Guardians of Destiny. The PhilRice (Insight) Story, 107

MANILA - Where were we? Ah, we were talking about Santiago Rigonan Obien (SRO), Director of the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) as a Vanguard Technology Diffuser, a different kind of science manager. You'll understand that more as we go along with our continuing story. Come along for the ride!

As you read, you would think we have been stuck on page 4 since Story #5, since last week. It's okay; slow to ponder, quick to praise.

I think the guardians of destiny conspired such that the job I did not dream to do was thrown to me in a manner that I could not refuse but catch it. Page 4

(Metaphor. Metaphors are useful not only in writing but also in managing. Guardians of Destiny - if you think of a Triune God, Plural and yet Singular, it's okay, so we will follow the logic; so what about the Guardians of Free Will? A freely thrown ball is a gift from man; free will is a gift from God. Like a ball in a basketball game, you could catch it, but you could also pass it on to somebody else, or fumble with it. The ball is in your hands, but you'll have to throw it. That's Destiny. With Destiny, you have to catch your ball; you have to throw your ball and play the Team.

(Destiny goes like this, as the famous quote from ANN (author not named) says:

Watch your thoughts, for they become words.
Watch your words, for they become actions.
Watch your actions, for they become habits.
Watch your habits, for they become character.
Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.

(SRO as manager reached his destiny because he mostly watched his thoughts as they became his words, as they became his actions, as they became his habits, as they became his character. Destiny takes a long time coming; meanwhile, while you keep time, you have to cultivate yourself.)

Managing one research institution would have been enough for me, but I went on to work for three more and one State University.

(Sir, let's just say you were being prepared for the job ahead without you knowing it. Or, which is more correct, you were beginning to like being a manager and were preparing yourself to become the best you could imagine yourself to be. You were hesitant at first, and then you found it wasn't a bad idea after all.)

My science background served me well in understanding the operations and activities and in administering these five institutions. Page 4

(I don't think so, no Sir. Education in agriculture, entomology, soil science, weed science, herbicide degradation, military science & tactics - those sciences would never have made you the successful manager that you became. Too much logic. I would say it was your non-logical intuition that served you well, that pushed you much as manager. Also because you knew what you were talking about, being the son of a farmer, being a farmer yourself.

(The 5 institutions were, to refresh my memory: Philippine Tobacco Research & Training Center as Director, 1977; Mariano Marcos State University as President, 1985; Bureau of Postharvest Research & Extension as OIC, 1988; Bureau of Plant Industry as OIC, 1999; and Philippine Rice Research Institute as Executive Director, 1987, up to retirement in 2000 (I got all that from my book for you, Celebrating 50 Years of UPLB Vanguards Class 58, 2009, pages 71-75). Leading the PTRTC, for instance, joining his extension team in the field going from Batac, Ilocos Norte to as far as the towns of Santa Maria and Villasis in Pangasinan, SRO was learning his own lessons in technology diffusion (perhaps he knew the term, perhaps not, but it didn't matter), with the tobacco farmers, such as in cajoling some outstanding farmers into becoming speakers for the group, who eventually became smart officers and spokesmen. Some heads of offices know all the answers, even if they can't anticipate all the questions. Not SRO. Nobody taught him; he taught himself. And he taught the farmers to teach themselves - and he learned from them.)

Elsewhere, my love for poetry and literature must have given me the appropriate attitude to deal with ideas and people. Page 4

(Finally, you hit the nail right on the head, Hammer Sir! Not science but literature is the liberating world for the mind, which must have been opened in the first place. Manager or not, you cannot go wrong with literature; you can only go places and sometimes reach the stratosphere. That's where you enjoy the views. I should know - literature has been my bread & butter since high school more than 50 years ago.

("Literature adds to reality;" Roman Catholic-sympathetic British writer & Chronicles of Narnia author CS Lewis says, "it does not simply describe it. It enriches the necessary competencies that daily life requires and provides; and in this respect, it irrigates the deserts that our lives have already become.")

I learned the hard way, to give due respect to people and earn their respect in return. Page 4

(Don't we always learn the hard way! If you weren't learning the hard way, you would call it simply observing people. Or reading a book.)

My stay at the East-West Center at the University of Hawaii exposed me to all kinds of people, allowing me to observe and digest their idiosyncrasies and peculiarities, and in the end could understand them better. Page 4

(Thank God for your exposure at East-West; thank your lucky stars for your humanity, if not humility. You have it, or you don't have it; you cultivate it, or you don't. But remember Sir, on one hand, exposure only guarantees experience; on the other hand, education and empathy, in essence you have to do it yourself.)

My work at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) brought me to Rome, Athens, India, Japan, Asean countries, virtually across the world. All those travels and experience somehow made me an extrovert, an advantage that benefited me to the hilt when I became an administrator. Administration, after all, is dealing with people and ideas. Pages 4-5

(FAO travel is educational to those you visit. SRO travel is educational to you - I say, only if you have an open mind. There are many tourists who bring along traditional big, heavy cameras or modern, handy, beautiful digitals, and they rush from place to place abroad, following strict itineraries, shooting themselves smiling with the scenes in the background, and doing it all over again. Did they observe and savor the landscape? No. Did they research before going there and see what they were promised to see by the tourist brochure? No. Did they stay anyway and enjoy the view? No. Such a pity!

(I remember Pat Laforteza, from Los Baños, Laguna who trained in Germany and became an excellent photographer (still photography), a son of a famous photographer in Los Baños, who called himself Olive. Pat was telling me how he started to become a good photographer in school yet. One time, his grade school class went on a field trip in Manila, and of course Pat brought along a camera. When he came back and Pat showed his shots, his father Olive looked at the photographs and knew immediately what was wrong with them: All the shots included the boys posing beside the bus and almost nothing was seen of where they were or where they had been! The boys were paying attention only to themselves, not to the world around them.

(If we want to learn more, we must always pay attention to the who, what, where, when, why and how around us, as much as we can, as much as that is possible. As a manager, then we might learn to deal with people and ideas. As a writer, I guess I´m lucky: I only have to deal with ideas!)