC), the parts manufacturing arm of Honda Cars Philippines, also invested in transmission assembly bringing its total investments to P2.89 billion in Laguna Technopark.

HPMC is also producing gears and shafts for transmission using a new technology of laser welding gear.

ATC, the parts manufacturing unit of Mitsubishi Motor Philippines Corp., has a paid-up capital is P420 million.

In 2008, ATC assembled a total 73,503 transmissions of which 9,441 were supplied to MMPC and 64,062 units were exported to Mitsubishi affi liates in Japan, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Taiwan.

Takeshi Okada, ATC executive vice-president for fi nance, said that since its establishment in 1974, their local sales have been growing relative to the growth of the local automotive industry.

The company’s exports, however, have been experiencing ups and downs depending on the auto market situation abroad.

The current global fi nancial crisis is also adversely affecting ATC’s exports this year.

But these investments were largely driven by the ASEAN Brand to Brand Complementation program in the automotive sector.

The BBC program calls for the assembly of a major automotive part in one ASEAN country with the aim of sharing it with other ASEAN countries for their respective fi nal assembly of a motor vehicle.

Thus, the Japanese car companies investments in the transmission facilities in the country.

I N C E N T I V E S

Okada said that car companies are already exporting transmissions to other countries, but exports are also facing stiff competition especially from the low cost China manufacturers.

“We do not see new incentives to support the existing local automotive industry, while we face tough competition from similar companies in developing countries, mainly from China,” he said.

“With some more incentives, we believe there is a big potential that we can increase our export volume. If the volume will increase, there are more chances that the automotive industry will further grow in the Philippines,” Okada said.

While transmission manufacturing entails a big investment in the automotive sector, the government does not grant other incentives in this sector other than those granted under the Motor Vehicle Development Program (MVDP).

An MVDP participant for the passenger car segment is required to invest $10 million and $8 million for commercial vehicles for parts manufacturing and as such is entitled to income tax holiday incentives and duty-free importation of capital equipment.

T R A N S M I S S I O N H U B

Most transmission assemblies for regional distribution by Japanese car manufacturers are done in the Philippines, making the country a de facto hub for auto transmission manufacturing.

Okada, however, said the establishment of transmission facilities in the country was mainly due to the existence of the free trade agreement in the ASEAN region and not because the country has the established supply chain.

“If we talk about the supply chain for transmission assembly in the country, we cannot easily say that the Philippines is the most preferred country to be a hub of transmission assembly, considering that there are less automotive (parts)-related companies in the country, compared to neighboring countries, like Thailand, Indonesia,” Okada said.

Although the government is promoting automotive parts manufacturing, transmission has remained the only major auto part being produced here. Other auto parts produced here include wiring harness, tires and lead-acid storage batteries.

Nonetheless, Trade and Industry Undersecretary and Board of Investments Managing Head Elmer C. Hernandez cited the transmission investments in the country.

“The Philippines is already being considered as a transmission hub. Majority of the car assemblers have transmission manufacturing facilities with about 90 percent of output being exported worldwide,” Hernandez said.

The Philippines does not only export transmission assemblies but also component parts for transmission (gear parts and shafts). Other countries like Thailand assemble transmission from parts imported from the Philippines, he pointed out.

“The good thing about the transmission projects here is that 90 percent of its production is exported and only 10 percent are being used by local car assemblers.

“Our auto parts exports have been steadily growing and have been making a reasonable dent in the export market to developed countries such as Germany, Japan and the United States,” Hernandez said.

Latest BOI data showed that transmission exports in 2006 reached $141.2 million.

Hernandez believes that there is a potential for the transmission industry to make it big in the international market outside of ASEAN.

“As it is, manufacturers are already exporting to some countries outside of ASEAN and there is no reason why they could not tap other export market,” Hernandez said.

He even cited Toyota for using local transmissions for cars manufactured in Japan.

 

 

Consumer Guide to the Renewable Energy Law

Consumer Guide to the Renewable Energy Law

 

A promise of cleaner and over time, cheaper, electricity is offered by the Renewable Energy (RE) Act or Republic Act 9513 not only to industries but to household consumers.

The Department of Energy (DOE) sees the new law which took effect on Jan. 30, 2009 may become a reality within two years, according to Mario C. Marasigan, director of the Renewable Energy Management Bureau-Department of Energy.

Here are what you can expect from the new law.

1. Supply electricity from your house to the national grid! Use the grid as your battery. The Net Metering System (NMS), which involves a twoway metering system, may be an entirely new thing to customers.

But this is where your benefi t may come from. The fi rst meter measures consumption of a customer, the other measures his electricity generation, no matter how small this may be. The RE law has provided for a means for even a small household to supply energy to the national grid. This may be through a solar photovoltaic (PV) system.

These technologies, such as a solar lantern and a solar water purifying system, are already in the market. By connecting to the grid, a household can omit buying the battery.

“Anyone can utilize right now the solar technology. They have to store the solar power in a battery since he’s producing solar energy only at daytime (when sunlight is available) while most of the time he uses energy only at night.

But with the RE Law, he can practically use the grid as his battery,” said Marasigan. A small livestock owner may also generate his own electricity through a biogas system coming from conversion of animal waste into electricity.

A small farmers’ cooperative may also supply to the national grid an electricity that comes from his generation of power from a biomass system that burns biological waste like rice husks or corn cobs and turn this into electricity. Will that give customers savings or economic benefi ts?

Defi nitely. A solar PV system may be expensive now, but fi gure out its benefi t over the solar panel’s life to realize its benefi t. “The system may appear expensive at the time of buying. But if for example, if I buy a pair of shoes at P5,000 but use it for fi ve years, so I’m just paying P1,000 per year. If I have another pair worth P500 which I used for only one month, which is more expensive,” explained Marasigan.

2. Use clean energy for all purposes—ironing your clothes, powering your refrigerator. For some time, those that can afford to buy a solar PV electric system can only use this for simple needs—light and electric fan.

But now that you’re connected to the grid, you have the opportunity to use your clean solar PV and other cleaner electricity sources for heavier electricity-consuming activities like ironing your clothes, powering your computer, and just about any activity for as long as you can pay it.

The RE law promotes the use of these clean types of energy— solar, biogas, biomass, ocean energy systems, wind energy, geothermal, and small hydro. “You have a choice, if you want to use wind mill, you can buy a small wind turbine. If you have a piggery, you can use biogas to run a generator.”

3. Import your energy device, and get it tax- free. If you have the chance to buy your own solar PV system abroad or any device, the RE law gives you the incentive of tax-free importation.

The supply of equipment is given VAT (value added tax) zero rating. “You get a tax credit for domestic capital equipment. If a consumer opted to buy it abroad and paid a tax for it, he can apply for a rebate, but only for the tax component,” he explained.

4. Choose your own electricity source. A household customer can buy his own solar PV system. Some of the suppliers of this system are the Solar Electric Co, Paris Manila Technology, Machine and Technique, Dumalag Corp. and some small suppliers whose list is available at DOE.

But if you have a business or are a member of a cooperative that has a bigger electric consumption– a farmers’ cooperative, a village association cooperative, or an electric cooperative—then maybe you can decide to choose your own electricity source.

“A cooperative may “negotiate and apply with the nearest renewable energy facility in Manila, for example, the Makiling banahaw geothermal facility,” said Marasigan. This is under the Green Option provision of the law.

“Any end-user who shall enroll under the Green Energy Option program shall be informed by way of its monthly electric bill, how much of its monthly energy consumption and generation charge is provided by RE facilities,” said section 6 of the law.

4. Benefi t from suppliers’ tax-free renewable energy generation and mandated supply of clean energy. Electric suppliers will be allowed to import what you cannot, and they will be given incentives for tax-free importation too.

“If a supplier is accredited by the DOE, then he enjoys fi scal incentives such as a seven-year income tax holiday for all importation of equipment. This should bring down the cost of electricity because importation is duty free.

” The Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS), section 4 of the law’s implementing rules and regulations, obliges power suppliers (generators, distribution utilities) to source a specifi c amount of electricity from renewable energy.

This will be designated by DOE, but the minimum increase in the amount of renewable energy that a supplier provides should not be less than 1% of his energy demand over the next 10 years.

In a similar provision, the law also has the Feed-in Tariff System which compels electric power participants to source electricity from renewable energy at a guaranteed fi xed price over a period not less than 12 years.

The price and the period will be determined by the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC). 5. Expect waste to be turned into energy Instead of suffering from garbage around you, biodegradable materials (animal manure, agricultural waste will be turned into energy (section 9).

The law also gives tax incentives and tax exemptions in sectin 13 of the law and section 17 of the IRR for hybrid systems or electricity coming from both renewable energy and conventional systems.

Farmers are encouraged to engage in plantation of crops for biomass and biofuel including jatropha, coconut, sugarcane.

They will enjoy duty-free importation of equipment for biomass and exemption for 10 years from VAT for the importation of all types of agricultural inputs, machinery, and equipment including fertilize, insecticide, pesticide, tractor, trailers, trucks, farm implements, harvesters, threshers, hybrid seeds, genetic materials, sprayers, packaign machines and materials, bulk handling facilities, conveyors, mini-loaders, weighing scales, harvesters, and equipment spare parts.

6. See a new Filipino-run energy-electronics industry get established. The metering systems in the country are only one-way, measuring one’s use of electricity. But a dual metering system may be made available by the government through suppliers that will be given incentives to import devices with dual meters.

The RE Law, as advocates of a local energyelectronics sector assert, may also pave the way for the local manufacturing of these systems.

This way, the law creates jobs and a new industry in the Philippines. Dr. Gregory L. Tangonan, executive director of the Congressional Commission on Science Technology and Engineering and director of the Ateneo Innovation Center, said the deployment of solar power should unfold a new industry run by Filipinos that can produce peripheral devices.

7. Enjoy the benefi ts of cleaner environment and less costly health maintenance. Marasigan said that the government’s target is that by 2020, renewable energy will have a bigger share in the energy mix from the present 5,000 megawatt which is 33% of the energy mix to 10,000 megawatt.

This is dominated by big geothermal and hydro sources, but small renewable energy sources should also grow and thrive in time. There may be a cost, but health and environmental benefi ts will really be the biggest winners with RE. “When we use coal and bunker fuel (as we do now), there is a cost, and these are environmentally pollutant, so do they help?

If you a polluting facility, you have to account for the resulting cost for its health effects– cost of cough syrup, medicine, hospitalization. If you don’t have clean air now, what would happen to the air tomorrow? So there is a price for a cleaner environment and health.”

Medicinal Plants at Your Fingertips

 

Medicinal Plants at Your Fingertips

 

When we suffer from any illness, we are inclined to at once seek the help of a doctor or rush to a drug store for self-medication. But there are proven treatments to illnesses using plants commonly found around us.

They can save us a good sum of money and provide immediate relief from complaints if only we know how to use them. Of course, it’s still convenient to take a pill, but what is its cost?

Here are ailments and their treatments using local medicinal plants according to the “Guidebook on the Proper Use of Medicinal Plants” by Dr. Nelia P. Cortes-Maramba.

Some of the plants may not be familiar to you, but Maramba provides photos of these plants in her book which enables you to identify them at once. Even better, contact the Philippine Council of Health, Research and Development (PCHRD) which promotes the use of medicinal herbs.

Another government agency, the Philippine Institute of Traditional and Alternative Health Care (PITAHC), is actually processing some of these medicinal plants into easy-to-take pills.

1. Wounds. For superficial cuts and scratches, apply on the wound the juice from the leaves of any of the following: balanoy, bawang, dilaw, balanoy, eucalyptus, ikmo, luya, sulasi, or suob kabayo.

2. Bleeding. Boil one or two handfuls of the plant material any of the following in a small pot of water for fi ve minutes: abutra stems, balanoy, bayabas (guava), kalantas bark, kamakamatisan, damong maria, duhat leaves, lagundi leaves, lanting, makabuhay ste ms, sampalok leaves, sulasi leaves, suob kabayo, and tangan-tangan leaves. Use this extract or decoction to wash the wound once or two times daily.

3. Toothache. Chew fresh leaf tops of bayabas young leaves and leave on the aching tooth but do not swallow. Another treatment is by inserting into the aching tooth up to 15 minutes a blanched and then crushed clove of garlic. Extracts of lagundi or yerba Buena leaves may also be used as cure. For adults, boil four tablespoons or tbsp ( if dried) or six tbsp (if fresh) of any of the leaves in two glasses of water for 15 minutes or until only one glass of the liquid is left. Drink one part of the decoction every three or four hours. Children aged seven to 12 should receive treatment using half of the leaves of the material required in adults.

4. Abdominal pain. Indigestion, diarrhea, intestinal parasitism, urinary tract disease, menstruation, and other ailment may all result in abdominal pain. A relief is by drinking a decoction taken from boiling any of the following in one glass of water for 15 minutes or until only one half of the liquid is left: two tbsp of bayabas leaves if dried (three tbsp if fresh), one tbsp of dried or fresh mangosteen peel, or two tbsp if dried or three tbsp if fresh of tsaang gubat leaves. For children, use one-half of the adult dose. For gaseous distention, treatment can come from boiling in one cup of water for fi ve minutes one tbsp (dried or fresh) of the following leaves: balanoy, bani, romero, sulasi, sambong (two tbsp for fresh), tanglad (two tbsp for fresh), and yerba buena. Strain the mixture and drink when lukewarm.

5. Abscess (boil). A warm, painful swelling under the skin containing pus, an abscess may be caused by a dirty skin, an obstruction in the sweat glands, a punctured wound, or a clotted blood. Wash the abscess daily; apply warm compress to provide pain relief. Apply the following medicinal plants as poultice (warm, soft, moistened mass spread on cloth and applied to a sore) to hasten point of boiling: gumamema fl ower bud, kamantigi leaves, mansanilya fl ower, sambong leaves, suob kabayo leaves, talumpunay leaves or fl ower.

6. Asthma. Drink a decoction that comes from boiling lagundi leaves (four tbsp if dried and six tbsp if fresh) with two glasses of water for 15 minutes. Take one part three times daily. Talumpunay dried fl ower or leaves may also be made into a cigarette and smoked. But do not smoke the cigarette for more than six hours, and another precaution is just like marijuana, it may be addictive.

7. Arthritis. Heat enough amount of these fresh leaves– balanoy, kabling, lantana, sulasi, yerba Buena—or siling labuyo fruit and luya rhizomes. Pound the plant material and apply while warm on the affected joint.

8. Burns. Apply two times daily on the affected parts the juice of any of these–gumamela fl ower buds, oregano leaves, and sabila leaves. If a blister forms, take off the skin, clean with soap and water, and apply the medicinal plant.

9. Constipation. Aside from taking eight to 12 glasses daily and eating plenty of fi ber-rich food like vegetables and fruits, treatment includes eating of one to two medium sized rice papaya fruit or one or two cups of the following cooked vegetables– kamote leaves, kamoteng kahoy leaves, kangkong leaves, malunggay leaves. Other treatments are eating one-fourth to one-half cup of the following cooked seeds—kasuy, linga, mani, or pili; drinking the mixture of one or two crushed kanya pistula fruit in one glass of water; drinking of two teaspoons of palay bran boiled in one glass of water for fi ve minutes; and drinking of one or two tbsp of coconut cream taken from coconut meat.

10. Cough. This is a symptom of many illnesses including throat infection, bronchitis, colds, measles, fl u, tuberculosis bacteria, and smoking. Relief can come from the decoction of six tbsp if dried or eight tbsp if fresh of alagaw leaves boiled in two glasses of water for 15 minutes. Balanoy leaves, lagundi leaves, luya rhizomes, mangga tops, oregano leaves, and eucalyptus leaves may be a substitute to alagaw leaves but using a different material requirement (refer to the book). Take one part three times daily. Children aged seven to 12 should get half of the adult dose.

11. Diarrhea. Dehydration or loss of water that can go with diarrhea can be treated with oresol or coconut water (from seven to nine-month old fruit), or clean water mixed with two tbsp of sugar or honey, one-fourth teaspoon of salt and one-fourth teaspoon of baking soda. For controlling the increased frequency of bowel movement, eight tbsp if dried and 10 tbsp if fresh of the following leaves may be boiled with two glasses of water— abukado, or kaymito. Drink one part every two to three hours. Children aged seven to 12 should take half of the adult dose. Bayabas leaves, mangosteen peel, tsaang gubat leaves, and niyog fruit may substitute abukado or kaymito but using a different dosage (refer to the book).

12. Dizziness, fainting, and hysteria. Let the patient sniff any of these crushed fresh plants—leaves of balanoy, bayabas, kalamansi, suha, sulasi, or yerba Buena; dalanghita, or kabuyaw or dayap leaves or rind; and pounded anis seed wrapped in cloth.

13. Falling hair. Use gugo bark soaked in water until lathery to wash hair and scalp. Use sabila leaves as juice applied and massaged on the scalp, and wash off after 15 minutes.

14. Fever. Indicated by a body temperature of 37.5 degrees centigrade and up, fever is a symptom of many illnesses (infection like flu, colds, measles, malaria, meningitis, tonsillitis, pneumonia, tuberculosis; heart stroke, and cancer). Aside from intake of fl uids, sponge bath, a decoction of four tbsp of dried lagundi leaves boiled in two glasses of water for 15 minutes may be given to a patient. Other substitutes are leaves of alagaw, balimbing, dayap, kamyas, lagundi, mangga, sambong, sampalok, and suha.

Big Savings in Infrastructure, Health Center

Big Savings in Infrastructure, Health Center      Kalahi, launched in 2003 and implemented in 42 poorest provinces in 12 regions and 184 towns, aimed to enhance local governance. It disbursed as of March 2009 a cumulative $85.66 million. A Grievance Redress System heard a total of 52 cases involving inquiries on salaries, violation of law or contract conditions, and complaints against project staff.

 

Transparency in fi nancial records, a labor counterpart from participating communities, functionality audits, and a grievance redress system.

All these contributed to the cost-discounted, fast, effective, and graft and corruption-free delivery of education, infrastructure, agricultural, and social services to typhoon-stricken poor communities in Bicol and Mindanao provinces.

“We had big savings in implementing our projects. Some communities offered to work for free. Our training of the stakeholders also got them involved in effi ciently managing project fi nances,”said Kira Paredes, social marketing offi cer of the Kapit-Bisig Laban sa Kahirapan-Comprehensive and Integrated Delivery of Social Services (Kalahi-CIDSS) project.

The aim of Kalahi-CIDSS to uplift the needs of very poor communities in the provinces was bound to get delivered, fi rst of all, due to a management key:

Get the community to tell openly what they need and get them to partipate in it.

In a study, the Kalahi project proved to have spent a substantially lower cost than other benchmark projects from traditionally implemented goverment projects. For Level II Water System, Kalahi’s discount was P10,669 to P13,669 per household unit. It also had savings of P7,5461 to as much as P1.175 million per kilometer of road rehabilitation for similar specifi cations; P594 per square meter for schoolbuilding; and P8,846 per square meter of health center.

Here is the cost comparison:

 

 

 

Here are the specifi c cost estimates per sub-project (SP) in monetary values for Kalahi Projects:

 

 

 

“The unit costs for the projet are lower because it does not have to pay the costs for road rights of way, a contractor’s profi t (estimated at 15- 20% of costs), or the 10% value added tax for contractors, according to the study.

“These investments can generate both quantifi able benefi ts, such as more effi cient allocation of resources through closer matching of the demand for and supply of local public goods, better operation and maintenance, higher levels of bayanihan, more equitable access to local goods, and better access to information.

” Because of the residents’ participation in identifying what they need, they feel an ownership of the projects which also lead to a substantial local government counterpart funding for these projects funded by the World Bank. Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Esperanza I. Cabral already received assurance of an additional funding in an advanced project phase for Kalahi. For the P3.892 billion grant that it received, this was matched by around 50% totalling to P1.768 billion by local government units (LGU).

 

 

The functionality audits also showed how effective project implementation was by simply giving evidence that 96% of the 1,392 completed sub-projects were “operational and provided the intended service.”

The rest of the audited projects had problems due to natural disaster or delayed LGU fund matching. Martin San Jose of Hologan, Manito, Albay was one of the active participants in rebuilding his hometown.

“We lacked school buildings for children. The venue for the classes then was not safe for children to go to. We also didn’t have a source of potable water. People fetched water from a distant and steep hill that would take a long 30-minute walk. Others paid for water fetchers,” said San Jose.

The two needs- school building and water supply– were the ones granted to the Hologan residents since these were what they asked for. Two school rooms, seven by nine-meter in size with comfort rooms, were constructed.

New artesian wells brought the supply of potable water that enabled the community to irrigate their farms and to practise basic disease prevention and sanitation .

In Legaspi, Albay, among the things that the community asked for were a health center, an equipment for making sure their harvest of rice and corn are dried and last for a longer time, and roads for going to school and for bringing their goods to the market. “It used to cost them P35 in transportation fare to get home through an 18-kilometer stretch over 45 minutes.

The community centers are now connected by a road that takes them just fi ve to 10 minutes to transfer places,” said Eva Banares of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), project lead agency. In Brgy. Sayon, Tagbina, Surigao del Sur, natives are able to produce a more delicious steamed rice because of improved coconut juice supply due to a more adequate water supply from the project.

“We’re able to produce more coconuts when trees receive more more water. One time, I experimented on using coconut juice to cook rice. This self-made innovation was replicated by several of the housewives in my place,” said Emelyn Balajula, Kalahi community volunteer.

Breaking into Pharmaceuticals

Breaking into Pharmaceuticals

 

Researchers started in the 1990s to look under the sea for compounds that can be used as cure to our time’s most difficult diseases including cancer. Just now, and not too late still, the Philippines is starting to demonstrate its capability to surface as a strong collaborator in the development of pharmaceuticals.

A forerunner in this is Dr. Baldomero Olivera, awarded Harvard Scientist of the Year in 2007 for his work on conus peptide. A professor of Biology at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, he developed a drug from the snail for relieving severe chronic pain as an alternative to morphine that is non-addictive.

It is sold with the brand name PRIALT with ziconotide, the synthetic form of the conopeptide or conotoxin from fish-eating marine snail, as active compound. (The snail’s toxin, when spewed upon a clownfish, leaves the fish motionless). Injected into the spinal cord, the drug, commercialized by Neurex at Menlo Park in California, is being developed into a pill for more convenient oral intake in order to benefit more patients.

More clinical trials in various stages are being conducted on conopeptides since Olivera published the structure of these compounds in the 1980s.

The science community lament that the Philippine government during these times never had the chance to conduct research and development onto commercialization phase of these important conopeptides.

“Since this happened, the University of Utah has been patenting most of the peptides that Dr. Olivera isolated,” said one scientist. With Olivera’s pioneering works, the Marine Science Institute (MSI) has partnered with the University of Utah for the development of more venous snails into drugs.

New compounds are expected to be discovered from another group of venomous snails, turrids. Turrids, the largest family of marine gastropods (snails and slugs belonging to the marine phylum mollusks), are an even richer marine resource with more than 4,000 identified species, according to the seashells of NSW website.

Turrids are much smaller than the cone and are found in the deep seas. Isolating peptides from it requires more of the snails, in the hundreds. The research on these marine compounds, now a major government program, is receiving a P129 million fund from the Department of Science and Technology (DOST).

The fund enables researchers to acquire equipment such as an NMR (nuclear magnetic resource) spectroscopy. An NMR gives information on the number and type of chemical properties of a molecule and is a tool in analyzing protein and nucleic acid structure and function.

The peptides can be a very rich pharmacological resources as Olivera estimates there are 50 to 100 bioactive peptides in one venom or one specie.

This may be the reason why MSI researchers devote so much time working on their equipment, such as on the HPLC (high-performance liquid chromatography), taking their shift 24 hours daily over six days in a week.

Bureau of Agricultural Research R&D

Bureau of Agricultural Research R&D

 

Wild Raspberry

A wild raspberry, sapinit, is eyed to be put in the market by the Bureau of Agricultural Research BAR).

Similar to strawberry and bignay, sapinit can be processed into jam, wine, vinegar and other food products.

BAR is developing technologies to enhance sapinit’s production and processing.

Conservation and development of sapinit, found in Mt. Banahaw, Quezon Province, are also of primary concern.

Sapinit is a spiny, branchy shrub that grows up to a height of 1.3 meters. Its leaves are pinnate or feather-like. It has white-colored flowers. The fruit only measures up to three centimeters in length and 1.8 centimeters in diameter at the fruit base. When ripe, it is orange-red and has a sweet-sour taste. This kind of wild raspberry is widely distributed in open secondary forests from Luzon to Mindanao at low to medium altitude specially where there is abundant soil moisture.

The Quezon Agricultural Experiment Station, DA-Region IV is already processing sapinit into jam and wine at the Research Outreach Station.

DA has identified a potential demonstration farm in Sitio Bangkong Kahoy, Kinabuhayan in Dolores, Quezon where farmers are raising sapinit and are processing this into vinaigrette for salad dressing.

Members of the Rural Improvement Club of Kabuhayan are being trained on sapinit production and processing.

Sapinit’s commercialization is one of BAR’s 13 high-potential projects under the 2KR-Grant Assistance for Underprivileged Farmers co-funded by the Japanese government. Christmas B. de Guzman

Biofertilizer

Who would have thought that farmers can still extract profit from residues?

An innovative, environment-friendly technology to convert sweet sorghum bagasse into bio-organic fertilizer has been developed by researchers from the Bicol Integrated Agricultural Research (BIARC), according to Romulo C. Cambaya, BIARC assistant manager.

Bagasse from sweet sorghum is derived from the waste from the extraction of juice. This can be converted into more valuable by-products like biofertilizer.

BIARC’s Soil and Water Research is commercializating this jointly with the Bureau of Agricultural Research (BAR) and the Mariano Marcos State University (MMSU). This resulted in the successful testing of sweet sorghum varieties suitable in Bicol.

One hectare of sweet sorghum plantation yields 50-75 tons of stalks and produces 22,000 to 35,000 tons of bagasse.

Bagasse can be converted into 88-151 bags of organic fertilizer valued at P22,000 to P37,750.

There are six basic steps in biofertilizer production– collecting of sweet sorghum leaves after stalk stripping; gathering of bagasse; shredding of the bagasse using a machine; composting the shredded bagasse (combining the inoculant called compost fungus activator or CFA with bagasse, chicken dung, kakawate); turning over of the compost after two weeks; and harvesting of the bagasse.

This technology uses the Rapid Composting Technology (RCT) which inoculates the substrate along with small amounts of animal manure with trichoderma, a cellulose decomposer fungus. The use of CFA reduces composting time. RCT uses sweet sorghum bagasse, 80%; chicken dung, 15%; kakawate leaves, 5%; and eight packets of CFA (per one ton mixture). A 25,000-kilo sweet sorghum bagasse produces 125 bags of fertilizer which can be sold at P230 per bag, grossing P28,750. Rita T. dela Cruz

Oregano Tea

The Philippines is not a traditional tea-drinking country, but its tea consumption has been increasing as health-conscious consumers choose it for its medicinal benefits.

The Euromonitor International attributed this growth to urban people’s now busier lifestyle and the emerging health and wellness trend.

The Philippines has been importing tea from China, India, Kenya, Sri Lanka, and Indonesia. With this, government has been looking for local raw materials which may substitute imported tea. One of these is the Philippine oregano, a popular cough cure.

The Southern Tagalog Integrated Agricultural Research Center (STIARC) is commercializing oregano tea under the Bureau of Agricultural Research (BAR)-funded “Wine, Fermented Juice, and Tea Product Development from Philippine Oregano.”

The high marketability of oregano tea has been apparent in a few agri-trade fairs. Tea enthusiasts who had sampled the product are spreading the news its medicinal powers along with its nice taste.

Sales records show that the product has been gaining local acceptance. There has also been an increasing interest to plant oregano among farmers and investors.

Dr. Estela C. Taño, Quezon Agricultural Experimental Station head, has established the Green Rescue Organic Products Enterprise (GROPE) which now employes women of Tiaong, Quezon in producing oregano tea. Its products have gone through physical, chemical, microbiological, and nutritional tests that ensure their quality. Improved packaging also improved product quality.

GROPE’s raw materials are supplied by the Magsasakang Tagapangalaga ng Kalikasan ng Munting Paraiso and the Southern Luzon State University. It buys the oregano leaves at P10 per kilo. Dealers are also benefiting from the enterprise. GROPE has grossed P500,000 since June 2008. The enterprise has also started producing oregano wine, oregano juices, and oregano vinegar. The newest product, oregano soap, will be introduced in the market as OREG soap which comes from organically-grown oregano plant. product.

Edmon B. Agron

Fighting onion anthracnose

The Central Luzon State University (CLSU) and the University of the Philippines-National Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (UP-NIMBB) have been developing techniques to combat newly-discovered onion pests associated with the highly-destructive anthracnose in aim to help restore farmers’ higher yield.

Losses from anthracnose can range from 10-100% in different crops.

Colletotrichum gloeosporioides, a plant pathogenic fungus that causes the highly-destructive, largely seed-borne, anthracnose disease, has been detected in a Bureau of Agricultural Research (BAR)-funded study by CLSU’s Ronaldo T. Alberto and NIMBB’s Vermando Aquino. The UP- Natural Science Research Institute is a co-funder of the study which characterized the pathogen, enabling formulation of management strategies against the disease.

Researchers earlier thought Colletotrichum gloeosporioides is only a causal organism but found out later that it causes a serious onion disease. The Bureau of Plant Industry has recommended crop rotation and sanitation to fight anthracnose. Alberto and Aquino are recommending the safe and judicious use of fungicides like phenylthalimides, benzimidazole which proved efficient in fighting colletotrichum gloeosporioides.

“The use of Triazole fungicides together with a gibberellin inhibitor could be one of the best approaches in managing the disease because of the high probability of gibberellins produced by G. moniliformis playing an important role in disease development,” reported Alberto and Aquino.

BAR is also running the Onion Production Resource Management System (OPREMS) which involves a custom-built software application system developed specifically for use by the onion sector through a community-based resource management system. This database provides a unified information system applicable for multi-stakeholder development projects in a cross-functional environment.

Edmon B. Agron and Rita T. dela Cruz

Rubber Markers

The Bureau of Agricultural Research has funded the molecular characterization of rubber varieties in an aim to accelerate production of superior planting materials.

The “Development of Molecular Markers for Identification and Authentication of Rubber Clones,” being implemented by the University of Southern Mindanao (USM), is a three-year project in Kabacan, South Cotabato which aims to develop procedures for the reliable and rapid detection and sorting of planting materials.

It is establishing molecular markers for identifying rubber genotypes and is developing a package of technologies for dissemination to rubber stakeholders.

Rubber is an important latex-producingtree crop that has wide range of industrial uses.

A perennial crop, rubber has long breeding and selection cycles. Molecular marker techniques make identification of good rubber breeds easier.

The methodology of this project has been divided into two parts. Study 1 covers the survey, collection, and evaluation of different rubber clones based on the leaf blade, leaf storey, stem, crown, branching and trunk. Study 2 covers the development and screening of molecular marker (SSR and AFLP) protocol for rubber.

The USM reported that 99 out 109 targeted clones have already been characterized. The project which is part of government’s National Rubber Development Program (NRDP) will be completed this year.

Don P. Lejano

25 Sweet Sorghum goods

A total of 25 products have been developed by the Pampanga Agricultural College (PAC) as processed products out of sweet sorghum which could be a good source of revenue for many farmers and entrepreneurs.

These are soups and porridge (mushroom in sorghum soup, sorghum soup, veggie-sorghum soup, sorghum porridge with chicken, sorghum porridge, sorghum-choco porridge, pepper leaves in sorghum, and sorghum con moringa); native delicacies (pastillas de sorghum, sorghum native cake, native cake sorghum with langka, sorghum sapin-sapin, sorghum suman, sorghum-yam native cake, sorghum-squash native cake, sweet sorghum tupig, and sweet sorghum espasol; and meals (burger sorghum, sorghum in salty taste, sorghum in sweet taste, sorghum-veggie in oyster sauce, fresh spring rolls with sorghum, and shanghai sorghum). PAC has also developed a vinegar from the sweet sorghum stalks.

PAC’s initiative is in line with the 4Fs (Food, Fuel, Feed, Fertilizer) program which the International Crop Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) introduced here.

Dr. Estrella C. Zabala, PAC food technologist, developed the food products with Drs. Fortunato M. Battad and Norman G. de Jesus.
For the flour, sorghum grains are used. Dr. Honorio M. Soriano, Jr., PAC president, said sweet sorghum can be of huge economic value. Even its grains can be processed and used as alternative to rice.

Sweet sorghum can be grown throughout the year or at least twice a year.

“It is the only crop that provides grain and stem which can be used to produce ethanol, sugar syrup, jaggery, flour and other food items,” Soriano said.

With Bureau of Agricultural Research (BAR) funding, PAC has been conducting R&D on sweet sorghum since 2004 including varietal testings, fertilizer trials, development of sweet sorghum-based food products and animal feed, and ethanol production.

Sweet sorghum grain is higher in protein and lower in fat than corn. Its vitamin content is similar to that of white corn. A 200-gram cooked sorghum grain is a rich source of protein, vitamin B1, B2 niacin. iron, zinc, and provides 14 grams of dietary fiber.

Rita T. dela Cruz

Three Screens

Three Screens

 

TV, and now internet. addicts too.
Have you ever hoped you can watch TV or access the internet all the time?
This is precisely how technology forecasters see it. That up to the next two-three decades, every person will have “three screens” near him.
Nielsen’s Three Screen Report in the first quarter indicated that the average person (survey done in America) spends 153 hours monthly on TV at home.

That is on top of three hours of online video at work or at home for 131 million viewers, while 13.4 million viewers watch video at 3.5 hours monthly through their mobile phone, a leap of 52% from the previous year.
AT&T’s Three Screen Digital Lifestyle is integrating communication and entertainment so that they become available just anywhere– on TV, the PC, and the wireless phone. The three mediums may be using three separate and distinct networks at present.

“But in the near future, the lines between networks and access technologies will be blurred. And communications and entertainment services will be delivered to the ‘three screens’ in an integrated and familiar way,” according to AT&T.
With internet’s even increasing ubiquity, more companies are tapping Filipino programmers to work on software specifically for mobile internet applications that can work side by side with the PC. Google, Globe Telecom, and Morph Labs have been holding workshops in an aim to employ people skilled in it.
One Filipino-American, Arnel Guiang of Guiang Corp., is establishing a presence here to support his California-based operations. A big part in Guiang’s incubation work with Microsoft’s mesh.com involves synchronization of files in a person’s desktop and his mobile phone. Mesh is already doing synchronization, file sharing, and common access between one computer and other computers connected to the internet.
But Guiang is working on automatic updating of files between the desktop and the mobile phone.
The company has developed mTools which includes Mobile Home (mHome) which edits and upload files, contacts, settings, appointments and tasks online; mShare, transfering files from mobile phone to another mobile phone, mobile phone to computer, or computer to mobile phone; mSync, to back up files online through Guiang’s web interface on the mobile or on the computer; and VingTalk, a communications platform converging messages for voice and text.
It appears that the problem with developing software for mobile internet is that there are 15 operating systems, unlike the only three operating systems (Windows, Mac, and Linux) in PC, said Guiang. But this is also turning out to be a challenge.
“There are so many technology to build for all the operating systems. There is no one way to do it. The best thing to do is to cover a big share of it, so you can claim 60-70% of the market. It’ s hard to cover 100%. In the US, 15-20% are on iPod, another 20-30% on Blackberry. All the rest is divided evenly. If you cover the two (iPod and Blackberry) alone, you cover a big percentage of the market base. That’s a great challenge,” said Guiang.
He hopes Filipino programmers will get into the mobile software applications, knowing that by 2015, all mobile phones will be internet-capable. Guiang’s market will be enterprise-based mobile phone makers like Nokia, carriers, internet giants, OEMs (original electronics manufacturers), and TIOs (Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman). And the Three Screens? That Guiang said will be a real thing for the next 25 years.