Frank A. Hilario
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Articles by Frank A. Hilario
February 01, 2012
MANILA - Tell me who your parents are and I'll tell you who you are. Same with your friends. Here is Santiago Rigonan Obien (SRO) recalling parts of his childhood in Ilocos Norte in trying to explain what he brought to the role of being the Founding Director of the Philippine Rice Research Institute...
January 30, 2012
Updated 31 January 2012
MANILA - Silence is a crime. I want to scream. What some people have been doing and what others have been encouraging them to do to democracy in the Philippines in the last few months reminds me of The Story Of The Stoning Of Stephen. It also reminds me by their silence that...
January 29, 2012
MANILA - When I write, I think of a word that stands for a world, and when it comes out, I know the concept is always greater than when I began. Today, I found in my memory a poem that was published 148 years ago, in 1863 (Wikipedia) when the National Hero of the Philippines Jose Rizal was only 2 ye...
January 19, 2012
MANILA - I believe. "Butterflies are the most beautiful and enchanting insects in the world!" (lifeofabutterfly.com) I have no doubt at all.
What I didn't know was to what tremendous trouble each butterfly has to go through to survive as an egg, then hatch in the middle of nowhere, grow bigger, ...
January 19, 2012
MANILA - Let me continue reading Santiago Rigonan Obien's autobiography SRO: Dare To Build (Santiago R Obien PhD, with Virginia A Duldulao PhD, 2004, PhilRice, 342 pages). Since SRO believes that it was his science that helped him tremendously in managing PTRTC to national success and PhilRice to in...
January 13, 2012
MANILA - I understand you people - rich, poor, doctor, farmer - want Renato Corona to resign as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Philippines. Easy for you to say!
When Jesus was arrested and brought before Pontius Pilate, the people shouted, "Crucify him! Crucify him!"
Now people are ...
January 09, 2012
MANILA - 20 pages into his autobiography, SRO is still going back and forth about his shift from being a scientist to being a manager of a research center in rice agriculture. Unbelievable.
Did I have difficulty in the shift from a scientist's role to an administrator? Well, yes and no. But now,...
January 08, 2012
PATANCHERU - It's a David picking up on another David to fight a Goliath. It's Team ICRISAT promoting the poor to grow the food for the many and grow rich at the same time. These are what dreamers dream of - the impossible.
Based in India and led by Director General William Dar, the members of Te...
December 31, 2011
MANILA - He knew he was not a born leader. Santiago Rigonan Obien, SRO, became the founding Director of the Philippine Tobacco Research & Training Center (PTRTC) in 1977 and of the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) in 1987. With those 2 institutions, he made history at least twice. O...
December 30, 2011
MANILA - Nigeria has intrigued me, as I have known of Nigerian pastor Dee Eluwa whose wife Arlene Escalante is a Filipina; Dee is a fiery campaigner for Christian champions - he has the rich experience and the rich language for it, with a sharp mind and sharp English. Indeed he can add value to any ...
December 29, 2011
MANILA - 30 December 2011. Let me cut down to size Jose Rizal - and Ambeth Ocampo. Funny, I will identify who is the real filibuster of the two.
Some people question Rizal as The National Hero, arguing that Andres Bonifacio should be - today, I question not only their motives but also their defi...
December 24, 2011
MANILA - Early this morning, 24 December 2011, I was buying my usual 6-pack Nescafé Brown 'n Creamy (Coffee Mix with Brown Sugar), and the store lady said, "Parang hindi Krismas." It isn't like Christmas. It was a statement of fact, not a tentative opinion. She was not complaining either; hers was o...
December 24, 2011
MANILA - Yesterday we were in Valenzuela City, which now I must call The Romantic City, first of all because of the shock and solace of the story of City Councilor Shalani Soledad, whom boyfriend and Senator Noynoy Aquino broke up with once he became President of his country, and who is now betrothe...
December 20, 2011
MANILA - I'm all WET - Writer, Editor, Teacher. Filipino. So, boys and girls, let me write about the intelligence of physicians; let me edit the article on "surgical wisdom" by Australian doctors; and let me teach you what I know of surgeons in general.
On 16 September 2011, Wiley Online publish...
December 17, 2011
Will she heal, or will she not? Not yet.
Charm Dogma has a new essay, "Healing a Broken Heart" (17 December 2011, Charm Dogma, blogspot.com). It's her story. As usual, it's short but, as usual, it's a long story. How long ago is a broken heart?
You're not alone, Charm. It happens all the tim...
December 11, 2011
MANILA - Awareness + interest heightened must have been what led me to desire action beyond approbation of events involving the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) in Africa and Asia, when I read the 15 November 2011 issue of ICRISAT Happenings (downloadable as...
December 09, 2011
MANILA - Today, 08 December 2011, is Immaculate Conception Day; this is the day we Roman Catholics celebrate what we believe to be the day Mary the mother of Jesus was conceived without sin. Doesn´t that explain why Jesus was born without sin?
Why do Catholics adore Mary so much you could ...
December 05, 2011
MANILA - The future is now, if we can imagine it, as we imagine it, as long as we imagine it - then do something about it!
Filipino Right Livelihood Award winner Nicanor "Nicky" Perlas has a new book, MISSION Possible! subtitled Sow Courage; Harvest a New World, out just this October 2011, publi...
December 03, 2011
MANILA - I continue my reading of the book SRO: Dare To Build (November 2004, 324 pages), which is Santiago Rigonan Obien's autobiography as the builder from scratch of the world-class Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice). So, is the book good? Well, it makes good reading to me - I'm mining...
December 03, 2011
MANILA - 5 years ago, former President & movie star Joseph "Erap" Estrada could thank his lucky stars the law was good to him. "Anything for his state of mind we will not object to," Special Prosecutor Dennis Villa-Ignacio said (Mike Frialde, 17 November 2005, philstar.com). "I will not object i...
November 30, 2011
BRUSSELS - Sprouts are expected from 28 November to 01 December 2011 in the World Agricultural Forum-sponsored World Congress 2011 as scientists & partners sow new seeds of technology for the farmers of the world, as investors tend to their new gardens of responsible resource use, as everyone tr...
November 30, 2011
MANILA - Just how much are we Filipinos celebrating today, 30 November 2011, "Bonifacio Day?" At 0750 hours today, I googled for "bonifacio day" (pages from the Philippines, with safe and strict filtering), and I got, surprise! 19 results. 19. I got more Google from blogs, 13,000 results. Another su...
November 28, 2011
MANILA - Can you believe it?! I'm 70 plus; I have never attended a management class that challenged you to think your way out of reality-based situations again and again, but I discovered for myself the creative aspect of the Harvard / AIM Case Method, and I would like you to experience your own Eur...
November 27, 2011
CALAMBA CITY - Today, 27 November 2011, is the 5th Southern Luzon Regional Assembly of the Order of the Knights of Rizal and we are being inducted as Knights at the new Calamba City Hall. As I kneel on my left knee and puts right over left palm on my right knee and look up at him, Supreme Commander ...
November 27, 2011
MANILA - My personal mission was to attend the book launching of Nicanor "Nick" Perlas at 1730 hours 25 November 2011 at the Araneta Center in Quezon City at the mall called Gateway and I got lost. The book? MISSION Possible!
I was already at Gateway and I got lost? Yes. When it comes to directi...
November 26, 2011
MANILA - Did you know that the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) is a very creative school but it's clueless? I mean, it doesn't have the theory, but it has the practice of Creative Thinking. And since AIM copied its teaching method from Harvard Business School, HBS is equally clueless!
It is ...
November 24, 2011
LOS BAÑOS, LAGUNA - The myth was that we were going to witness a battle of wits in discussing the role of forests in preventing or not preventing floods. The reality was that for 3.5 hours, we were witness to the gusts of winds about disaster risk reduction and management, the tectonic shifts of vol...
November 24, 2011
MANILA - It's a new world. Charice finally won the honor of being Aliw Awards' "Entertainer of the Year" 08 November 2011, and that was after finally losing the love of her father who was murdered in the evening of 31 October 2011. Earlier, she begged her Daddy Ricky Pempengco in her eulogy 05 Novem...
November 21, 2011
MANILA - In studying Robert F Chandler (image), was he learning the applicable moves of management at IRRI while he was learning the academic names of plants at UPCA? Yes. Santiago Rigonan Obien was, who would be Executive Director of PhilRice 25 years later. If you believe the split-brainers, SRO w...
November 20, 2011
MANILA - Let Carlos Bulosan go, friend. Talk to my people, go! Let his ideas roam among his people in the Internet and let it be known, as he would have written, "The Philippines is in the heart."
Do not imprison Carlos Bulosan as in E San Juan Jr's books and articles from A to Z and, to coin a t...
November 15, 2011
MANILA - Are they trying to multiply intelligence? Oh, okay. Howard Gardner has Multiple Intelligences, a total of 9. Robert J Sternberg has Triarchic Intelligence, a total of 3. And 1 million cognitive psychologists and consenting adults have 1 billion literate people believing that they have a lef...
November 15, 2011
MANILA - Do you fidget with your budget? Why? Or, why not?
SRO learned his budgeting at the Cynamid Agricultural Research Foundation Inc (CARFI) experimental farm in Los Baños, Laguna a few kilometers away from the campus of the University of the Philippines College of Agriculture (UPCA), his al...
November 14, 2011
NEW DELHI - We are in the Rich Knowledge Millennium, but the poor have poor knowledge of it. And there are about 1 billion of them.
"While new innovations and technologies are redefining agriculture development," the 9th Global Knowledge Millennium Summit says, "there is need [for] linking and l...
November 14, 2011
CALAMBA CITY - Frank H says IRRI has just reinvented the science exhibit by intersecting it with art, not unlike Steve Jobs reinventing marketing by intersecting technology with art. The art of Steve Jobs such as first noticed in 2001 in the iPod is industrial design; the art of IRRI such as first s...
November 13, 2011
SCIENCE CITY OF MUÑOZ - Seeds for your thoughts? In November-December 2003, Frank H planted some historical tiny seeds but they didn't grow in the intellectual dryland soils of this city at the village called Maligaya (Happy) where the world-class headquarters of the Philippine Rice Research Institu...
November 13, 2011
MANILA - It was the best fight of Manny Pacquiao ever - read on and fight out why I say that.
No, I didn't watch the 3rd Manny Pacquiao-Juan Manuel Marquez boxing match, first because I thought it was a mis-match, that Marquez was going to be knocked out, and second because I had something more ...
November 12, 2011
MANILA - Where does hope lie? "The handsome hope of the motherland, the Philippines, lies in the youth," Filipino National Hero Dr Jose Rizal did say, if not in those exact words. Late 19th century. We Pinoys were not listening. "The future of this country, the US of A, lies in the creative young on...
November 12, 2011
MANILA - Be careful with myths, you might grasp thin air with them. Be careful with realities, you might knock your head on them and get a splitting headache.
On 24 November 2011 at the Elvira Tan Hall of the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Aquatic and Natural Resources Research and Developm...
November 11, 2011
MANILA - Performers entertain their audience; murderers entertain their evil thoughts. Obscure father Ricky Pempengco bowed and cried when a friend told him he had watched her famous daughter Charice in wonderful action, in a performance. That was his best of times. Charice bawled and cried when peo...
November 11, 2011
MANILA - Free tips for free-flow writing. Today, 11.11.11, I wrote the list below on the ride to and from the bank, a trip of about 90 minutes. The idea just occurred to me on the jeep. Of course I had my scratch notebook ready, with my Parker Rolling Ball pen, the better to write smoothly without p...
November 10, 2011
MANILA - Millions for research, Sir, and not one cent for results?!
Like, Secretary of Energy René Almendras says "the past administration wasted money and resources in planting thousands of hectares of land with Jatropha to produce materials for bio-fuels" (Framelia Anonas, 06 November 2011, do...
November 10, 2011
MANILA - Genius or Creativity, whichever comes first, should be easy to call. However, American genius Thomas Alva Edison made it too difficult for geniuses other than himself to emerge, as he defined genius as 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. That's much too heavy on work and too light on play....
November 09, 2011
MANILA - Steve Jobs was a great manager – if you understood him. Professor of Management and Innovation Roberto Verganti of the Politecnico di Milano calls Steve Jobs' style "Management by Meaning" (07 October 2011, hbr.org). He says:
"Managing by meaning" is recognizing that people are human: t...
November 09, 2011
MANILA - Northern Bangkok now has the so-called "Big Bag" Barrier, sandbags piled on top of the other, each weighing from 1 to 2 tons; these have been piled 2 meters high and wide along strategic roads in northern Bangkok, as reported by Bangkok Governor Sukhumbhand Paribatra (Wanwisa Ngamsangchaiki...
November 08, 2011
MANILA - Science managed by science? Santiago Rigonan Obien had almost single-handedly elevated a fledgling research center outside of the Los Baños Science Community into a world-class institution and here he is reminiscing after retiring - about the methods of science, not the methods of managemen...
November 08, 2011
MANILA - What in the world does "genome sequencing" mean, and why should a poor farmer of pigeon pea in the drylands of Africa or Asia care?
It's a saving crop. First of all, those who depend on pigeon pea for protein total more than 1 billion people. Pigeon pea is planted by poor farmers in 5 m...
November 07, 2011
MANILA - Want a memorable annual report? The proof of the writing is in the putting. The proof of the shooting is in the shot. Frank H just received The Outstanding UPLB Alumnus Award 2011 for Creative Writing, right? Almost exactly 1 month ago today. The should next come up with The Outstanding UPL...
November 07, 2011
Dear Jenny,
When you attended my Creattitudes Workshop Version 2.0 for Creative Writing on 29 October 2011 at Rosewood Pointé in Taguig City, you were one of the first to submit your work. The very first one you turned in was written without much enthusiasm, but the second one was excellent. You...
November 07, 2011
MANILA - Filipino American poet Barbara Jane Reyes quotes Carlos Bulosan as saying ("Reading Carlos Bulosan: For Whom and About What Do We Write," 27 January 2011, barbarajanereyes.com):
Why should I write about labor unions and their struggle? Because a writer is also a worker. He writes storie...
November 07, 2011
By Charm Dogma
"Who thought of this?" My friend[1] angrily screamed at her monitor (message for her below).
An announcement was sent to all the associates of our company via e-mail. An idea had been sent, and heard. Because of it, we could no longer use Styrofoam[2] upon purchasing our "meal to...
November 06, 2011
MANILA - Anniversaries are important, especially if historical. E San Juan Jr is credited with "the re-discovery of Carlos Bulosan's writings as evidenced in his numerous anthologies of Bulosan's works" (wikipilipinas.org); then he forgot about him, as evidenced in his utter lack of commemorative wo...
November 04, 2011
MANILA - How do you translate love of life? How do you translate love in life? However you do it, do it with the illumination of understanding, not the illusion brought about by drunkenness, nor the delusion by drugs. When you're hurt, do love with forgiveness, not unforgiveness. Been there, done th...
November 04, 2011
MANILA - Charice lost her father Ricky Pempengco to a stranger who stabbed him to death on 31 October 2011, Monday. Charice and her father had become strangers to each other when she was yet 3, and she had hated him for threatening to kill her mother, but after that she loved him anyway, acknowledgi...
November 03, 2011
MANILA - Today, 04 November 2011, as I alone celebrate the centennial of the birth (02 November 1911) of the Ilocano Carlos Bulosan, the greatest Filipino writer in America bar none (see my "Celebrating Bulosan's Centennial. Misunderstanding his mind," Carlos Bulosan, blogspot.com), I think I have f...
November 03, 2011
MANILA - Charice's father is dead - it is very sad but it is very true. Actually, this is the 2nd time Charice lost her father; this is also the 2nd time her mother Raquel Relucio lost her husband. The 1st loss was temporary; the 2nd loss is permanent.
Ricky Pempengco was murdered at close to midn...
November 02, 2011
ASINGAN, PANGASINAN - 02 November 2011. The problem with Carlos Bulosan is US. We know only 50% of him and we celebrate that 50% on the wrong date yet!
I just came from visiting next-town Binalonan, the hometown of Carlos Bulosan, the greatest Filipino writer in America ever. I don't live in Asi...
October 31, 2011
MANILA - If you thought you can´t write, if you thought you are too stressed to write - this was for you. 29 October 2011, at the clubhouse of Rosewood Pointé The Twelve are attending my Creattitudes Workshop Version 2.0, my reinvention of my own Creative Writing workshop of 18 June 2011 held ...
October 31, 2011
MANILA - Being export-oriented, Thailand is being devastated by the "heaviest flooding in 50 years" and the Federation of Thai Industries estimates that the damage to industry will total US $6.2 Billion (Chayut Setboonsarng, 25 October 2011, cogitasia.com). How much money is that? If $6.2 Billion is...
October 30, 2011
MANILA – Marketing is management, like I said in a previous essay ("The 5th Element, The New Management Mix - Frank H," 26 October, The iManager, blogspot.com). Internet marketing doesn't excite me as much as online readability, and now I have just found the reason for combining the two and enjoy th...
October 30, 2011
MANILA - Reinventing American Thomas Alva Edison´s genius, Filipino guru Frank A Hilario says, "Genius is 1% perspiration and 99% inspiration." And so today, 29 October 2011, Saturday, at the clubhouse of Rosewood Pointé at the Acacia Estates in Taguig City in Metro Manila, Frank H makes histo...
October 27, 2011
MANILA - Tomorrow, Saturday, 29 October 2011, in Frank H's Creattitudes Workshop Version 2.0, a glass ceiling will be broken and a glass will yield its secrets of Creative Writing to any believer - the image you see here is a poor imitation of that glass. In Creative Writing, first you have to belie...
October 26, 2011
MANILA - How do you succeed as a manager when the wildly successful manager is no more? Use your head.
Al Gore is a long-time member of Apple's Board and he has been listening to Steve Jobs who sat at Disney's Board. Steve said people would always ask, "What would Walt do in this situation?" (No...
October 25, 2011
MANILA - If I may summarize what I said last time "When blogging pays high. US $5K for ghostwriting a book?!" 25 October 2011, Creattitudes, blogspot.com), there are 2 ways to use your blog to raise your income; I will now add a 3rd:
(1) Writing to sell to customers online - You use your blog to...
October 24, 2011
MANILA – Blogging is Writing is Heaven if you know how to connect the lines eventually.
I know of 2 high ways to earn good income from blogging. One is to blog and attract visitors to your site who will then click on and buy a product or service you are selling. My son Jomar is good at that. Two...
October 23, 2011
MANILA - Interested in learning easy Creative Writing? It should be as easy as opening the tap. But first, let us examine the many others who claim to have discovered the secrets of Creative Writing.
Amarasiri Ganewatta says the secrets of Creative Writing include paragraph coherence and paragra...
October 21, 2011
MANILA - We are at the crossroads - which road to take? We have just celebrated World Food Day on 16 October and International Day for the Eradication of Poverty on 17 October. Since 1993, we have been officially declaring the fight to erase poverty worldwide. 18 years later, we have no report of sa...
October 18, 2011
MANILA - In this story, did the Filipino Nobel Peace Prize awardee win the approval of the UP Board of Regents and become the new Chancellor of the University of the Philippines Los Baños?
On one hand, my candidate for Chancellor last September lost in the voting by the Board of Regents of the U...
October 17, 2011
MANILA - I have been prompted to write this one after Charm Dogma's baring her heart out (for details, see her "Letters to and from the Wounded," 17 October 2011, Charm Dogma, blogspot.com).
In the Christian sense, we are all wounded hearts, bleeding reds. Even if we don't know it, our hearts ar...
October 16, 2011
MANILA - Forget it. Roger Sperry won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1981 for his split-brain experiments (nobelprize.org). Instead, they should have had the brains of Roger Sperry and his research team examined.
Your left brain is supposed to be for Critical Thinking and your righ...
October 14, 2011
MANILA - Class '58. His college years at the University of the Philippines College of Agriculture were trainings in perseverance and research, and they were not necessarily independent of each other. Perseverance was actually "do-it-yourself" while research was "do what you are told to do."
What...
October 14, 2011
MANILA - When it comes to Steve Jobs, they have the best view of us all; Ned Potter, Colleen Curry & Michael S James call Steve Jobs "the mastermind behind Apple's iPhone, iPad, iPod, iMac and iTunes" (abcnews.go.com). The brilliant, blandishing, bullying mastermind.
Truth to tell, he was the...
October 13, 2011
MANILA - We have about 1 billion poor people in the farmlands of Africa and Asia, and the latest report on "The State Of Food Insecurity In The World" says the United Nations is worried about global "price volatility" - a euphemism for the prices of food items that soar while the incomes of the poor...
October 11, 2011
MANILA - Robert J Samuelson of Washington Post (washingtonpost.com) doesn't have an iPod, an iPhone, an iPad; neither do I. That makes two of us. RJ doesn't own a Mac; neither do I. Kindred spirits? RJ "abandoned (his) typewriter only recently" while I abandoned mine to a desktop PC 25 years ago, up...
October 10, 2011
MANILA - Today, 10 October 2011, some 65 km away from the heart of Manila, was celebrated the 93rd Loyalty Day and Alumni Homecoming of the University of the Philippines Los Baños. This is the most festive day at the UP Los Baños campus in the entire year. It is celebrated to honor all alumni.
It...
October 10, 2011
MANILA - On 12 June 2005, Steve Jobs was the guest speaker at the Stanford University commencement exercises. Commencement means 1, a beginning; a start. 2, a ceremony at which degrees or diplomas are conferred (American Heritage Dictionary). From "You've got to find what you love," (stanford.edu), ...
October 08, 2011
Note: The original text was from a sermon by James Allan Francis and found in his book The Real Jesus and Other Sermons published in 1926 by the Judson Press of Philadelphia (anointed links.com). 2 reasons I decided to come up with another version: (1) My wife noticed the original and revised versio...
October 08, 2011
MANILA - Dan Eran Dilger says, "Apple University revealed as plan to teach executives to think like Steve Jobs" (06 October 2011, appleinsider.com). They would like to clone Steve Jobs? Thinking Apples.
It started noticeably in 2008 yet, when Joel Podolny, Dean of the School of Management of Yal...
October 05, 2011
MANILA - Charicemania reports that Charice's sophomore album Infinity released in Japan 05 October is #1 in iTunes Japan, Pop category, and #2 in Amazon Japan RnB top seller chart (Sofia Carrera, 05 October 2011, charicemania.com). Yesterday, the album was officially launched in Japan and Charice he...
October 05, 2011
Knox pleads with Italian court to free her" (photo is an earlier image) is the headline of the news story by Alessandra Rizzo & Colleen Barry (03 October 2011, taiwannews.com):
Amanda Knox tearfully told an Italian appeals court Monday she did not kill her British roommate, pleading for the ...
October 04, 2011
MANILA - How do you explain the success of ICRISAT in becoming the #1 institute within the CGIAR universe of 15 international centers for agricultural research? From where I sit, it's the positive & productive interaction of partners, people, science and funds - none more important than the othe...
October 04, 2011
MANILA - Dreams Girls, listen! Those of you who have lots of dreams, pay attention to the lyrics as you watch this little girl perform in Charice - "One Day" Official Music Video (YouTube). One Day, this song is going to be your anthem. Anthem, which I define as a song to inspire the singer and live...
October 03, 2011
MANILA - Of the 18-day Silliman University National Writers Workshop, which is offered to 15 promising writers each year, Rowena Tiempo-Torrevillas, Director in Residence said it was "to hone their craft and refine their style" (Anna Valmero, 26 April 2011, loqal.ph). Let's see about that!
Membe...
October 03, 2011
MANILA - I'm re-reading the reprint of the whole Volume 1 of The Philippine Agriculturist and Forester that contains all the January 1911 to December 1911 issues, a total of 186 pages, and on page 7, I am shocked.
1911. It is 2 years after classes opened on 11 June 1909 for the University of the...
October 02, 2011
MANILA - Anne Curtis on the cover of the magazine Rogue holding a cigarette with nary a care about what happened to Nora Aunor on the cover of the magazine YES! holding a cigarette. Some people never learn.
The Philippine Medical Association (PMA) said in a public statement to Anne and Nora (Rowe...
October 02, 2011
MANILA - How was science managed in the Philippines starting when the Americans brought it to these islands in 1909? It was not!
That's what I have just found out reading again, for the 3rd time, from the Catalogue of the Cow College for 1909-1910, where you have these entries (I am looking at a ...
October 02, 2011
MANILA - We are talking here of studying at the University of the Philippines College of Agriculture (UPCA) more than 50 years ago. One of the students was going to be the Director of PhilRice more than 30 years later, but this particular student at this particular time is interested only in learnin...
October 01, 2011
MANILA - How in the world can I connect St Therese of the Little Flower, also known as St Therese of the Little Way, with Creative Writing? Just watch me!
Today, 01 October 2011, is her Feast Day; this is her day in the Roman Catholic Calendar of Saints. The reality is that there are a total of ...
September 30, 2011
ASINGAN, PANGASINAN - At the height of Typhoon Pedring, with intermittent power on-and-offs the whole day today, Tuesday, 27 September 2011, I'm writing this after I have been reading and rereading all of 26 full pages of the magazine YES! full-color issue of January 2011 the cover story by Jo-Ann M...
September 30, 2011
MANILA - ICRISAT is a modern science phenomenon and it's time someone wrote the whole story of how leadership by Director General William Dollente Dar and followership by Team ICRISAT and partners in the last decade had made possible the unprecedented institutional success of the International Crops...
September 29, 2011
ASINGAN, PANGASINAN - Sunday, 25 September 2011, at 1400 hours, I am with the 7 Vet Med students from the Don Mariano Marcos Memorial State University (DMMSU) in La Union Province who have just finished their practicum at the individual buffalo farms of members of the Bantog Coop led by Modesto "Mod...
September 23, 2011
MANILA - Today, Saturday, 24 September 2011, is my 3rd or 4th day in Google+ and I find that it is logic elevated to an art, A-OK - A for excellence, O for outreach, and K for knowledge. I haven't tried the Hangouts, but I love the Circles.
In Google+ I have met Richard Branson, the world's #1 en...
September 23, 2011
MANILA - Many Filipinos including some of my friends are awe-struck when it comes to Singapore and dumb-struck when it comes to our country the Philippines. Let me declare here that I never lost faith in my country, even if I have lost faith in some friends. Even if I am losing faith that my alma ma...
September 23, 2011
MANILA - Ian Paul says Yelp, Expedia, and Nextag are complaining - Frank H will call them The YEN Complainers - that "(Google is) burying competitors deep in Google's search engine rankings … in favor of the company's own products" (21 September 2011, pcworld.com). Of course Google favors its own pr...
September 22, 2011
MANILA - I like to paint, with words; I like to show my shots as paintings, with the details less important than the overall impact of the image. In other words, I love Impressionism. Reading, I learn from Arthur Kleinberg that it is Post-Impressionism that I admire, that shown in the paintings of P...
September 21, 2011
MANILA - Ryan Chua's report is titled "Lapid, gustong gawing Filipino ang debate sa RH," and the video that accompanies it is an exact English translation, "Lapid wants RH debates in Filipino" (abs-cbnnews.com). It only shows that the Filipino professional journalist and audience are bilingual, spea...
September 21, 2011
ANILA - "Reading maketh a full man," Francis Bacon says; I say it needs your consent. Reading to James Soriano is a school assignment (21 September 2011, mb.com.ph); that's as far as his consent is concerned.
Borrowing from Bacon, I say, "Reading makes a full writer, a fulfilled man." I gave my ...
September 20, 2011
MANILA - In January 2007, the Banana and Plantain Network issued an international warning in Cambodia that the Fusarium wilt (FW) disease of banana will strike again in the Asia-Pacific Region (Victoriano B Guiam, bar.gov.ph). In November 2008, Regional Coordinator for Asia-Pacific of Bioversity Int...
September 20, 2011
MANILA - Can you find family when you're hundreds of kilometers away from family? You can; if not, you have to adjust.
When one is transported from the confines of a close-knit and loving family and home to a strange place for the first time, he misses terribly the love and comfort he has been u...
September 19, 2011
MANILA - On 16 September 2011, unaccompanied I visited the accursed land - "lupang sinumpa" as it was called years ago - and this is what I saw where only weeds had grown before. This is the Garden of Eden, and you are looking, in a manner of speaking, at the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil Pract...
September 18, 2011
MANILA - I have just uploaded my essay "Challenge to Asian science media. How Mohamed can move mountains!" (19 September 2011, iCRiSAT Watch, blogspot.com), and it's all about creating an Internet-accessible database that translates the technical into the popular, scientific terms into plain English...
September 18, 2011
MANILA - This morning, 17 September 2011, looking at the collection of press releases of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) over the years to 2000, at its website (icrisat.org), I had a Eureka moment. An insight occurred to me in the field of science commu...
September 17, 2011
MANILA - It's 1850 hours Saturday, 17 September 2011; my wife told me a few minutes ago that the question Miss Universe 2011 judge Lea Salonga asked Leila Lopes (Miss Angola) was actually this: "If you could change one of your physical characteristics, which one would it be and why?" and not the one...
September 17, 2011
MANILA - Today, I found the explanation for the Miss Universe universal blunder in Manila. Miss Kara David interviews Miss Lea Salonga on News to Go who says, "I picked Shamcey to be 1st runner-up" (17 September 2011, gmanews.tv). Not on my birthday!
So now, my indictment of the whole board of j...
September 15, 2011
MANILA - The quote below is quite unlike we have encountered in the past 9 pages of SRO's book, as it jars the senses:
The environment shapes an individual into what he truly becomes, except in instances where the person takes the upper hand and resists all the influences. Page 10
"The person...
September 15, 2011
MANILA - I was laughing when the insight came to me while I was reading RG Cruz's report, "English vs Tagalog debate stalls RH Bill debate" (24 August 2011, abs-cbnnews.com). RG tells how old-time Representative Sergio F Apostol (Liberal Party) was interpellating neophyte Representative Arlene J Bag...
September 14, 2011
MANILA - I am a Filipino and I protest that Miss Angola Leila Lopes won the Miss Universe 2011 crown! She did not deserve it. Miss Philippines Shamcey Supsup should have been Miss Universe 2011. Miss Philippines stands taller than anyone. And I can prove it.
I am aware of course that Miss Philipp...
September 14, 2011
MANILA - On our leisurely walk through the path of an unlikely chapter in the history of successful management in the Philippines, let us remind ourselves that Santiago Rigonan Obien (SRO) hails from the Ilocos Region where tobacco is one of the main crops, aside from rice and onions. I remember SRO...
September 13, 2011
MANILA - And the official winners are: Miss Universe 2011 is Leila Lopes, Miss Angola1st Runner-Up is Olesia Stefanko, Miss Ukraine2nd Runner-Up is Priscila Machado, Miss Brazil3rd Runner-Up is Shamcey Supsup, Miss Philippines4th Runner-Up is Zi Lin Luo, Miss China.
I first learned that Miss Ang...
September 12, 2011
MANILA - And "Love on demand." That's 2 original ideas to celebrate my being 71, which happens to be on Constitution Day in the United States; look in Luzon for a University Town celebrating that day with a fiesta, and lo and behold, I will be there!
As I write, 12 September 2011, it will be 5 y...
September 10, 2011
MANILA - This morning I attended the 1st Anniversary Breakfast of the Brotherhood of Christian Businessmen & Professionals (BCBP) Capitol Hills at the Albergus Restaurant along Capitol Drive in Old Balara, Diliman, Quezon City. Before I left home, my wife was asking me why I should attend the br...
September 08, 2011
MANILA - I love coffee. I'm thinking PhP 8 Billion (US $190 Million), all for charity, courtesy of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO). It's called Charity Fund. If you used that charity money to buy a cup of brewed coffee for $1.9 each and distribute them all free, you could make 100 m...
September 07, 2011
MANILA - Now you see, even in the rankings of universities, globalization is here! Small world. And the universities in the Philippines are getting smaller still. Because they haven't learned their lessons yet.
And so, Tara Quismundo reports the world rankings of universities; look down, not up! ...
September 06, 2011
MANILA - "English is the language of learning," Manila Bulletin columnist James Soriano earnestly begins his celebration of the English language right in the month celebrated for the Tagalog language, and Tagalog nationalists immediately display their lack of learning!
Thank you, James, for a jo...
September 06, 2011
LOS BAÑOS, LAGUNA - I'm gaining insights out of thinking of poor farmers while reading a 100-year old book and I think the 7 candidates for Chancellor of UP Los Baños should be too: (1) Domingo E Angeles, (2) Eulogio T Castillo, (3) Rex Victor O Cruz, (4) Rene Rafael C Espino, (5) Vivian A Gonzales,...
September 05, 2011
LOS BAÑOS, LAGUNA - 100 years ago. I'm reeducating myself reading a copy of the whole Volume I of The Philippine Agriculturist and Forester covering the months of January to December of 1911, a total of 186 pages, including 4 full-page ads. And I'm flabbergasted at the insights I have gained so far,...
September 04, 2011
MANILA - When you retire, either it's the beginning of the rest of your life, or the beginning of the end. It's your choice. Unfortunately, nobody is ever trained not only to survive but excel upon retirement. They should teach that as a subject in Management. If you are retired, it's not too late t...
September 03, 2011
MANILA - In Copeland's failure, we failed all. The history of modern agriculture in the Philippines began with a long-lasting big blunder whose adverse effects up to now we have not recovered from. Not recognized until now, that big mistake was the appointment of Edwin Bingham Copeland, Instructor o...
September 02, 2011
MANILA - What price peace? Or, what prize peace? Because of the Nobel Prize for Peace 2007, there is no peace 2011 at the campus of the University of the Philippines Los Baños. Here we find 2 professors who are candidates for Chancellor of this University obsessed with their claims as winners or co-...
September 01, 2011
ASINGAN, PANGASINAN - Even in my hometown, now it's very public; 250 is the number of email addresses that "AN OPEN LETTER TO DR REX VICTOR OR CRUZ & DR FELINO P LANSIGAN" was sent to. When you write an open letter to people, do you cc the people concerned? In fairness, I should hope so, because...
August 31, 2011
MANILA - Appreciation comes in small packets of seeds, this the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) had utilized in 2009 yet, as reported by William Dar, Director General of ICRISAT (see the full text of his remarks in "Pea and Sympathy," 23 November 2009, iCRi...
August 30, 2011
MANILA - If you love what you're doing, it will show; you don't have to tell people. If you don't love what you're doing, why are you doing it anyway? If you don't know why you're doing it, you will be sure to be drifting from day to day. Unless you are Santiago Rigonan Obien (SRO), who retired in 2...
August 28, 2011
ICRISAT INDIA - Sufficiently alarmed at what has been happening in India in the last 30 years such as the Nalgonda District of the State of Andhra Pradesh turning from semi-arid to arid - where arid indicates severe lack of available water (Wikipedia), they held a meeting on 16 August 2011 at the Pa...
August 28, 2011
MANILA - The Department of Education (DepEd) represented by Education Secretary Armin Luistro and the Management Association of the Philippines (MAP) represented by former Education Secretary Jesli Lapus are worried about having too few classrooms in Philippine schools. And I am worried about the op...
August 27, 2011
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 t...
August 27, 2011
MANILA - Yesterday, 26 August 2011, which happened to be the birthday of candidate for UP Los Baños Chancellor Rex Victor Cruz, rather I was thinking about the Nobel Prize for Peace of 2007 that which Al Gore and the International Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) won. Officially, on record. I have be...
August 26, 2011
MANILA - The image is one I took on 09 October 2010, during the UP Los Baños Alumni Homecoming, eve of Loyalty Day, the most celebrated occasion in the 100-year history of this University. The Chancellor is Luis Rey Velasco, who is very proud to say his pursuit as Chancellor has been for the Univers...
August 24, 2011
ASINGAN - Last 11 April 2011, the beginning of the week of the town fiesta of my hometown, I visited Nestor Salvador in his goat and vermiculture farm in Macalong, beyond the poblacion going to Binalonan, hometown of Carlos Bulosan, one of the best Filipino writers we have had. I know of someone fro...
August 24, 2011
MANILA - After I wrote "Makiling flashflood. Rex Victor Cruz's forest, my metaphor" (21 August 2011, University Matters, blogspot.com), I couldn't get Maria Makiling out of my mind, so I surfed the Web some more on this candidate for Chancellor of my alma mater UP Los Baños, and downloaded from phil...
August 23, 2011
MANILA - Someone pointed out to me the website of Rex Victor O Cruz, candidate for Chancellor of UP Los Baños - rexcruz.org - and on my 3rd or 4th visit, I thought about what makes a website great. Because, frankly speaking, Rex Victor Cruz's ambitious website is far from great. One explanation is t...
August 23, 2011
MANILA - Is SRO's fruitful foundational management of PhilRice from 1987 to 2000 harvestable and can it be packaged into repeatable success? Frankly and honestly, I believe so. Otherwise, I wouldn't be writing this. And, may I repeat: This intellectual exploration has given me the insight to write 2...
August 22, 2011
MANILA - Forward, UP Los Baños! Now is the time for all good men (embracing women) to come to the aid of their country. After all, UP Los Baños is a state university.
"Forward" reminds me of "feed-forward," the reverse of "feedback" - and that puts us in the field of communication. The messages g...
August 21, 2011
MANILA - Learning of the drought and famine in the Horn of Africa, I'm thinking like, "Is computer simulation yet backward that it could not have predicted a year before the twin disasters that are plaguing 12 million in the Land of the Berbers?"
But in fact, the Famine Early Warning System Netw...
August 20, 2011
MANILA - Rex Victor Cruz is the current Dean of the College of Forestry and Natural Resources and is 1 of 7 candidates for the position of Chancellor of the University of the Philippines Los Baños (for the list of names, see my previous essay, "UP Nationalism? They seek a Chancellor, I don't see Cha...
August 19, 2011
MANILA - So far, I have written 4 long essays, from Story #101 to Story #104, and we're still on page 4 of the book SRO: Dare to Build. I don't mind; like I've already said, I'm trying to write 2 books here simultaneously: a revolutionary book on Creative Thinking leading to Creative Writing, and a ...
August 19, 2011
LOS BAÑOS, LAGUNA - On campus, yesterday, 18 August 2011, Thursday in Manila, at 1400 hours, in the search for the next Chancellor of the University of the Philippines (UP) Los Baños, is the "Presentation of the Nominees' Vision" at the Dioscoro L Umali Hall, at the other end of the parade ground be...
August 17, 2011
MANILA - I was thinking of product and price the other day when I bought from cdr-king in Los Baños at the Robinson Town Mall 2 tote bags, light blue for the IBM ThinkPad notebook and gray for the Lenovo IdeaPad netbook. I believed I was buying high quality with a low price tag; the tote bags were g...
August 17, 2011
MANILA - University matters, especially when that University doesn't know what it doesn't know. Wouldn't you know? I want to tell you the news about UP Los Baños that UP Los Baños itself doesn't know.
It's 1750 hours Wednesday, 17 August 2011, and I have just visited the website UNIVERSITY OF THE...
August 16, 2011
MANILA - I was an armchair pioneer of Organic Agriculture armed with my own new Olivetti Lettera 32 portable typewriter in June 1968; I am once again an armchair pioneer, this time in boldly attempting to blend Organic Agriculture, Biodynamic Agriculture, and Chemical Agriculture armed with my own n...
August 16, 2011
MANILA - So far, I have written Story 101, where essentially Santiago Rigonan Obien (SRO) says the sowing, transplanting, nurturing, growing, maturing and harvesting of the crop called PhilRice was done "My Way" ala Frank Sinatra; Story 102, where we considered what management was all about as the f...
August 15, 2011
MANILA - Mostly through green-colored glasses, I, old Ilocano armchair farmer and new IdeaPad netbook-armed writer, am looking at the drylands of West and Central Africa, more than 5,000 km square in more than 18 countries. With official presence in that part of the world, we are told the Internatio...
August 10, 2011
SAN MIGUEL, BURGOS – Say "rainfed" or "rain-fed" and you´ve stated the problem.
Say "International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics" or "ICRISAT" and you've stated the solution.
The water's the problem. Where´s the water? Down there (I took the photo 10 July 2010)...
August 09, 2011
MANILA - Did you notice? The subtitle of this series has subtly changed from "Writing The PhilRice Story" for #101 and #102 to "The PhilRice (Insight) Story" for #103. The new subtitle is itself the product of insight, and the word just intruded into my consciousness as I was thinking of "The PhilRi...
August 07, 2011
MANILA - Sometimes I'm just frank; sometimes I'm just hilarious; sometimes I'm just both - sometimes I'm just accommodating. Just watch!
With her booboo on Mike Arroyo's 31 July 2011 trip to Hong Kong, it's just that Justice Secretary Leila De Lima has exhibited evidence that she is guilty of pre...
August 05, 2011
SCIENCE CITY OF MUÑOZ – It is 03 August 2011 at 0200 hours Wednesday at Room 313, PhilRice Dorm. From Story 101 to Story 102, the story continues. Let me remind you I am brainstorming 2 books here, both at the same time: One, The PhilRice Story; Two, a management book from the people's lessons from ...
August 05, 2011
SCIENCE CITY OF MUÑOZ – 02 August 2011, Tuesday in Manila, at the Central Experiment Station of the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) in the Maligaya village of this City, Jaime Manalo (JM) and I had a dinner meeting with Executive Director Eufemio "Dong" Rasco at one of the PhilRice can...
August 04, 2011
MANILA - If we want to make more history, we must understand media more. We must study Asian media if we want Asian understanding. Who will understand science if the media don´t?
On 27 June 2011, at the Taj Krishna Hotel in Hyderabad, India, the Media Colloquium on Demystifying Crop Biotechnology...
August 03, 2011
MANILA - Migz Zubiri marches to a different drummer; the protestant marches to a different drummer. It is the honorable thing to do; it is not the honorable thing to do.
Today, 03 August 2011, "Zubiri resigns" were the 2 words that made the mentally acute recoil and the mentally handicapped rejoi...
August 03, 2011
MANILA - Something old, something new / Something borrowed, something blue. After many years, I'm re-reading a book published by PhilRice 7 years ago (cover image on the left). That's because today, 31 July 2011, I decided to write the story of PhilRice, starting with what I can pick up from that bo...
July 31, 2011
SCIENCE CITY OF MUÑOZ - Here is the book that taught me what is not there: Facts & Myths about Organic Fertilizers authored by Cezar P Mamaril, Michelle B Castillo & Leocadio S Sebastian, 119 pages and published by the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) in 2009. I call that insigh...
July 29, 2011
SCIENCE CITY OF MUÑOZ - My personal memories of the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) are not pleasant, but I have gotten over them and made peace with the people concerned, or with God, whichever came first. I didn't cry then, but this is a different story.
I'm also a different me, ...
July 27, 2011
Refined 28 July 2011 at 0540 hours Manila
MANILA - It was all wang-wang, all sound and fury, signifying Noted. All almost 6,000 words of it delivered in his version of "Filipino" that is Manila lingua franca that is mostly Tagalog. This is the 25 July 2011, Monday State of the Nation Address (SONA)...
July 26, 2011
MANILA - Rice to the occasion! Corny, but I think it captures the mood of the moment as Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala wants farmers to grow more and consumers to eat more Brown Rice (Elmer Christian Dauigoy, 16 April 2011, inquirer.net). For ordinary mortals like me, it's an intriguing idea; ...
July 24, 2011
MANILA - Today is deja vu. Been there, seen that. I was last involved with the Open Academy for Philippine Agriculture (OPAPA) in December 2003, as an information consultant. For OPAPA, at the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) headquarters in the City of Muñoz, Nueva Ecija, while I was e...
July 23, 2011
MANILA - I'm looking at a bag of White Rice at home courtesy of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), at left, at the back. This is IRRI rice; when cooking, it smells good as it simmers. Rice comes to us free, a bag a month, 50 kilos each, an office perk for my son Paul Benjamin for bein...
July 22, 2011
MANILA - From Scientist to Manager of Science. As of 04 July 2011, we have a new Executive Director of the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) in the person of Eufemio "Dong" Rasco (Manny Galvez, 22 July 2011, philstar.com). I note Rasco has very impressive credentials as an academician: H...
July 21, 2011
MANILA - It must be the Crabsters, those who know or do nothing but crab on the Chasters, most of all on Charice, the greatest Chaster of all - well, she invented us Chasters, didn't she?
Now then, let me illuminate the Crabsters further. With the visible four eyes I have - we'll talk about the ...
July 20, 2011
MANILA - For the record, I ask this question: Are Filipino crop scientists perhaps leaning towards studies on organic agriculture (OA) - farming and gardening - now that consumers have become health-conscious about organic foods, and now that OA is a smart way to reduce our carbon footprint? A relat...
July 18, 2011
MANILA - Could we learn writing from a scientist ever? We could if we would pay enough attention. I didn't. For years, I stubbornly didn't.
The book is old, published in 1997; my copy is almost as old, probably 10 years old - I usually write on the DDMMYY date of purchase, but this time I didn't....
July 16, 2011
MANILA - Intrigued, I attended my 2nd Rizal lecture of Mr Floro Quibuyen on 21 June 2011 at the Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila and finally I bought a copy of his book A Nation Aborted (2008, Ateneo de Manila University Press, 437 pages, revised 2nd ed). That was PhP 600. Back home, I got ready to ...
July 16, 2011
MANILA - A paradigm shift looks like this: From OAO to OAO. From Old As Obstacle to Old As Opportunity. And no, none is too old to make a paradigm shift!
You need Creative Thinking to look at an Obstacle, and see after that, Opportunity. It´s easy if you know the trick, if you have taught y...
July 16, 2011
MANILA - Brown Rice! It took me 11 years to figure this one out, but late is better than never: You can't sell a good product with a bad name. A good name is a legacy for a man, an asset for a product.
I forgot. Years ago, I worked long enough in advertising to learn a few tricks at Tony Zorilla'...
July 13, 2011
MANILA - Big Business wants to feed the world, but can he? I'd say 50% of the experts say Big Business can. That's good food for thought. Now, let's listen to some of them.
George Bridges says, "If we want to feed the world, we must go GM" (13 August 2008, telegraph.co.uk). He reports that PG Ec...
July 12, 2011
MANILA - We'll, I'm writing again, so I'm searching again, surfing for "organic farming" OR "organic agriculture" and landing in the City of Kampala in Uganda. What did I know?! While Uganda is as far as the moon, this country more than quadrupled its exports of organic produce between 2003 and 2008...
July 10, 2011
MANILA - There is this essay "The Unexamined Society" published in the New York Times issue of 07 July 2011, date as declared, but the unexamined URL says it was published 08 July 2011. Lawyers will figure, but figures don't lie.
I can say that the author of that unexamined entry, David Brooks, i...
July 09, 2011
HYDERABAD - Science with a human face now means business. The poor farmers trained as rich-minded entrepreneurs. Rich soils, rich crops, rich fields, rich families. Then we will be witness to The Rise of The New Rich. Truly new, truly rich.
Reality check: 15 June 2011 at the Hotel Taj Deccan in ...
July 08, 2011
MANILA - In the digital world, a Downgrade is an abomination, while an Upgrade is in fact an affirmation. With Philippine ICT, Senator Edgardo Angara wants an Upgrade; President Noynoy Aquino orders a Downgrade, so now we have The Manila Digital Divide - if you're not with IT, you're against IT.
...
July 06, 2011
MANILA - It's 2221 hours, Wednesday, 06 July 2011. The Creattitudes Flash happened tonight, about half an hour ago, after I let go of Draft 1 of the Word 2010 text for my PowerPoint presentation for the conduct of the Creattitudes Workshop module "Creative Writing for Bloggers & Non-Bloggers" in...
July 06, 2011
#10 in a series of free lessons in Creative Writing prepared as if you´re attending my Creattitudes Workshop - Frank A Hilario, 06 July 2011
MANILA - Publish, or Perish! Why do you write? Whether you're an aspiring author, blogger, columnist, biographer, preacher, public presentor, lecture...
July 04, 2011
HYDERABAD - 10 by 10 by 2020 is a summary of the 2nd Green Revolution that India wants to wage - looking at it from the perspective of the bottom line. It's about time!
In his speech at the Green Revolution II Summit in Hyderabad on 15 June 2011, the Indian Associated Chambers of Commerce & ...
July 04, 2011
"What´s your ultimate dream?"
I was surprised by Derick´s question. We were in his province in Rizal that afternoon, having our getting-to-know-you chat. We were talking about his ultimate dream of having his very own stadium where he would one day have his talks and hold other big ev...
July 04, 2011
Creative Stories: Jesus in Gethsemane and The Philippine Revolution of 1896 - #09 in a series of free lessons in Creative Writing prepared as if you´re attending my Creattitudes Workshop - Frank A Hilario, 04 July 2011
Like I said before, you have to take a vacation from your draft, even i...
July 03, 2011
MANILA - Ryan Murphy, creator of the Fox hit musical comedy Glee has been reported to have said that in the show's 3rd season, there will be no celebrity guests, there will be less singing, there will be no Charice (Balitang America, 02 July 2011, abs-cbnnews.com), the old students will graduate, an...
July 02, 2011
Note: I wrote this essay from nothing between 1600 hours and 1925 hours today, 02 July 2011, with about 2 hours of writing and 1.5 hours of interruptions - all welcome to be sure. I revised it a little only once. - #08 in a series of free lessons in Creative Writing prepared as if you´re attending m...
July 02, 2011
"Creative Stories: Alexander Fleming & The Potato Chips - #07 in a series of free lessons in Creative Writing prepared as if you´re attending my Creattitudes Workshop - Frank A Hilario, 02 July 2011
The way Wikipedia describes him, I like Thomas Wolfe (1900-1938), although I don't remember r...
July 01, 2011
MANILA - Do you want to be part of a Revolution with warriors from another country and 14 of them each marching with an 80-page blueprint in their hands and talking to each other in technical Jargon?
Two weeks too late the hero. They already did it on 15 June in India. Reminds me of the gamble-gam...
June 30, 2011
"The Story of God and The Story of John the Baptist" - #06 in a series of free lessons in Creative Writing prepared as if you´re attending my Creattitudes Workshop - Frank A Hilario, 29 June 2011
MANILA - There are two stories I would like to tell you this time, both of them from the Bible...
June 30, 2011
HYDERABAD - 40 years ago, the Green Revolution led by Norman Borlaug was a smash success in doubling yields, trebling incomes, and quadrupling hopes - but not in helping the poor farmers rise from poverty. It was not in the design.
11 years ago, KP Prabhakaran Nair wrote in the 05 May 2000 issu...
June 28, 2011
"The Story of the Watershed" - #05 in a series of free lessons in Creative Writing prepared as if you´re attending my Creattitudes Workshop - Frank A Hilario, 28 June 2011
MANILA - In science, knowledge is not the problem; the language is. Marshall McLuhan says, "The medium is the message," Mark Tw...
June 27, 2011
#04 in a series of free lessons in Creative Writing prepared as if you´re attending my Creattitudes Workshop - Frank A Hilario, 27 June 2011
In the Creattitudes Workshop on 18 June 2011, by luck Angeline got the handout "Traffic 101," a printout of so many Internet webpages and, on reading, ...
June 26, 2011
#03 in a series of free lessons in Creative Writing prepared as if you´re attending my Creattitudes Workshop - Frank A Hilario, 27 June 2011
You can do it yourself, especially if you're not yet 70 as I already am - if you have the Creative Attitudes (Creattitudes) I have. The Creattitudes wa...
June 26, 2011
Ruth writes, "This is my first blog" and of course it is; this is her first ever blog. Actually, she is referring to the attachment, in MS Word; she wanted my opinion as mentor. Now, does blog there refer to the website or to the post, message, article, or essay she has written?
My answer: All of t...
June 25, 2011
MALVAR, BATANGAS - 25 June 2011, Saturday; we are all UP graduates, as far as I know, all of the University of the Philippines Los Baños, young and old, gathered inside the SAGE Learning Center inside the Villegas Organic Farm Complex in the village of San Pedro Uno in this town. SAGE is acronym for...
June 24, 2011
#02 in a series of free lessons in Creative Writing prepared as if you´re attending my Creattitudes Workshop on Creative Writing – Frank A Hilario, 24 June 2011
Looking for a Writers' Workshop that invites you to come as you are, that does not interrogate your creativity from head to foot in front...
June 24, 2011
#01 in a series of free lessons on Creative Writing prepared as if you´re attending my Creattitudes Workshop in Creative Writing – Frank A Hilario, 24 June 2011
I didn´t know enough to ask that question when I was just beginning. I discovered my talent for Creative Writing when I was in high schoo...
June 23, 2011
MANILA - Distance lends enchantment to the view. I'm glad I'm more than 4,000 km from Andhra Pradesh in India, not by any stretch of the imagination near the campus of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) in Patancheru. I imagine the talk on campus every day...
June 19, 2011
Revised 08 November 2011
TAGUIG CITY - 18 June 2011 at 1-6 PM, today I am privileged to be the Guru in the Creattitudes Workshop module "Creative Writing for Bloggers & Non-Bloggers" held at the clubhouse of Rosewood Pointé at the Acacia Estates along Levi Mariano Avenue going to Taguig City ...
June 19, 2011
MANILA - With 3 security men in my way, I managed to shoot Jose Rizal at the back, in front of so many people unaware of what was going to happen to their hero, Filipinos I suppose, lovers of their country I presume. I wanted to shoot Jose Rizal close range, face to face, but those security men bloc...
June 15, 2011
MANILA - Flickr calls it Interestingness. Since I'm a writer and I subscribe to Rudolf Flesch's view of Readability, I'll call it Viewability - an ordinary photo with an unordinary story.
I took the photograph with my Canon Cybershot late in the afternoon of 03 August 2010, while doing my 30-minut...
June 13, 2011
MANILA - I'm a Roman Catholic; I didn't want to, but now I'm thinking of safe sex. You see, I have just read one, on my email the position paper of the very Catholic Bukás Loób sa Díyos Covenant Community on House Bill 96 (old number), and two, on his website very un-Catholic Representative Edcel La...
June 11, 2011
MANILA & TAGBILARAN, BOHOL - What do you do when you are told of an opportunity to train and it looks like it's not your cup of tea? Hesitate.
I am from Manila and Ms Gert is from Tagbilaran, more than 600 km apart by airplane. She has been thinking and writing and hesitating about one of he...
June 07, 2011
MANILA – Are we afraid of organics, or we just don´t care?! Organic and wellness come together, or should. I don´t know why, but nobody has ever come up with a regular magazine on organic Philippines. Or a dedicated website. Until now.
You are looking at the logo of a new publication; we call it O...
June 07, 2011
The DreamWorks animated film How To Train Your Dragon is one in a million, very intelligent - and surprisingly very creative. So is The Creattitudes Workshop module "Creative Writing for Bloggers" the only one of its kind in the world, and you're lucky to be attending it on 18 June 2011, a Saturday,...
June 03, 2011
MANILA - The Filipino is known for his sunny smile; why can't we harness the sun in that smile?
What we have plenty of, we take for granted. Like sunlight. What genius we have, we ignore. Like Gregorio Zara, National Scientist. As far back as my research has dug out, the first very serious, public...
May 28, 2011
MANILA - Brendon Burchard is a million dollar man. And who is Frank H? I'm the one who is watching and listening again and again to this free 45-minute course-discourse on video by Brendon, the one who calls himself (he is) The Millionaire Messenger, because I find him incredible and inspiring. You ...
May 27, 2011
I love Google. 2006. It is the subject of my 2nd essay published in the American Chronicle on 11 February 2006, "Google is Genius. Or, The Soul of MSN, Yahoo Trails & Language of Internet Searches"). I call Google "Genius" because it has found my word-weird search combination, the 6 words that f...
May 25, 2011
LONDON - For your reading pleasure, or pressure as in this case, Robert Lacey & Danny Danziger have written a book, The Year 1000, whose 2 subtitles summarize what it is all about: What Life Was Like At The Turn Of The First Millennium: An Englishman's World. It was published by Back Bay Books (...
May 25, 2011
MANILA - "You found a solution in the Green Revolution," Johan Rockstrom, Executive Director of the Stockholm Resilience Centre of the Stockholm Environment Institute, tells Neha Poonia (01 November 2009, punemirror.in). Rockstrom is implying that the Green Revolution was good while it lasted. "This...
May 23, 2011
MANILA - 22 years almost since the musical Miss Saigon opened on 20 September 1989 at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane in London. The story was set in 1975 in Saigon at war with the Americans and herself. And now there's a movie to be filmed, and I heard our very own Charice is being considered for t...
May 22, 2011
MANILA - Yesterday, 21 May 2011, when I saw Tom Ang's encyclopedic book How To Photograph Absolutely Everything (New York, Dorling Kindersley, 384 pages), I immediately thought, "If you can teach how to photograph absolutely everything, I can teach How To Write Creatively Absolutely About Everything...
May 20, 2011
MANILA - As I write this, about an hour ago, 20 May 2011, I received on email (copy and paste) an article by Henrylito D Tacio who is known by many, who like me is an indefatigable writer - "SURGING POPULATION, RISING TROUBLES." (I like the title, a parallel construction.) The email copy was sent to...
May 19, 2011
MANILA - Here's to May!
Do you recall? When British George Mallory was asked "Why climb a mountain?" his reply was short and curt, "Because it's there." When Pinoy Art Valdez was asked in 2008, "Why does one climb a mountain?" his answer was long-winded but it did reach some summit or other of pro...
May 17, 2011
MANILA - Once you get the hang of it, being good at Creative Writing is easy. I've known that for decades, especially since I learned to use the computer 25 years ago, and most especially in the last 5 years, when I became an inveterate blogger. Blogging is such sweet sorrow that you don't bid goodb...
May 14, 2011
MANILA - About the Philippines' "National Climate Change Action Plan" (NCCAP), I want a copy of that plan, and I want action!
But no, I don't think I'm going to get one or the other. Remember, as businessmen, the Filipinos are laissez faire; as citizens, they are lackadaisical, if not downright la...
May 13, 2011
MANILA - The Americans are very funny - even when they don't want to be. Yes, it was laugh at first sight. You know the feeling, don't you? I was laughing hard when I read the news by Kathryn Kattalia of the New York Daily News: "Early HIV treatment could prevent transmission between partners, study...
May 12, 2011
MANILA - In the US of A, the month of May is significant in that it is Older Americans Month, and I have written about it to help senior citizens celebrate (see my "US, Unhappy Seniors!? Citizens & The Real Generation Gap," Age of Discovery! blogspot.com). I even suggested an Older Filipinos Mon...
May 11, 2011
IN THE WORLD - When it comes to Charice, I'm a Frankie-come-lately, but I always thought "I Will Always Love You" was her signature song, the one that defined her, the piece that singled her out as Charice, the sensational international singer who comes from the Philippines, my beloved country. I pa...
May 11, 2011
PATANCHERU - Ever alert for the application of "Science with a human face" - the very idea of this mantra which it so happens this photo beautifully shows - from India, the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) noted that on 4-6 May 2011 was going to be held the ...
May 09, 2011
LAS VEGAS - Here's my postfight analysis of what I shall call The Great Manny Pacquiao-Shane Mosley Battle Of The Brain And The Brawn: Boxing lost.
At the MGM Grand Garden Arena 07 May 2011, I'm looking at Sugar Shane Mosley running away from a fight. He should be. His opponent Manny Pacquiao is th...
May 07, 2011
MANILA - That Charice is going to sing the Philippine National Anthem "Lupang Hinirang" (Land Chosen) in the Manny Pacquiao-Sugar Shane Mosley fight today, Sunday (in Manila) is not the point. It's an honor, but it's a minor point.
"Thank you Sir Manny Pacquiao for choosing me to sing the Philippi...
May 07, 2011
CALAMBA CITY - Here's a story of Charice as a Knight in Singing Armor, and I know I'm not dreaming. No, I'm not imagining things; I know I'm seeing with my own eyes. Blessed are those that have seen and also believed!
I am a bit shocked. I met Charice first and last 14 February 2010 at her Valenti...
May 05, 2011
WASHINGTON DC - Older Americans and the community: Connect or disconnect?
On 18 April 1963, the first and only Roman Catholic US President John F Kennedy decreed via Proclamation 3257 that henceforth the month of May was to be "Senior Citizens Month." And why was or what happened after that? "That...
May 02, 2011
LONDON - During the Royal Wedding in London on 29 April 2011, following the example of Prince William's mother Princess Diana when she married his father Prince Charles, Princess Catherine promised to "love, comfort, honour and keep" her husband Prince William rather than "love, comfort, honour and ...
May 01, 2011
MANILA - Alas, poor Yuson! "I knew him, Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. He hath bore me on his back a thousand times, and now how abhorr'd in my imagination it is! My gorge rises at it." Recognize the quote? It is in Act 5, Scene 1, The Tragedy of Hamlet. Hamlet is medit...
April 30, 2011
MANILA - The Knights of Columbus is in the service of the community by being in the service of the family. Like Columbus, the Knights have to undertake the journey to discover how best to serve humanity; Columbus was wrong in theory, but he did right in practice in the end – his explorations opened ...
April 29, 2011
HO CHI MINH CITY - The costs of fossil fuels rise for city travelers even as the biofuel crops grow for country toilers; the oil prices shoot up fast while the fuel crops raise their stalks slowly. It is not yet a win-win situation. The race still belongs to the swift and strong. Black oil is beauti...
April 29, 2011
MANILA - Despite what the Manila media and other loudmouths say, Philippine Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez has not resigned from public office. That's a media booboo.
All the Manila media gave the headline or variations hereof - "Ombudsman resigns" - but that is not in the historical present like ...
April 26, 2011
MANILA - Watch my language now: "With BPI Asset Management fully online, your investment is now at your fingertips." At 160 years of age, the oldest and the boldest bank in the Philippines, certainly; the oldest and the boldest in Southeast Asia, perhaps.
Today, Tuesday, 26 April 2011, with more...
April 25, 2011
Here´s sunlight at 0725 hours on April Fools' Day 2011 peeping through vegetation and through the window onto my computer table in front of which I sit and blog (I took the shot with my digital 12 MP Samsung ES70 without using flash). Here are 7 reasons why I blog and enjoy it:
(1) Blogging helped...
April 23, 2011
MANILA - Truth to tell, I used to admire Patricia Evangelista who used to write in happy remembrance; now I am sorry as she writes in unhappy remonstrance of God and a Man of the Cloth crusading for sanity in television commercials, using one that uses super-suggestive love to sell French fries! The...
April 22, 2011
MANILA - Now I love Glee again. Funny I say that knowing The Atlantic Kevin Fallon's unedifying editorial rant against Charice in that musical comedy show - later, I will show you that Fallon is funny. Here, in Season 2 Episode 17 titled "A Night of Neglect," Sunshine Corazon is singing at the top o...
April 21, 2011
MAGALANG, PAMPANGA - She is in my memory forever. The first time I visited the town of Magalang was more or less 50 years ago when I was a student teacher from the University of the Philippines' College of Agriculture (UPCA). I have fond - and not-so-fond - memories of my stay there, as I fell in lo...
April 19, 2011
"I'm dedicating this to the boys" - A Writer's Tribute by Frank A Hilario ¶ This essay will reveal to the patient reader how one medical doctor operates on his patients and practices what he preaches on his audience. ¶ To provide a little background, the essay reveals many facets and facts abo...
April 17, 2011
Dear Governor Sir:
I visited Asingan 11 to 16 April 2011 to be among those who celebrated our town fiesta. Among other things, as a local Balikbayan, I was inspired by the achievements of my classmate and old friend Roger Daranciang and new friend Nestor Salvador in selling the idea of raising dai...
April 16, 2011
ASINGAN - Pangasinan Board Member Ranjit Ramos Shahani says of his townmate, "Joe Delmendo is the Father of Cable TV in Eastern Pangasinan." That he is. That's old news. What even we Asinganians don't know is that Joe is also the Father of Internet in Fibre Optic Internet in eastern Pangasinan in th...
April 15, 2011
ASINGAN - It was former Senator Letecia Ramos-Shahani who brought milk buffalos to Asingan, and it was Senator Joseph "Erap" Estrada who authored Republic Act 7307 signed into law by President Cory Aquino that brought to life the Philippine Carabao Center (PCC) that bought the buffalos abroad in the...
April 14, 2011
SOPA so good? Pangasinan as #1 Province, Philippines
ASINGAN - Governor Amado T Espino of Pangasinan has an impossible dream, and being a native of this eastern town of this province, I myself would like to contribute my talent to help make that dream come true. Dreams are impossible only if all y...
April 12, 2011
ASINGAN - Tuesday, 12 April 2011 is the milk festival day in this town in Pangasinan that is celebrating its fiesta. There is palpable enthusiasm among the goat and buffalo raisers to celebrate an historical day: The very 1st Goat and Buffalo Raisers' Festival in the Philippines. Milk is the story o...
April 11, 2011
ASINGAN - From what I learned just today, Monday, 11 April 2011, it is wrong to say, "The goat is a poor man's cow." That is putting the goat down and downgrading the business acumen of goat raisers.
The right thing to say is that the goat is a rich man's choice of a milking cow and a cash cow all ...
April 09, 2011
MANILA - I'm Maet Tasirci, the son of a dryland farmer of Asia; in fact, my mother is Asian and my father is African. Through my friend the journalist, I just heard that the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, ICRISAT, which is based in India, has just come out with a b...
April 07, 2011
MANILA - Blogging is easy. Being creative is not. From my own experience of writing (offline) and blogging (online), I know that the art of blogging is not different from the art of writing - or shouldn't be. If you're an average writer, you're an average blogger. If you are a creative writer, you a...
April 04, 2011
MANILA - No Writer's Block, I can guarantee that. What about this? "Even the best creative writers suffer from Writer's Block during their career," says creativewriting.com. Me, I've been writing earnestly since 1975; therefore, I can't be one of the best creative writers because I don't have Writer...
April 04, 2011
MANILA - To walk the Via Crucis (Way of the Cross), or Via Dolorosa (Way of Sorrows), or simply Stations of the Cross, I can't ever afford a pilgrimage to Jerusalem alone or in a group, but last Sunday, I found I didn't have to. I attended the 10 o'clock mass at Bay, Laguna some 65 kilometers south ...
April 02, 2011
MANILA - Her defeat is not going to defeat her, Thia Megia says of her being eliminated from American Idol last Thursday, 31 March 2011 (Friday, 01 April in Manila). She is now talking of the future, not simply the past. "I am very excited about the future," Thia told reporters afterwards (Brian Man...
April 02, 2011
MANILA - I am happy to inform you that despite the discovery of DNA, I have unraveled the secret of life? No. That despite biotechnology, I have found the hidden ways of pest control? No. That despite Charles Darwin, I have found the missing link? No. That despite eco-agriculture, I have discovered ...
March 31, 2011
PATANCHERU - Paradigm shift BBC, yes. This has something to do with the new view of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics of itself, even as "ICRISAT has further elevated its role as a bridge, broker and catalyst in the global fight against poverty and hunger," accordi...
March 25, 2011
MANILA - I love Gmail. I parted with Yahoo because of her. You know, the one with the big beautiful body. I fell in love with her the first time I saw her sometime in 2005. My son Jomar had told me about her. It's been more than a 6-year love affair, and it's been great!
With Gmail, among other th...
March 24, 2011
FQ is an independent scholar of Philippine history, past and present. I do not always agree with him, but I admire him for his research, findings and forthrightness. He sent the following material as a letter to the Editor of the Philippine Daily Inquirer where SM's column appeared. If you're not af...
March 24, 2011
MANILA - "The problem with the Poor is that there are too many of them." That goes well with the statement, "For God so loved the Poor that He made so many of them." Both are extremely poor excuses for thinking coming from Homo sapiens, Latinized name that means a "wise man" or "knowing man" (Wikipe...
March 22, 2011
MANILA - In the middle half of 2008, I edited the book Healing Hands by my Indian friend Samuel Martin and worked my editorial hands on the manuscript long and hard, so that I knew everything that the book was saying about the Bible and Nature in relation to alternative medicine. Here, I can summari...
March 20, 2011
MANILA - Today, 18 March 2011, I begin a new journey. To teach what I have learned in what I had not been taught to teach. I am a teacher by vocation, a writer by avocation. I'm 71; I learned my writing teaching myself; if I can teach myself, I can teach you - even for free. Just by reading me in bi...
March 20, 2011
MANILA - Beginning today, 19 March 2011, I am going to teach creative thinking / creative writing to people who will sit down for one lazy afternoon and watch the 2010 animated film How To Train Your Dragon by DreamWorks. No charge - the viewing I mean. Your place, not mine.
After having watched t...
March 14, 2011
PATANCHERU - ICRISAT invented IMOD in 2010 and this year, wishes to give differential treatment to women in Africa and Asia, its preferential territories. Even before this, the women have caught the eye of ICRISAT Director General William Dar. And I couldn´t approve more; if you want poverty o...
March 12, 2011
MANILA - At 70 going on 71, I found today that I´m never too old to learn. They say you can´t teach an old dog new tricks. Not this old dog. Well, this old dog will teach the teachers!
Like I can teach blogging. Whenever I visit the condo of my son Jomar and Clarisse, I am a Lolo to my ...
March 09, 2011
To the Virgins, to make much of Time:
Virgins or not, listen! Here is the opening stanza of one of the English Robert Herrick's most famous poems that I memorized more than 50 years ago, when I was an innocent 16 in high school yet in the sleepy town of Asingan in Pangasinan in Central Luzon, the ...
March 08, 2011
MANILA - This is a little story of Thia Megia, proud to be Pinoy! (see my "Thia Megia, American Idol. 'So proud of my friend' - Charice" (pinoycinderella.com; also in PinoyMania, and in American Chronicle of course, same title). Any questions so far?
I'm on Lady G Galore's website, reading her "Am...
March 07, 2011
MANILA - I'm watching Thia Megia's performance of Irene Cara's hit single "Out Here On My Own" at the semifinals of American Idol Season 10 courtesy of YouTube (ladyggalore.com), and I'm enthralled by the singing, awed by the praises of the judges. If you know me, I'm going to watch maybe 50 times. ...
March 07, 2011
MANILA - Are we in Heaven yet? We have another Charice in the making, and we can see her live on television, on Fox's hugely popular American Idol talent show on TV. Proud to be Pinoy!
The youngest ever of all American Idol contestants, on 04 March (Manila time), 15-year old Filipino-American Thia...
March 06, 2011
MANILA - My daughter Jennifer asked me about an hour ago as I began this if I have joined the 10-million signature campaign to stop destructive mining in Palawan, to save the last remaining virgin forests in the Philippines. We are Roman Catholics, most of us anyway, and she probably learned that th...
February 28, 2011
MANILA - "Cause I'm your lady!" are the very first sounds you hear from Charice in her GMA 7 TV Special Charice: Home for Valentine's aired 13 February 2011. Today, 28 February is more than a good 2 weeks later. Question: Why do I write about it only now? Answer: I can write about love anytime I wan...
February 20, 2011
MANILA - No, science isn't naturally exciting, and experts aren't helping any. No, they don't talk through their hats, but they talk above our heads. In a moment, I will show you that they should be paying more attention to the old Bill Gates of Microsoft fame & fortune and the new Bill Gates of...
February 19, 2011
MANILA - Are you smart? Then you can learn from the deadlier of the species. I'm convinced the men of our times have outlived their usefulness. If you read what I had written a couple of days ago, "Smart about corruption. What Jose Rizal did & Angelo Reyes" (17 February 2011, My Jose Rizal, Blog...
February 17, 2011
MANILA - Secretary Angelo Reyes and Overseas Filipino Writer Jose Rizal were born 84 years apart, 1945 and 1861, in 2 different centuries but, in similar manner, they both tried to bang their heads against The Wall, and in both cases The Wall won.
You can't fight City Wall.
Reyes tried to come out...
February 11, 2011
MANILA - I edited today, 10 February, the January-March 2011 issue of the Zero Waste Newsletter of the Zero Waste Recycling Movement of the Philippines Foundation Inc and a few hours later, as I wrote this very line, only then did I notice that the full name has its history written all over it. Yes,...
February 09, 2011
MANILA - Mid-morning news today, 08 February 2011, says "Former DND Secretary Angelo Reyes (committed) suicide" while he was with 2 of his sons and 2 aides visiting his mother's tomb; he had asked for them to leave him alone for a while, and then shot himself in the chest (Cocoy Dayao, 08 February 2...
February 08, 2011
MANILA - Mid-morning news today says "Former DND Secretary Angelo Reyes (committed) suicide" while he was with 2 of his sons and 2 aides visiting his mother's tomb; he had asked for them to leave him alone for a while, and then shot himself in the chest (Cocoy Dayao, 08 February 2011, propinoy.net)....
February 07, 2011
MANILA - CCP's Pasinaya 2011 was okay; Jose Rizal was not. The Pasinaya celebration was yesterday in this love month of February, and that's perfect - love your country's arts! But Jose Rizal's birthday being celebrated on the same day, that is, more than 4 months ahead of date (19 June 1861) is com...
February 05, 2011
MANILA - 21 September 2010, more than 4 months ago, in Season 2, Episode 1 of Fox's superhit TV series "Glee," Charice appeared as Sunshine Corazon – and then she disappeared down the rabbit hole for the succeeding many episodes. What happened? Contrast little Alice in Wonderland who willingly follo...
February 03, 2011
MANILA - The knowledge revolution is all over your place even if you haven't noticed, it's all over the world even if you haven't heard. This time it's brought to you by Team ICRISAT in the drylands.
I'm thinking of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics whose Direc...
February 03, 2011
Closing Message, ICRISAT Annual Research Meeting, 04 Feb 2011, ICRISAT Headquarters, Patancheru, Andhra Pradesh, India
By William D Dar, Director General of ICRISAT
Dear colleagues and friends, good afternoon!
I have the feeling that something great has happened here over the past two we...
January 31, 2011
MANILA - 35 years ago, I founded and was Editor in Chief of Habitat, the color magazine of the Forest Research Institute based in Los Baños, and I could see thick forests where my team of photographers (Rudy Maningas & Cesar Cabrera) and I visited, from Luzon to the Visayas to Mindanao, gaze at ...
January 31, 2011
MANILA – Funny, she wasn't home in November to shoot the GMA 7 TV Special Charice: Home for Christmas; she won't be home for Valentine's Day 2011, but she will be on your screen the day before, 13 February in the TV special Home for Valentine (PEP, 30 January 2011, re-uploaded by gmanews.tv). She is...
January 29, 2011
MANILA - "There's no such thing as multitasking," says Paul Atchley, an expert in psychology and a graduate of the University of California, writing in Harvard Business Review last month. There is such a thing as a multitasker, says Frank Hilario, the expert in the psychology of his own creative thi...
January 25, 2011
PATANCHERU - I'm saying, I'm seeing: With what it calls IMOD, ICRISAT is going to change the world of research - and the world of the poor farmers in Africa and Asia. Starting now.
We are at the campus of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, ICRISAT at Patancheru,...
January 25, 2011
As Director General of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, ICRISAT, William Dar delivers this Address at the ICRISAT Annual Research Meeting, 24 January 2011 on campus at ICRISAT Headquarters in Patancheru, Andhra Pradesh, India.
Dear Colleagues,
A very warm w...
January 21, 2011
MANILA- Dairy products are the Philippines' #2 import, after wheat; Filipinos produce less than 1% of their dairy need (thecattlesite.com). From the same source, we learn that the Philippines is now the 3rd largest US market for dairy products, after Mexico and Canada. That's how big the market is f...
January 10, 2011
MANILA - Yesterday, 09 January 2011, I didn't go to Enchanted Kingdom because of the rain and, yes I missed the chance to watch our international singing sensation perform live and to greet you, mother of Charice, Happy Birthday! in advance. Well, today is the day (image from Schoeen), and I'm singi...
January 08, 2011
I am a Filipino, and proud of it! Before this, you probably have read the letter from a Korean living in the Philippines about what's not wrong and what's right about this country. This one is by a Filipino on the Philippines. As did the Korean letter, this came through the email, and having read an...
January 07, 2011
MANILA - You didn't (I didn't) know it before, but there's more to biblical stories than just stories. For one, there's climate change. Of course, you have to read between the lines. Not to mention that you have to use more than one version of the Holy Bible - I read 4 or 5 versions in research. Aft...
January 03, 2011
MANILA - 2011, Year of the Rabbit. In Chinese horoscope, the Rabbit "signifies calm, diplomacy, sensitivity and consideration for others" (squidoo.com). Reading that, I think of 2010 backwards: mostly of Charice, mother Raquel, and brother Carl; the Pempengcos are mostly calm, diplomatic, sensitive,...
December 30, 2010
MANILA - Founded in 1919 and therefore a long-standing Rizalist, the Jose Rizal University disappoints me with its website JoseRizal.ph when it comes to teaching the lessons students can learn from the valedictory poem of our national hero, Jose Rizal, whose name it is dedicated to. Using the gradin...
December 27, 2010
MANILA - Jovit Baldivino is the latest singing sensation in the Philippines, not from. A lesson in idiomatic expression. But that´s only your clue as to where my essay is really going.
I have just revisited the phenomenon of the siomai vendor from Batangas south of Manila who was Grand Winner of...
December 24, 2010
MANILA (24 December) - It's almost 12 midnight, almost Christmas. Having been putting some order to the disorder in my little room at home, some books and publications have come up from some forgotten years. While I was partaking of the delicious Christmas Eve molo prepared by my daughters Jinny, Da...
December 23, 2010
MANILA - Someone wrote "50 interesting things about Charice" and none of the 50 was interesting to me at all. I was bored to death. So you'll excuse me if I want to amuse myself and put one over that one. Here´s my 51:
(1) Q: Charice is only 5 feet, not at all tall. Would you know when she can be...
December 22, 2010
MANILA - Every so often, an odd thought suddenly appears - and sometimes an old book you were not looking for. What do you do? Welcome the thought, open the book. The thought may change your mind, the book may change your perspective. If you´re in luck, the perfect photograph will appear too.
For...
December 13, 2010
ARUSHA - A revolution is not a dinner party? This revolution is a party. A dinner party. A breakfast party. They also do lunch! And snacks.
Well, revolutions today are waged via art with science (embracing technology), and even if your science is better, some are faster with their art. Graphics, gr...
December 10, 2010
MANILA - ICRISAT is quietly reinventing market-oriented agriculture, so you may not have heard of it. They call their approach inclusive market-oriented development. For that, they use the acronym IMOD; I prefer the acronym iMODe, to call attention to the concepts of inclusive and development, that ...
December 08, 2010
MANILA - Retired financial whiz Alfredo E Pascual has met his match, and it´s called the University of the Philippines (students shown here protesting). UP is as recalcitrant as the Philippine economy. And both because of narrow points of view. UP doesn´t realize that its educational system is colon...
December 07, 2010
MANILA - Where have all the players gone? Gone to under, everyone. When will they ever learn? When will we ever learn?
Friday, 03 December 2010, Manila time, we´re watching the stage play "The Underground Movement" at the now-acoustically sound DL Umali Auditorium at the campus of the University ...
December 06, 2010
MANILA - Publish or Perish! is as true in 2010 as it was in 1985 BC (Before Computers). Many a scientist finds it literally a matter of life or threat - the life of keeping one´s job, or the threat of losing it. Technical journals remain problematic as ever. Some things never change.
There are ...
December 05, 2010
MANILA - It´s Saturday, 27 November and we are at the Philippine International Convention Center, PICC at Forum 3, along Roxas Boulevard, not far from Manila Bay. The scene outside is quiet; the scene inside is quiet anticipation. My wife Amparo and I are attending the Bo Sanchez´ Kerygma Conference...
December 02, 2010
MANILA - About New York´s Rockefeller Center annual Christmas extravaganza, I would like to report glitzes, glimpses, and gladnesses. You celebrate what you can; you cerebrate what you have to.
Last night, 01 December, Wednesday in Manila, they lighted the world´s most famous Christmas tree in Ne...
November 30, 2010
MANILA - To move on to the future, first we go back to the past: "Pilipinas Kay Ganda." Borrowing from Mai Mislang, the line sucks. Suppose it´s grammatically correct? "Pilipinas, kay ganda!" Still borrowing from Mai, still the line sucks.
If you look at the map of the country, it´s "Philippines,...
November 28, 2010
PATANCHERU - This November, Ambassador of the Philippines to India Ronald Allarey visited the ICRISAT main campus here where the institute´s Director General William Dar gladly received him and showed him around. Among other things, Allarey saw saluyot (jute) growing there and said it was the secret...
November 27, 2010
Revised at 0500 hours 28 November 2010 Manila time
MANILA - Bigness is the story of the day, 26 November 2010. The big bank is the Bank of the Philippine Islands, BPI "whose leadership is unassailed" as BPI President & CEO Aurelio Montinola III puts it today – it is the 3rd largest in the count...
November 25, 2010
You can provoke David Foster, or Charice, but you can´t get away with murder. It´s attitude - yours and theirs.
October provocation
In the press conference before the 23 October Manila concert of Hitman: David Foster & Friends at the Araneta Coliseum, someone asked Charice, now that she ...
November 24, 2010
MANILA - What was Albay Governor Joey Salceda of the Philippines doing in the World Mayors´ Summit on Climate in Mexico City on 21 November 2010? He was doing his job, exhorting the Mayors of Cities around the world to play their active role on climate change affirmative action, and inspiring ...
November 24, 2010
Statement of Albay Governor Jose Salceda at the World Mayors´ Summit on Climate at the Antiguo Palacio de la Escuela de Medicina on 21 November 2010
Buenas dias a todos. El Jefe de Gobierno del Distrito Federal de Mexico, Senor Marcelo Ebrard. Allow me to acknowledge your leadership of the unite...
November 23, 2010
MANILA - The Beatles are now on iTunes and all´s right with the (music) world! Charice is now singing the Beatles and all´s right with my world. Charice now has a golden Japanese album, which means the Japanese have discovered their Asianness faster than the Filipinos have; Charice has recorded excl...
November 22, 2010
MANILA – This early, GMA 7 scores a Christmas scoop over ABS-CBN and TV5; Kapuso wins over Kapamilya and Kapatid in bringing out the rays of celebration this Yuletide 2010 in rainy Philippines. The scoop is Charice, Solo. It will certainly be an unforgettable performance, all sunshine and all heart ...
November 21, 2010
Revised at 1140 hours Monday, 22 November in Manila
MANILA - Fernando Zobel de Ayala and Aurelio R Montinola III of the Bank of Philippine Islands, BPI have jointly announced that on Friday, 26 November, Charice will receive 1 of only 2 awards for 2010 for Filipinos who have worked abroad, have be...
November 20, 2010
MANILA - History, I´m surprised that, as Alixander Escote says (28 August 2008, socyberty.com) the Philippine press started in 1637 when Tomas Pinpin published the Sucesos Felices, the first Philippine newspaper, and then Escote refers to Pinpin as "the father of Filipino printing" only, while I say...
November 20, 2010
MANILA - It´s the talk of the town. On 08 November at 2017 hours, Philippine Star & entertainment columnist Ricky Lo tweets @rickylo_xclusve, "A daughter´s unwanted pregnancy is said to be the cause of the severe depression Janno Gibbs is suffering now!" I am for whom the bell tolls. Every self´...
November 19, 2010
MANILA - Newly crowned Concert Princess of Asia by the American Chronicle, Charice is getting to be noticed by those who would like to be noticed more in the Philippines where she was born and in the United States where she is currently making mountain-and-valley musical waves outside of Fox´s...
November 18, 2010
By William D DarDirector General, ICRISAT
Speech as Guest of Honor, 18th Annual Conference of the Agricultural Economics Research Association (AREA) on ´Value chains of agricultural commodities and their role in food security and poverty alleviation´, 18 November 2010, NAARM, Hyderabad, Andhra Pr...
November 18, 2010
Let us visit some VA companies. Creative Virtual promises, "We guarantee our Virtual Assistants to be 90% accurate" (creativevirtual.com). A promise is a promise? Your 90% is not enough. 10% error is too much to forgive. Not me. I will guarantee 97% accuracy of my Virtual Assistants, the 3% error be...
November 17, 2010
MANILA - You want to show your genius in the English language? Look at the image to the left; that is "The Bad CATS Eternal English Challenge" hurled to all the world by the Johnny-come-lately blog VA Filipino (Blogspot), who saw The Bad CATS, but not their own creator. Unbelievable! It is especiall...
November 17, 2010
MANILA - Being a virtual assistant, VA is only for those who accept mass email jobs and nothing more. How boring! And how undignified. I didn´t want to work just for the income but, even granting the income, I can´t be a VA and live happily ever after. Just not my style. Just not my cup of tea. I ha...
November 16, 2010
MANILA - Idioms on board. On one hand, Manny Pacquiao won by unanimous decision according to the 3 judges, and 1 Frank H is saying it was a knockout? Affirmative. You see, a synonym for "knockout" is "winner." Another is "exceller." Pacquiao won, didn´t he? And he excels. He has knocked out all boxi...
November 14, 2010
MANILA - Fair warning: I´m an English activist; I´m Filipino but I favor English over your Filipino (Tagalog) as the #1 national language of the Philippines. You think I´m crazy? I am, and I´m glad I am. I also am an Ilocano. If you are a creative writer, you don´t have...
November 13, 2010
MANILA – Even as politics and rallies are, plagiarism in the Philippines is widespread, extensive, common, acquiesced. Not funny. To decry it is to disparage much of the published and unpublished technical manuscripts in this country. Malice, you have to establish.
As an intellectually minded cit...
November 12, 2010
And the first winner to be announced was Charice - 2nd runner-up (3rd place)!
Her heart wanted to explode. She knew she was the best performer that time. What the hell?! Her text votes were the lowest of the finalists, she was told by the Little Big Star people. Talent was not enough. But talent...
November 11, 2010
MANILA - 11 November, Thursday. Today´s my birthday officially and I thank God unofficially. Let me tell you the story of my names 3 and my birthdays 3.
I forgot that today is my birthday officially, but some people didn´t. Michael C greeted me Tuesday (09 November): "Happy Birthday,...
November 10, 2010
MANILA - Are we honest about plagiarism in the Philippines? Frank H says, "If we are intellectually honest, we know we are not."
Naughty, naughty? "Order, order in the Court!" Chief Justice Renato Corona bangs the table on the cacophony of the 37 UP Law Professors - nameless here forevermore - w...
November 09, 2010
LEGAZPI CITY - History is being made; climates are changing, including the climate of application of information technology, the IT of modern times; let me tell you about the changes I saw in Albay last week, about the LGUs and their affirmative action on climate change, and the IT people who comple...
November 08, 2010
MANILA - Talk is cheap. A million words may have been said against Assistant Secretary Carmen "Mai" Mislang who tweeted about the wine that the Vietnamese hosts served Philippine President Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino and his entourage: "The wine sucks." Should she have more clearly joked about it instea...
November 08, 2010
HYDERABAD - With the issuance of the Hyderabad Declaration of Cooperation (my copy came by email), it is as if suddenly, marketing is a priority of the World Bank through its infoDev, the department of Information for Development. Actually, no, and I have written about it; in fact, there is the Worl...
November 06, 2010
LEGAZPI CITY (06 November 2010) - Day 3 of the LGU Summit+3i Conference is a time for touring some parts of Albay, including the beautiful, world-famous Mayon Volcano. She´s lovely, but you´ve seen her before. Ah, if you don´t think it´s a duty to join the tour, you are sadly mistaken. You are makin...
November 05, 2010
LEGAZPI CITY (05 November 2010) - In the Hierarchy of Desire, AIDA - Awareness > Interest > Desire > Action - Day 1 was on the Desire to Action; Day 2, today, is on the Nature of the Action. Everyone wants to reach the heavenly summit of climate change affirmative action.
The LGU Summit+3i conti...
November 05, 2010
LEGAZPI CITY (04 November 2010) – I have been following climate change from Al Gore and his Nobel Prize for Peace, and it has been following me ever since. In this city that is a good 500 km south of Manila, I noted today 4 climate changes: (1) in travel & tours, (2) in extreme rain, (3) in the ...
November 02, 2010
MANILA - My Cinderella Charice book is now 13 months in the making. I began writing it September 2009; it´s November 2010 already. A writer´s job is never done until he decides that it´s done.
At about 1400 hours today, 02 November 2010, I printed out on my HP Laser Jet 1020 my...
November 01, 2010
HYDERABAD - Nokia was there listening in to the science and business conversations, with 50 participants from 15 countries attending (30 October 2010, ANN, Business Line). The slogan as well as the vision of Nokia is, "Connecting people." In that 3-day meeting, 26-28 October, as this mobile company ...
October 31, 2010
MANILA (30 October) - "Creative writing," did you say? Today, suddenly it came to me the reason why in the United States and elsewhere, after 100 years of creative writing attempts, theorizing, teaching courses in the universities, handling classes every which way, conducting workshops here and ther...
October 30, 2010
SINGAPORE (30 October) - We are in the Lion City. The City´s symbol is the merlion, a creature of myth, with the head of a lion and the body of a fish, suggesting that it has its head above the water. A survivor. In fact, Singapore is more than just a survivor; it has triumphed over historical adver...
October 27, 2010
HYDERABAD - From rags to riches is a pipe dream for many a village in Asia and Africa. Business knowledge becoming practice remains a dream for most of the poor in many dryland communities in many countries. From the World Bank comes the knowledge that only with farming treated as business can the s...
October 27, 2010
Revised 28 October 2010 at 2007 hours Manila
JAKARTA - Charice, We Asians hereby dub you, "Concert Princess of Asia." You have charmed the heart of Asia with your "mountain and valley vocals" (Ryan Brockington, New York Post) and "one of the most beautiful voices I have ever heard in a long time"...
October 26, 2010
By William D DarDirector General, ICRISAT
Inaugural address, Agribusiness Community of Practice (CoP) Kick-Off Meeting, 26th Oct 2010, Golconda Resorts, Hyderabad. Present were Mr Steve Giddings, Agribusiness Technical Lead, infoDev; Mr Ram Koundania, CEO, Advanta; Mr N T Yaduraju, National Coordi...
October 26, 2010
MANILA - I know; I was there. Ask wower31, she saw me. 23 October 2010: Charice sang "All By Myself" all by herself, did a vocal dramatic act with "ANY" ... MORE!" and the crowd roared, I heard thunder, and the roof was blown off the Araneta Coliseum. I wish you were there.
All by myself, I was s...
October 24, 2010
MANILA (24 October) - The 3 days between 21 and 23 October 2010, had been a whirlwind for the Philippine Leg of Hitman: David Foster and Friends Asian Tour. Guess: Which way was the wind blowing? Was the wind beneath their wings? Did Charice knock the wind out of somebody´s sails? Who got a second w...
October 23, 2010
MANILA - Did you see her at the airport Thursday? Charice is as cute (little) as ever, as Asian as ever (brown, looking like the 100% Filipina that she is). She was of course with David Foster, Canadian-American, her mentor, her godfather (she as a returning Roman Catholic). Strutting like the winne...
October 22, 2010
MANILA - David Foster is in Manila! That´s a dream come true for Charice. In the first place, Charice has been egging him to visit the land of her birth, the home of her people - she loves them despite everything. And that should give you an idea that she has a sweet secret agenda as to why Da...
October 14, 2010
MANILA - Right away, let me arouse your interest and titillate your fancy by telling you I have a seductive girlfriend named AIDA and we excitingly share a common and passionate Hierarchy of Desire. You should be so lucky!
AIDA is involved in marketing, as women usually are. She has something to...
October 11, 2010
MANILA - "A baby is God´s opinion that the world should go on," Carl Sandburg says. Statistics is Man´s opinion that the mathematics of it should be reconsidered. "Be fruitful," God said. "But not multiply," Man said. Man has taken God out of the equation.
Yes to reproductive health?...
October 11, 2010
MANILA - I don´t go gaga over Lady Gaga, even if I love Charice and she sings her songs too. She´s the modern Lady Godiva. Rolling Stone is quite right about Lady Gaga: "A New York art diva who knew how to make a spectacle of herself" (rollingstone.com), and that sells records, and she knows that. S...
October 09, 2010
MANILA (07 October) - The air was clean for the almost-quiet launching of the Movement for Zero Waste Philippines we were all dreaming of, at least at the LS Virata Hall of the Development Academy of the Philippines´ headquarters along San Miguel Avenue in Pasig City. And the mountain of trash calle...
October 04, 2010
MANILA - Discovery News. Today, I realized I knew of a secret formula that shows how anyone of us at any time can practice the 7 Heavenly Virtues: chastity, temperance, charity, diligence, patience, kindness, and humility. You don´t believe me? Have some faith.
And all because yesterday my wife ...
October 02, 2010
NEW DELHI - It reads: Agriculture Leadership Awards. With the eye of a teacher and a journalist, I see that India´s Agriculture Today Magazine online, a monthly, is in a class by itself in Asia. I would call it The National Encourager. I´m talking of editorial intent, not content. I&acut...
September 28, 2010
MANILA - In Zimbabwe, I learn that the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, ICRISAT is telling a family that 9 kg/ha of nitrogen applied to corn is most profitable (icrisat.org). In the Philippines, I learn that the Open Academy for Philippine Agriculture, OPAPA, is reco...
September 25, 2010
MANILA - Out of Glee Season 2 Episode 1, Frank H nominates Rachel & Sunshine´s duel-duet in the john as American TV´s Most Memorable Magical Musical Moment of 2010, performing Beyoncé & Lady Gaga´s original twosome "Telephone." It is a cheerful catfight with gladiator proportions, a glad com...
September 21, 2010
ADDIS ABABA - This one is about small farmers thinking big, big donors thinking sex, Africa thinking of a really big revolution.
Africa needs a different kind of Green Revolution, USAID Mission Director Thomas Staal said (ethiopia.usembassy.gov). In fact, the African farmers were left behind by ...
September 18, 2010
LOS BAÑOS, LAGUNA (17 September) - I was born today 70 years ago, and the whole town of Los Baños is celebrating; how do you like that?!
It´s 1213 hours 17 September as I begin to write this, and I just came back from watching the parade of people walking about at the town plaza by the shore of L...
September 11, 2010
HYDERABAD - There was a National Dialogue on Building Leadership in Agricultural Research Management: Concerns and Future Strategy held in Hyderabad, India 27-28 August. On Day One, Director General William Dar of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, ICRISAT, spoke o...
September 05, 2010
MANILA - I start with this hypothesis: Stephen Hawking believes in God; the problem is, he doesn't know it! You don't believe me. The problem is, with his chariot of fire, he has failed to recognize, failed to acknowledge, and, unlike Alfred Lord Tennyson looking at a little flower, failed to know w...
September 01, 2010
MANILA - Was this Indiana lawyer's poem written in the 20th century based on a letter written by an apostle of Jesus in the 1st century? I had the bright idea years ago that Desiderata by the lawyer-poet Max Ehrmann writing in 1927 (Wikipedia) was inspired by Romans 12 by the letter-preacher Paul of...
September 01, 2010
Revised 01 September at 1342 hours ManilaMANILA (29 August 2010) - Smile. "Welcome Sir, welcome Ma´am." My son Jomar, his wife Clarisse, their child and baby Sean and Lucia, along with Malen, Nene, and I are attending the last session of the preaching series, T3: Secret of Big Returns of The Feast ...
August 30, 2010
Revised 30 August at 2245 hours ManilaMANILA (29 August 2010) - Smile. "Welcome Sir, welcome Ma´am." My son Jomar, his wife Clarisse, their child and baby Sean and Lucia, along with Malen, Nene, and I are attending the last session of the preaching series, T3: Secret of Big Returns of The Feast at ...
August 29, 2010
Revised 30 August at 0710 hours ManilaMANILA (29 August 2010) - Smile. "Welcome Sir, welcome Ma´am." My son Jomar, his wife Clarisse, their child and baby Sean and Lucia, along with Malen, Nene, and I are attending the last session of the preaching series, T3: Secret of Big Returns of The Feast at ...
August 27, 2010
MANILA - The 23 August 2010 Manila Bungle: Bus + jungle + mangled angle: It happened on a bus; the police came as if from the jungle, lacking something and a great many other; and the media showed the worst angle of the whole thing, showing ineptitude and decadence - on live TV. It was a bad day for...
August 23, 2010
Revised 24 August at 0820 hours Manila MANILA - The broadcast of the Miss Universe beauty pageant is yet at 0930 hours 24 August 2010; it´s 0231 hours as I begin typing the very first words of this essay, following my jottings yesterday afternoon after I read the blog of Joyce Burton Titular on "Mak...
August 23, 2010
MANILA - Morning has broken, and another. Morning becomes Electra, not mourning. It´s the morning after the day before, and the day before that, and I, while mourning the death of young, business-minded, beautiful, bright Melody Adelaide Manuel Gersbach from Albay, Miss Magayon 2008, Miss Bicolandia...
August 21, 2010
Revised 22 August at 0920 hours Manila
MANILA - How do you say goodbye in Bicol? How do you say goodbye to Miss Melody Adelaide Manuel Gersbach, Jewel of Beauty (Mutya ng Magayon) 2008? I never even saw her; I didn´t know her at all. I didn´t meet her when I was in Legazpi City for 6 days from 04 ...
August 20, 2010
Revised 12 September 2010 at 0450 hours Manila
MANILA - Investors in agriculture research must be exulting with the report of Mitch Renkow and Derek Byerlee that the efforts of CGIAR centers have "yielded strongly positive impacts relative to investment" (2010, "The impacts of CGIAR research: A rev...
August 19, 2010
LEGAZPI CITY - Here´s a lovely legend from Albay (from Wikipedia): Magayon was a beautiful maiden whom many an ancient young warrior in Albay wanted to marry. Pagtuga gave fabulous gifts to her to win her affection, but it was Panginorin who won her heart. Male ego hurt, Pagtuga challenged Panginori...
August 18, 2010
MANILA (17 August) - The subject of the email was "Last call for the Kauffman Labs Education Ventures Program" and as a teacher once and still at heart at 69, I was intrigued. You are never too old to be intrigued.
These words of Kauffman Labs caught my eye:
Interested in applying for the Kau...
August 15, 2010
BAGUIO CITY - This may not be your cup of pea, but it´s mine. The most delicious ice dessert in the Philippines, the halu-halo (stir-mix), I happily tasted twice last week in Albay, 1st in Tiwi in a kiosk at the back of the municipal building (07 August, courtesy of the provincial government o...
August 15, 2010
Revised 15 August at 2023 hours Manila time
LEGAZPI CITY - The Albayanons know of the blessings of beauty and the burdens of beasts, many beasts. They have learned to live with all of them, in serenity, urgency and emergency. They prepare to look at beauty every day; they also prepare to fight, bec...
August 13, 2010
LEGAZPI CITY - On 07 August, our 4th and penultimate day of a data-filled wow-learning visit as a party of a dozen or so members of the Philippine Network of Environmental Journalists, PNEJ, courtesy of the provincial government of Albay, at lunch time at the Governor´s residence when we were being ...
August 13, 2010
LEGAZPI CITY - The whole of Albay Province has been the unofficial field laboratory for authentic "Championing of Climate Change Adaptation" since Joey Sarte Salceda became Governor in 2007 (and was reelected this year). This has come about for 2 reasons:
One, because Albay is home to the most d...
August 12, 2010
This is an essay into the vocabulary of climate change, as far as I know the first of its kind in the world, that of communicating about this modern threat to mankind, starting with the absolutes and the assumptions. An initial effort, Version 1.0, it is meant to motivate minds into discussing what ...
August 11, 2010
This is the Inaugural Address for the International Conference on Plant Nutrition being held 11-13 August 2010 at the Patancheru, Andhra Pradesh campus of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, ICRISAT. The main organizers of the conference are ICRISAT and Infinitus Ag...
August 10, 2010
PLANET EARTH (10 August) - 35-22-35, black hair, brown eyes, 5 ft 9 in, Filipina. Remember the name: Maria Venus Raj. Maria is the mother of Jesus; Venus (Roman) is Aphrodite (Greek) - goddess of love - and Raj (Indian) means dominion or rule (American Heritage Dictionary). Translation: Aphrodite Ru...
August 06, 2010
Legazpi City (05 August) - At home in Legazpi City, Albay Governor Joey Salceda is in his element, even as he smokes. In about an hour of question-and-answer with us, a dozen with the party of the Philippine Network of Environmental Journalists, with PNEJ President Imelda Abaño leading, Salceda expl...
July 28, 2010
First published 28 July at 2200 hours with the title "7 must-have-its. Sean Covey´s book for teenagers"
A good book is for sharing. At home, we have a good-size collection of about 1,000 books. I have read at least 500 of them, not to mention some other 500 I don´t see around anymore. At 69, eith...
July 28, 2010
MANILA - Just to set the record straight, I voted for President Gilberto "Gibo" Teodoro, who turned out to be the Tin Man in these narrow, wonderful islands of Oz; I didn´t vote for Noynoy Aquino, who instead of the Scarecrow I thought he was, turned out to be the Uncowardly Lion. Roar! Not yellow. ...
July 25, 2010
By her own admission, GMA (Gloria Macapagal Arroyo) rightfully assessed that over the last decades; our republic has become one of the weakest, steadily left behind by its more progressive neighbors.´ Forty years ago, we were only second to Japan in economic stature, and way ahead of Singapore, Hong...
July 23, 2010
Revised 03 August 2010 at 0550 hoursMANILA - Having researched extensively & intensively in order to write a book about Charice in the last 11 months since September 2009, and being now in my final revision of the manuscript, I can now offer you several insights into this young girl´s life so fa...
July 22, 2010
My Short Essay About The Philippines
By Jaeyoun KimEdited by Frank A Hilario 22 July 2010. I am re-presenting it after all these years this essay has been circulating in the Internet, because it is all so true, frank and honest and simple and doable. And don´t forget that the Philippines is the o...
July 18, 2010
MANILA - "If you´re not careful, you might learn something," comedian Bill Cosby says. In no comedic terms, in Isabela, with a master title to some land, I have just spent more than 1 week figuring out how to deal with human-rights thinking tenants becoming, as they claim, landowners through Emancip...
July 15, 2010
An interview with Director General William Dar of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, ICRISAT, which is based in India. ICRISAT is at the leading edge of science in assistance of poor farming communities in the drylands of Asia and Africa. It is multi-awarded, the m...
July 13, 2010
Revised 17 July at 0629 hoursROXAS CITY (13 July) - Anxiously, I´m anticipating Charice's 3-day concert tour in Manila 15, 16 & 17 July, 2 days from now, but I´m still in Roxas City, Isabela, about 400 kilometers away, and not about to leave this City until the 15th, which means I´ll have a bus ...
July 10, 2010
MANILA - With a new Philippine President, do we expect new winds of change blowing across the archipelago? Winds of change of climate, I´m sure. Winds of change of political will? That remains to be seen. Noynoy Aquino won on the promise of change, and he reiterated his promise during his inau...
July 09, 2010
MANILA (07 July) - Traveling on ordinary fare by bus from Dagupan City in Pangasinan to Roxas City in Isabela, looking out the window for most of the long 10 hours of that trip by Victory Liner, despite the heat, reading the signs, I was a little amused when 2 thoughts struck me, when I realized tha...
July 03, 2010
Revised 05 July at 0419 hoursMANILA - Mathematically, I´ve just figured out Noynoy Aquino: E=mc2, Executiveness equals memorandum multiplied by the speed of issuance of the circular squared. Squared means a thing multiplied by itself, c x c. If you keep thinking of memorandum circulars, you keep squ...
June 30, 2010
Revised English translation at 0510 hours 2 July
Inaugural Speech of President Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III delivered at Rizal Park 30 June 2010. Untitled original text from visitpinas.com, presented here with editing and after comparing with a recorded version of the actual speech. What follows th...
June 29, 2010
Revised at 1938 hours 29 June MANILA (28 June 2010) – Early today, the Philippines is "unveiling what it aims to be the world´s longest mural painting on canvas" in Batangas City (Dennis Carcamo, philstar.com). For public viewing. Through the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, BFAR and the O...
June 25, 2010
EARTH - BASF has come up with a YouTube video titled "One Hungry Planet." It´s about "how farmers are feeding a hungry planet," Cindy says (13 June, AgWired). It´s more about how farmers are failing in feeding a hungry planet, I say - that´s why we have One Hungry Planet!
I beg your pardon; I´ve...
June 24, 2010
MANILA (23 June) - Ah, Miley Cyrus hates Glee! according to Hilton Hater (01 June, The Hollywood Gossip). What´s the matter: Miley doesn´t like the concept of the show? Know then: The school glee club in Glee is "full of losers" (Linda Matchan, 24 April, Boston Globe). It´s about a school choir "ful...
June 22, 2010
Revised 23 June at 0400 hours MANILA (21 June) - Clean energy is climate change adaptation, which must be a global effort. It is an acknowledgment that mankind´s greenhouse gas emissions are the ones causing dramatic climate changes. The response must be in two forms: for unclean energy, higher eff...
June 19, 2010
Revised 21 June at 0506 hours Manila
CALAMBA CITY (19 June) - It was newly reelected Joaquin "Jun" Chipeco Jr´s idea to invite newly appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Renato Corona to be the Guest of Honor and Main Speaker in today´s 149th Birth Anniversary of the National Hero Jose Riza...
June 18, 2010
CALAMBA CITY - I visited today, 18 June, the House of Rizal, and it is as green as it was a year ago as I had written (see my "House of Rizal. I saw it painted green, I saw red," 04 June 2009, My Jose Rizal, Blogspot). I quoted the National Historical Institute, with Ambeth Ocampo as Chair of the In...
June 17, 2010
Revised 19 June at 0433 hours Manila
TORONTO - Can you believe it? "Charice Takes Over Toronto" was the headline of a report posted by ANN (author not named, 05 June, charicemania.com). Wednesday, 02 June, Charice took over Radio Disney; Thursday, 03 June, she took over CTV Canada AM and MuchMusi...
June 14, 2010
MANILA (14 June) - Because of a Tagalog translation in an Administrative Order of the Department of Health, the values of antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, fruit juices, oils and phytochemical food and health supplements are in danger of being deleted from the vocabulary of Filipinos chasing after a...
June 13, 2010
MANILA (13 June) - How do you solve a problem like Manila? "Give us time," would-be President Noynoy Aquino says about fixing the problems of the Philippines (Delon Porcalla, 13 June, philstar.com). "I wish the people would give us time. We cannot fix problems acquired over the decades overnight." A...
June 12, 2010
Revised 13 June at 0545 hours, Manila
ROXAS, ISABELA, Northern Luzon, Philippines (11 June) - Burgos, Isabela was a long 8-1/2-hour Victory bus ride from Bagsakan in Villasis, Pangasinan, which was a 1/2-hour ride from my hometown of Asingan, Pangasinan Aside from the never-ending passing windows ...
June 10, 2010
Revised 11 June 2010 at 1226 hours, Roxas, Isabela
ROXAS, ISABELA, Northern Luzon, Philippines (10 June) - Global warming calls for global thinking and local action. I happen to be in the agriculture sector, being a graduate of the College of Agriculture of the University of the Philippines (1965),...
June 10, 2010
ROXAS, ISABELA, Northern Luzon, Philippines (09 June) - This is a rice countryside; this is also a hot, dry countryside, with rivers not rising because there isn´t even enough water to rise to its own level. And with that, if you know how farmers grow rice, there is a looming crisis of irrigat...
June 09, 2010
ROXAS, ISABELA, Northern Luzon, Philippines (07 June) - I´m a man with a mission. I´m here in the boondocks right now - and we´re having a blackout as I revise this evening of 08 June - since I actually reside in a town 500 kilometers away and have no plans of putting up residence ...
June 06, 2010
Revised 08 June 1124 hours, Roxas, Isabela
ROXAS, ISABELA (07 June 2010) - It is noon when I begin this; it is half past four in the afternoon when I finish. I´m in the boondocks; I don´t like what I see in the ricefields - very littie green - riding on a motorized cart from Gamu to Burgos to Roxa...
June 03, 2010
MANILA - "It's been a great day!" Po Garden said at the end of the one-day Environmental Media Workshop that culminated in the launching of the Philippine Network of Environmental Journalists, PNEJ today, 03 June 2010, at the Heritage Hotel Manila. The Earth Journalism Network, EJN is the advocate a...
June 01, 2010
MANILA – Environmental journalists do not have a monopoly of the truth – they are part of it, so they must learn to deal with it with intelligence and insight. To help each other out, on 03 June Thursday at the Heritage Hotel, the Philippine Network of Environmental Journalists (PNEJ) will be formal...
June 01, 2010
Revised 02 June at 0222 hours
MANILA (31 May 2010) - Did you say Glee? Yes, I note the Pocholo Concepcion Glee Affair that which dragged Ms Grace Mendoza to a juncture not of her own choosing (see Pocholo Concepcion's "Charice's 'done deal' sparks row," 29 May, inquirer.net and Neil Ramos' "Charice...
May 30, 2010
Revised 31 May 2010 at 0340 hours
MANILA - US-based Filipino (who prefer to refer to themselves as Pilipino) professionals in the East Coast "are holding Noynoy Aquino to his promises of a new dawn of hope for their country" (Amado P Macasaet, "US Pinoys hold Noynoy to his campaign promises," 28 Ma...
May 29, 2010
MANILA - 20 May 2010: Here is where the story is now: Her self-titled album CHARICE debuted at #8 in the Billboard Top 200 Albums the week after its release, the same week after Charice debuted the album at Oprah on 11 May 2010 and sang "Pyramid" with Iyaz (Rowena Joy A Sanchez, mb.com.ph). Charice ...
May 27, 2010
ADDAKAL - We are in a cluster of 37 villages spread over 19,397 hectares in Addakal Mandal in the Mahabubnagar District of Andhra Pradesh in India. Here, ICRISAT tells me there are many more animals (87,000 head) than humans (52,000 heads) (vasat.icrisat.ac.in). I find that funny, as I think the ani...
May 26, 2010
MANILA - People say life's not fair and I ask why? Noynoy Aquino defeated my presidential candidate Gibo Teodoro by millions and millions of votes. If the majority is always right, that explains why life's not fair. And so, the voice of the people cannot be the voice of God - because life's not fair...
May 22, 2010
MANILA - Something happened between yesterday and today: I reinvented CHARICE. Almost 24 hours after I uploaded my latest essay on Charice - see "The Charice Advantage. Pop Princess? Not quite" (21 May, American Chronicle) - I have had a flash of insight into how to boost the sales of the ...
May 21, 2010
MANILA - After the release of her self-titled debut album at the Oprah Winfrey Show no less on 11 May, the day after her 18th birthday, I'm happily waiting for the next miracle to happen in the life of Charice, everybody's singing wunderkind: Album CHARICE becoming #1 in the Billboard 200 Chart. Act...
May 16, 2010
MANILA - "Bloc voting is alive and well in the Philippines" is a believable conclusion based on the credible analysis by Ramon Casiple of the Institute of Political and Electoral Reform that "over 90% of voters in 326 clustered precincts around the country had the same choice for Pres...
May 15, 2010
This series is part of my self-imposed YouTube Police campaign to encourage the use of English and not any other language used - especially not Tagalog (Filipino), even if I am myself a Filipino - in comments in YouTube Charice. I shifted to this tactic when I realized that being smart with repartee...
May 14, 2010
This series is part of my self-imposed YouTube Police campaign to encourage more positive comments in YouTube Charice (http://www.youtube.com/user/charice) and discourage negative comments, at least of the destructive or disruptive kind. I shifted to this tactic when I realized that being smart with...
May 12, 2010
MANILA - On the same day, 10 May 2010, your Noynoy Aquino won the Philippine presidential election; my Gibo Teodoro won the presidential campaign; and our birthday girl Charice won the American musical campaign and landed at #1 on the Billboard Dance/Club Play Chart, her single "Pyramid" o...
May 11, 2010
MANILA - When St Therese of Lisieux (full name Marie Francoise Therese Martin) of France was born on 02 January 1873, the last child among 9, she was so weak and frail her father Louis and mother Zelie were certain she would die sooner or later, just like her other 4 siblings before her. The Martins...
May 10, 2010
MANILA (Elections 2010) - Some Americans love to call Filipinos Flips, and they aren't kidding - they aren't kind either. Flips is a derogatory term derived from the acronym "Flip" - "fucking little island people," referring to Filipinos. I'm about to show you that Flip as a 4-le...
May 09, 2010
MANILA (Election Eve, 2010) - You say "Filipinos" and I say "Flipinos" - if you don't get it, either your brain isn't that sharp, your eyes are poor, or your spelling is bad. The 2010 presidential selection in the Philippines is going to teach us something new, and not only about...
May 09, 2010
MANILA - I'm alone, but this is a date I must always remember. Friday, 07 May 2010, I am at the Rizal Memorial Sports Complex football field as early as an hour before the appointed time of 5 o'clock in the afternoon. I never joined a Green Rally before, and I'm not wearing anything green now. If th...
May 08, 2010
Revised 09 May 2010 at 0800 hours
MANILA - This coming Monday, 10 May, I will celebrate the coming of age of the United States, and coming of age of the Philippines. Both have something to do with thinking positively. With Flips. With Charice and Gilberto "Gibo" Teodoro, 2 model Flips.
...
May 07, 2010
MANILA - "Lack of mass appeal keeps Gibo at 4th place," says Perry Callanta of the UP Beta Sigma Fraternity, who is a "political consultant and election strategist" according to ANN (author not named, ABS-CBN, ph.news.yahoo.com). I'm unimpressed. Assertion and appellation don't a...
May 06, 2010
MANILA - The PCOS mocked the people during the mock election in some places in Metro Manila and Mindoro Province last Monday: They didn't count the votes (Leo Reyes, 04 May, Digital Journal). The PCOS (pronounced pecos) are the Precinct Count Optical Scan machines, and they failed to read some votes...
May 06, 2010
MANILA - How green is my valley! Well, that's a dream. With climate change upon us, I'm always dreaming of green leaves drinking the carbon dioxide from the air and converting it into food and wood, and converting my worries into clean air. Green for me is the only thing that will sustain this Earth...
May 05, 2010
MANILA - In the silence of the lambs, how can I ignore Pastor Apollo Carreon Quiboloy's trumpet call for healing the Filipino nation when I have just edited a book on healing a Christian's psyche? I don't care if I am a mere member of the Roman Catholic Church and he is the supreme head of the non-C...
May 05, 2010
MANILA - Roman Catholic, I have not paid any attention to any of the past religious views expressed and pastoral pronouncements made by Apollo Carreon Quiboloy, founder and head of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ (The Name Above Every Name) based in Davao City in Mindanao, who has adopted the title &quo...
May 04, 2010
MANILA - Agence France Presse reports that TV evangelist Pastor Apollo Quiboloy has thrown his support behind former Defense Secretary Gilbert "Gibo" Teodoro as candidate for President (03 May, The Sydney Morning Herald, smh.com.au). Quiboloy endorsed Teodoro on Sunday during the annual th...
May 03, 2010
Revised at 0729 hours 04 May 2010
MANILA - Last Sunday, 02 May, was my first time to attend the Holy Mass at Valle Verde Country Clubhouse, Pasig City, and I was with my eldest son Jomar and his wife Clarisse and their children Sean and Lucia, and my daughters Neenah and Ela. The previous 2 days th...
May 01, 2010
MUMBAI - 2010 is the Year of Biodiversity as declared by the United Nations, and I am reading a related report by Sreenath Dixit, JC Tewari, SP Wani, C Vineela, AK Chaurasia and HB Panchal: "Participatory Biodiversity Assessment: Enabling Rural Poor for Better Natural Resource Management."...
April 30, 2010
MANILA - Question: Do we have enough intelligent respondents? Opinion polls are having a field day, as usual. I´m not buying in. They can buy me a drink, but I´m not going to buy sight unseen, not even buy on credit. And no, I don´t give them credit. They have the data, but they do...
April 22, 2010
In the year of living biodiversity, the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, "ICRISAT joins more than one billion people in 190 countries across the globe in celebrating ´Earth Day 2010´on April 22," Director General William Dar said. "Four decades after the first Earth ...
April 19, 2010
INDIA - 2010 is the Chinese Year of the Tiger. It might as well be, as the tiger is one of the endangered species; it was declared so in 1969 yet or 41 years ago (theinsite.org). The year's name goes well with the UN declaration of 2010 as the International Year of Biodiversity - a global call to pr...
April 12, 2010
EARTH - The Pyramid of Charice on YouTube is all about love and marketing a one-in-a-million phenomenon and freedom of speech - and freedom from foul language. Foul is a 4-letter word I don't like. Love is a 4-letter word I cherish. Borrowing from Charice saying about being the Ambassador of Smile, ...
April 07, 2010
Revised 0809 hours 08 March Manila
EARTH - This is the story of an angel that entertained, and was aware that she did, and everyone was aware that she was an angel.
That would be Charice, New York Post's "New Pop Princess" and Us Weekly Magazine's "Next Great Pop Diva" - whom I call "Princess o...
April 06, 2010
By William D. Dar Director General, ICRISAT Speech at the Commencement of the Central Mindanao University, Southern Philippines, delivered 06 April 2010
The Board of Regents, President Victor Barroso, officials of the University, distinguished guests, graduating students and their parents, facult...
March 31, 2010
THE SAHEL - The plot thickens! You are in West Africa, in Sahel, between the devil (Sahara Desert) and the deep blue sea (actually the Red Sea). Where is the corpus delicti here, the body of crime? Who was responsible for those 100,000 dead bodies? Sherlock Holmes: "Elementary, My Dear Watson, ...
March 29, 2010
MANILA - With the release of her unofficial music video on her single Pyramid, with the impending release of her first international album self-titled CHARICE, while Charice is turning out to be the biggest international music sensation today, in American Chronicle, I have just deleted all my articl...
March 27, 2010
Set your eyes on the Pyramid and never take them off. Be kind to those who cannot appreciate the wonder of it all. Pyramid! Break through all those glass ceilings experts have erected for their glee! Break down all walls of all Jerichos that geniuses have erected around their citadels for their satisfaction! Bring us to all who love pure, honest, vibrant, explosive music! Bring us to the Top, with a full view of the world below, embracing all, including those who would rather not be embraced by love!
March 24, 2010
MANILA - Policy, investments, and journalists are necessary to confront a major challenge of our generation, Nick Keyes said, referring to clean energy. For the longer term, it must get the attention and treatment it deserves, Peter du Pont said. Keyes is the Communications Director of USAID ECO-Asi...
March 05, 2010
PATANCHERU – Can drought be overmastered in village scale by villagers themselves? The answer is "Adarsha." That is one of the lessons the world stands to learn from the creative science of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, ICRISAT based in this town in India. In ...
March 05, 2010
Last revised 05 March 2010 at 1411 hours Manila MANILA - Not looking sensational, not looking sexy, but looking serious, she shocks the Philippine Society for the Study of the Aging Male with her bold & bare pronouncement. Greek Agnes, pure; Spanish Bueno, good. You can´t have it better than that.
...
March 04, 2010
MANILA - Half-expecting to partake of fresh mangoes and to meet & greet rival candidates for Congress of the 6th District of Pangasinan General Hermogenes Esperon and Vice Governor Marlyn P Agabas today, Wednesday, the 24th of February, I am at the auditorium of the Narciso Ramos Sports & Ci...
March 02, 2010
Revised 4 March 2010 at 2256 hours Manila time
MANILA - The acronym for the title is iTEAMer, the name of my new blog, in case you did not notice. Only the Ilocanos can boast of a candidate for President who is a manager, an ecologist and a reformer.
Gilberto "Gibo" Teodoro is green and belie...
March 01, 2010
MANILA - Presidentiable Noynoy Aquino (Liberal Party) has been reported to belittle the survey ratings of presidentiable Manny Villar (Nacionalista Party), saying, "Ah, may survey na matino, may survey na nabibili seguro sa Quiapo" (Michael Lim Ubac, inquirer.net). There are surveys that are s...
February 23, 2010
LINGAYEN – Tomorrow begins the 12th National Mango Congress, 24-26 February 2010, in Lingayen, the capital town of Pangasinan, at the Narciso Ramos Sports & Cultural Center, NRSCC. Tomorrow officially begins a national effort, wherein "Mango congress seeks to save P400-M wastage" in ma...
February 21, 2010
MANILA - 2010 is the Year of Biodiversity as declared by the United Nations. It is a new year of living dangerously. The imperfect storm called Climate Change has remained stationary over much more of the Third World, threatening low-tolerance countryside villages and low-income stream dwellers squa...
February 20, 2010
MANILA - Boring. That´s what this essay is all about. Precisely! I want to help make it interesting enough to talk about, write about. Have you heard of biodiversity - probably not. Short for biological diversity, the term biodiversity was coined by Walter G Rosen in 1988, or 22 years ago (EO Wilson...
February 19, 2010
Homo sapiens is the species that thinks - and forgets!
February 17, 2010
PATANCHERU (INDIA) - Who is science that man should be mindful of him? Borrowing from Marshall McLuhan, science is an extension of man, and so it must serve him, even as scientists must be mindful of Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs, 5 groups: physiological needs (like food and water), safety, be...
February 17, 2010
Why invest in the poor in the drylands of Africa and Asia? If not, why not? If not now, when?
January 22, 2010
In addition to new seeds, farmers also need training, access to markets, organizations to represent their interests.
January 21, 2010
The medium is the message - what if the medium isn't listening or paying attention?
January 06, 2010
Heroes are made; they are born babies.
December 27, 2009
There should be no drought of awards for climate change changers.
December 26, 2009
Re-introducing the most misunderstood Philippine hero.
December 25, 2009
Someone just texted me: "Have you given anything to Jesus already?" I know the texter is a Protestant and I am a Roman Catholic. This is my answer repeated 13 times: The gift of love is the best because it is impossible: Try and love your enemies! The gift of love is the best because it is impossibl...
December 21, 2009
Give love on Christmas Day! And every day thereafter.
December 14, 2009
To be able to adapt to climate change, we must look across time - both the past and the future.
December 12, 2009
Creative capitalism goes after the poor - after the rich.
December 09, 2009
Can you find love in your Internet marketing? You have to.
December 09, 2009
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation goes after the best & the brightest to devote their careers to the cause of improving developing-country agriculture around the world.
December 08, 2009
Agriculture needs Copenhagen; Copenhagen needs agriculture.
December 08, 2009
Empowerment is talking about problems and working hand-in-hand to find solutions.
December 02, 2009
Is Copenhagen calling the shots, or shooting the calls?
November 30, 2009
Mall of Asia is world's #1; Manila Biotech is #5, and Nestle Nido Science Discovery Center is 1st.
November 24, 2009
Not being voted a hero doesn't make me less.
November 21, 2009
With climate changte, excellent science is not enough: it must be innovative.
November 19, 2009
Pest management should not be at the expense of the environment, or people.
November 19, 2009
Revised 15 January 2010
MANILA - Are you looking for a miracle in Copenhagen in December? So am I. Only a miracle can save the day for climate change in that premier city of Northern Europe, Scandinavia's "most fantastic city" (Copenhagen.com). This city has the oldest monarchy in the ...
November 19, 2009
Everyone is talking about the weather, but not the farmer.
November 15, 2009
The change to change climate change begins with you.
November 10, 2009
Climate change is expected to expand drylands by 11% - do you expect it to expand your drylands of concern?
November 09, 2009
How to learn creative thinking where you least expect.
November 05, 2009
If we don't change, climate change will change us. If you don't define your terms, who will? If not now, when?
October 30, 2009
The fastest carbon sink on earth, and you can find it in your farm, field, or backyard garden
October 29, 2009
I'm tired being pro-poor. Being pro-poor is hard work. I now am pro-rich!
October 28, 2009
Climate change is not about energy; it's about lifestyle.
October 27, 2009
The editors of the law were sleeping on this one; was theirs the sleep of the just?
October 25, 2009
In Copenhagen in December, will the big boys believe their own lines?
October 21, 2009
If we don't mitigate Climate Change, Climate Change will mitigate us.
October 16, 2009
The Gospel of the Poor Farmers according to Bill Gates.
October 10, 2009
Those who graduated from the University of the Philippines know that UP is incomparable. If you're not UP, you're DOWN!
October 07, 2009
What gathers people, shelters, warms, comforts and lends them dignity and, surprise, it glows?
September 27, 2009
The Perfect Storm is between Science and Political Will.
September 23, 2009
A perfect storm is brewing in Buenos Aires - and the scientists are talking about it.
September 20, 2009
HYDERABAD – India! Land of the Tiger. Land of Mystery. Land of Ancient Wisdom. We are in the City of Pearls, in the State of Andhra Pradesh in India. And about 25 km from here is Patancheru, where we find the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, ICRISAT, the leading inst...
September 20, 2009
When climate change comes, can winters be far behind?
September 17, 2009
When I celebrate my birthday, a whole University Town celebrates with me!
September 15, 2009
To be President, Noynoy Aquino has to learn from Phil Jackson, Frank Baum - and he has to have Vision.
September 12, 2009
The BBC goes to India for brown sugar.
September 10, 2009
The developing climate change and the developing countries
September 09, 2009
'I am running' - Senator Noynoy Aquino
August 24, 2009
We have enough of popular martyrs. And popular widows.
August 14, 2009
Every man's life enriches me, for I am involved in mankind. If that man knows how to love truly.
August 12, 2009
Climate change calls for a change in thinking. Do you know what agriculture has wrought?!
August 10, 2009
It's easy to delete a life; how do you undelete?
August 01, 2009
Life is a morality play, but we can't simply watch it.
July 31, 2009
A new paradigm for technical writing and publishing: Elsevier's Article for the Future.'
July 30, 2009
Is Google after market share? No, after you.
July 27, 2009
Here's to learning new tricks from old dogs!
July 26, 2009
What is the color of a cure for cancer?
July 23, 2009
The email grows on you if you're not uptight.
July 21, 2009
International collaboration is the call of the times, especially in computer-based training.
July 20, 2009
I'm interested in a purpose-driven email - are you?
July 18, 2009
With email, I am Harry Potter and the Half-Blog Prince!
July 17, 2009
If you don't love your email, who will? If not now, when? If not you, who?
July 17, 2009
What can you do with the mouse on Windows Vista? A few tricks you can easily learn.
July 14, 2009
A family approach to business you haven't heard of.
July 12, 2009
'Michael saw everything with his heart' - Brooke Shields.
July 10, 2009
If not I, who? If not now, when? A challenge to the scientists and scholars of the University of the Philippines.
July 10, 2009
The flu virus has many strains? So do swine!
July 05, 2009
A tribute to a Filipino revolutionary, journalist and thinker who showed that an Ethiopian can change his skin, a leopard can change his spots.
July 03, 2009
Agriculture may be the riskiest business there is - when a farmer fails because of weather or pest, the business loss can be 100%.
July 01, 2009
Being the best one can be, doing the best one can
June 30, 2009
'Climate Change is real,' says ICRISAT Director General William Dar. If symptoms persist, consult your science doctor.
June 30, 2009
The rich must do much for the poor; along with that, the poor must do much more for themselves.
June 27, 2009
Tony Buzan's Mind Map? Not creative enough for me. Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way? I'd rather do it my way.
June 26, 2009
Now, you can learn to do good technical writing, at no expense to you except time.
June 25, 2009
What can I do with the PC? Let me count the ways.
June 23, 2009
Iran's protest movement must now graduate into a people movement.
June 21, 2009
MORE FOODS AT LESS COSTS for more dryland farmers in Asia – this was the message of Director General William Dar of ICRISAT at the opening day of an Asian gathering of scientists in the City of Hyderabad yesterday, 21 June Manila time. Dar was Guest of Honor at the First Asian PGPR Congress for Sust...
June 19, 2009
Can you sell a sex video in your data storage device as an anthropological artifact? You can try.
June 17, 2009
Conservation Agriculture is better described as Saving Agriculture. Learn all about it!
June 14, 2009
June is a Pride Month for the Filipinos - they are celebrating the National Hero's birthday, 19 June 1861, not frivolity.
June 13, 2009
Revised 13 June 2009. The original short essay Advice #1 of 09 June has expanded into 7 different short essays uploaded separately – after suddenly yesterday I wanted to dramatize the phenomenon called People Power in distinct contrast with what Imperial Manila is now trying to raise to the nth powe...
June 13, 2009
Revised 13 June 2009. The original short essay Advice #1 of 09 June has expanded into 7 different short essays uploaded separately – after suddenly yesterday I wanted to dramatize the phenomenon called People Power in distinct contrast with what Imperial Manila is now trying to raise to the nth powe...
June 13, 2009
Thinking systems is like thinking of Cancer - what you don't know can hurt you.
June 12, 2009
Revised 13 June 2009. The original short essay Advice #1 of 09 June has expanded into 7 different short essays uploaded separately – after suddenly yesterday I wanted to dramatize the phenomenon called People Power in distinct contrast with what Imperial Manila is now trying to raise to the nth powe...
June 12, 2009
Revised 13 June 2009. The original short essay Advice #1 of 09 June has expanded into 7 different short essays uploaded separately – after suddenly yesterday I wanted to dramatize the phenomenon called People Power in distinct contrast with what Imperial Manila is now trying to raise to the nth powe...
June 12, 2009
Revised 13 June 2009. The original short essay Advice #1 of 09 June has expanded into 7 different short essays uploaded separately – after suddenly yesterday I wanted to dramatize the phenomenon called People Power in distinct contrast with what Imperial Manila is now trying to raise to the nth powe...
June 09, 2009
To call for People Power 3, you need someone with the charisma of Jaime Cardinal Sin. Where is he?
June 09, 2009
New! Hilario's Idea: How to learn from mistakes
June 06, 2009
Tony's Will is invoked on Tony first. To invoke political will on others, you may invoke the law, if the law is on your side.
June 03, 2009
Did you know that the Philippine National Hero, Jose Rizal, was Red and Green? He wanted both Revolution and Reformation.
June 01, 2009
Blessed are the poor when they become financially free. Blessed are the rich when they become financially independent, when they untie themselves from their material wealth, when they share it with the poor.
May 27, 2009
The Filipinos have always been good in raising Cain; the Indians are good in raising cane now.
May 22, 2009
Shame and scandal in the family. Whose family?
May 19, 2009
Genomics can create the seeds to populate Earth, especially the barren parts, to combat climate change.
May 17, 2009
Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the Nobel laureate, has cancer, and has written a farewell letter, which I find almost as boring as his bestselling book 'One Hundred Years of Solitude.' I'm reading on Annona muricata as a natural cure for cancer, which I find exciting.
May 15, 2009
My hometown of Asingan, once the vegetable bowl of the province of Pangasinan in Central Luzon in the Philippines, now buys its vegetables from the next town. A modern story of modern farming.
May 11, 2009
Susan Boyle came from a big family; Manny Pacquiao came from a broken family. They dared to dream divine and went ahead and did it.
May 09, 2009
It was not the WHO who triggered the pandemic flu panic - it was the lack of knowledge.
May 07, 2009
Why the Americans don't have a monopoly of American corn.
May 05, 2009
Boxing Superhero teaches us some English, in case you're paying attention.
May 03, 2009
When we little Filipinos are good, we're the biggest best! We have the Superhero of Boxing: Pac-Man.
April 29, 2009
After all, CATHOLICS are the MOST CREATIVE MINDS: Try St Therese of the Little Flower for size! Subscribe to the Catholic Ethic: Faith & works, theory & practice. Not separate Church & State. 'The Catholic's Way' accepts the oral & written past (Holy Traditions & Bible) and present (Teaching Authority of the Church, or Magisterium). The Catholic's Way is truly self-empowering. Creativity is revelation, inspired by the past, informed by the present. Lovely!
April 26, 2009
Where the man with the hoe is not a painting.
April 11, 2009
Your Diet Soda & my Diet Satire.
April 09, 2009
Here's the world's first satire on satire! Cheap shot on cheapskates.
April 07, 2009
Brainstorming is out, Brainshopping is in.
April 05, 2009
You can't have science without human faces.
March 29, 2009
We wax poetic about the sunset in a bay and we make it septic.
March 28, 2009
Thinking out of the box is still thinking of the box.
March 24, 2009
Creativity is thinking out of the box into the circle.
March 17, 2009
Here's how I can't lose them all.
March 16, 2009
By shifting paradigms, ICRISAT has made itself creative, productive.
March 11, 2009
Honesty is the best policy - assuming you practice it.
March 10, 2009
Francism is more than love of country; it's love of fellowmen.
March 05, 2009
'There are only four secrets to staying young, being happy and achieving success' - Rose, 87 years old. She got her college education at that age; she had fun.
February 26, 2009
The male is the weaker sex, and the women prove it!
February 23, 2009
A gift is never magnified if it is never shared.
February 20, 2009
I'm counting my blessings; how about you?
February 12, 2009
In what context is Barack Obama saying? 'Change we can believe in.'
February 11, 2009
The Brown American is funny, very funny.
February 03, 2009
You can't teach old dogs new tricks? Old dogs can teach you!
January 25, 2009
A modern Jack & the Beans Talk
January 24, 2009
You can reinvent the rainbow - I just did.
January 19, 2009
Rediscover Microsoft Word 2003 for yourself.
January 08, 2009
Corruptions covers a multitude of sinners.
December 23, 2008
You can't love too much.
December 25, 2008
Here's my gift to you: The journey of Christmas is the reward.
December 27, 2008
PacMan is not in the same league as Golden Boy. Golden Boy is gross, PacMan is great!
December 19, 2008
The Rotary 4-Way reinvented, this time for Science.
December 19, 2008
To succeed, you need a team.
December 15, 2008
'Don't put all your eggs in one basket' is true for stocks and crops.
November 29, 2008
Reproductive Health? Love for sale
November 27, 2008
The little people we will always have with us, if we don't think big.
November 24, 2008
He wants you to be simple. She wants you to be simple.
November 19, 2008
To prevent a Fall, keep up the Good Works.
November 10, 2008
Water is life. Water is people. Water is problems.
November 03, 2008
I believe in grounding policy on science grounded on practice, not theory.
November 02, 2008
It's the old top-down or bottom-up question.
October 27, 2008
Creative Capitalism gives birth to Creative Science.
September 16, 2008
I preach genius - what do you preach?
September 03, 2008
Is your faith proper, pleasing and perfect?
July 02, 2008
Laugh, and the world loves with you.
June 27, 2008
Where the pixels are more important than the Big Picture.
June 25, 2008
If you ask for a miracle, who do you turn to?
June 15, 2008
To err is human, to forgive divine.
June 14, 2008
Of the 3 owners of development, the poor cannot be more equal than the other 2, nor the rich.
June 07, 2008
When teachers spell disaster.
June 06, 2008
Science without the Change Agent is dead.
June 04, 2008
He is one of the best surgeons IN the Philippines.
May 20, 2008
You can't have our food and we eat it too!
May 08, 2008
You learn vocabulary in context, not in memory.
May 04, 2008
Microsoft: The Greatest Escape Artist of All Time?
April 29, 2008
With his slogan 'Change we can all believe in,' Barack Obama will bring Pace to America, but not Peace.
April 27, 2008
For blogging, Windows Live Writer gets 4.5 stars from me, Google Docs 3 stars.
April 24, 2008
Science has no choice but to reject the Malthusian theory.
April 23, 2008
The road ahead? No, look far ahead!
April 21, 2008
Excellence is usually in people, not data.
April 20, 2008
How can you look at the water cycle and not see yourself?
April 15, 2008
'Manila is the heart of the pool world' - Gerry Watson
April 13, 2008
PowerPoint is Show. But first, what do you have to Tell?
April 11, 2008
In the fight against Google, has Microsoft run out of options? No, ideas.
April 03, 2008
Revolution in prison? No. Revolution in person.
March 30, 2008
I do not believe in the separation of Church & State. I believe in the separation of princely language from unpriestly language.
March 22, 2008
Behold, I give you a new mantra for creative writing!
March 17, 2008
How to launch a revolution, with a view to history.
March 06, 2008
The HullabalLozada is short on logic and long on language.
March 05, 2008
BO hypes himself as the only hope for his country, and that's scary.
March 03, 2008
The Catholics have more to their faith than Protestants, and I can prove it.
February 29, 2008
The mass media in the Philippines seen as different groups of animals - they deserve each other.
February 25, 2008
Where are the Christians when you need them most!?
February 24, 2008
How to be (more) creative by fooling around with Word 2003's outline-organize feature
February 14, 2008
If you don't make the PC your slave, you are.
January 27, 2008
Maria Sharapova is World #1. She's prettier. She didn't win against Ana Ivanovic - she won against herself.
January 21, 2008
Here is a new formula for creative writing, borrowing from Einstein: E = mc2 (squared), where E is Enlightenment, m is mass of materials, and c is the speed of write.
January 16, 2008
A witty response to the claim of Professor Hartmut Michel (Nobel Laureate in Chemistry 1988) that growing biofuel crops results in net energy loss – it´s in the Professor´s assumption, approach, strategy.
January 16, 2008
Is the US smart enough to make a paradigm shift and make a sharp turn from corn to sweet sorghum? I doubt it. How about Brazil from sugarcane? As smart the United States, I guess.
January 07, 2008
Who am I talking to this time? They would be public speakers, lecturers, PowerPoint presentors, resource persons, debaters, reviewers, essayists, biographers, autobiographers, authors, ghostwriters, columnists, journalists, consultants, managers, even proposal packagers in science. And why is that? ...
January 02, 2008
A record, I suppose; for the record, I Francisco have written 100 Franciscan essays published online by the American Chronicle in the last 100 weeks, from February 2006 to December 2007. I didn´t count before, but those 100 now makes me feel I count a lot.
100 suddenly is important to me, ...
December 31, 2007
Today, December 31 (Manila time) is the day of the Holy Family of Jesus, Joseph & Mary according to the calendar of the Roman Catholic Church worldwide. In the Philippines, the only Roman Catholic country in Asia, the interjection ´susmaryosep!´ actually has the names of the Holy Family ...
December 29, 2007
Now that I´ve done my own bit of translating 19th century Spanish to 21st century English, I personally know that something is always lost in the translation. In the case of the greatest patriotic poem of that century, ´Adios, Patria Adorada,´ I hope the loss is not too much of a g...
December 28, 2007
Every December 30, my country the Philippines celebrates Rizal Day, in honor of Jose Rizal, The National Hero, the one who gave his life for his country showing the fire in his mind when he had the choice to fight with the fire in his hands. Filipino nationalists say he was invented by the Americans...
December 24, 2007
´Merry Christmas anyway!´ Whatever Mikep was trying to say in his email, on December 19, I made the mistake of replying to my good friend with that greeting. He emailed back, ´You know very well Christmas is a pagan holiday. So let´s celebrate!´
That´s a triple...
December 23, 2007
You heard it once: ´Why reinvent the wheel?´ You heard it a thousand times: ´Don´t reinvent the wheel!´ Once in a while, someone thinks: ´Why not reinvent the wheel?´ I think differently: I´m a wheel – and I´m reinventing myself.
Earth itself ...
December 21, 2007
I´m eating Yankee corn, and it tastes funny. Well, I´ve always known that the Americans are laughable. I´m a Filipino.
Actually, I´m not eating corn; I´m eating chicken. I´m eating the chicken that ate the Yankee corn. It´s not funny – it´s expensiv...
December 17, 2007
A newsmagazine has just given birth to a book by one of its writers; the newsmagazine is American Chronicle based in Beverly Hills, California, USA; the book is by a Filipino based in Manila in the Philippines, Frank A Hilario. The book: Team ICRISAT Champions the Poor, published 2007 November by th...
December 13, 2007
The History Place (historyplace.com) gives me a good list of what happened or who died or who was born who was important in the month of December throughout recorded time, but it misses on the most patriotic date celebrated in my country, the Philippines: 1896 December 30, in the early morning of wh...
December 10, 2007
Know what? At 5 early this morning, December 11 Manila, surfing the Web, I suddenly realized the New Testament has a funny bone. Here´s a sample verse, this one´s from Matthew 11:5 (English Standard Version 2001, semanticbible.com):
The blind receive their sight and the lame walk, ...
December 10, 2007
People, water is every country´s greatest natural treasure, I say – no, people are not resources; they´re more – but we take water for granted until there´s a drought, we take people for granted until we know they´re not coming back. That´s when we lose not only the wat...
December 06, 2007
If you belong to the Filipino opposition, or if you are plain of brain, which may be the same thing, you will not appreciate the fact that because of GMA´s visit to Spain Monday, December 3, the Spanish and Philippine Governments will be implementing, for example, several infrastructure and e...
December 03, 2007
Among what I call climate change crops, jatropha is a strange species in science. Among the paths to take on the road to creative writing, math is a strange device. Stranger than fiction? In truth, that's what I'd like to invite you to find out. (I'm no stranger to fiction myself.) What about the m...
Manila Rain-Walk. The Day Senator Trillanes Declared A Revolt, Peter Drank Coffee & The Bride Danced
November 30, 2007
Senator Antonio Trillanes the other day (November 29) called for a revolution at the Manila Peninsula Hotel and nobody came: Why? Why, the Manila Pen is a 5-star hotel, and wasn´t that an invitation to dinner? But no, learning from Mao Tse Tung, the Filipinos didn´t think a revolution is...
November 28, 2007
SAMUEL BECKETT WON THE 1969 Nobel Prize for Literature and changed the universe of the literate with his book Waiting for Godot, that which is centered around two men, Estragon and Vladimir, who keep a vigil for Godot, who never gets there, the road to nowhere. By refusing to abide by the Kyoto Prot...
November 23, 2007
Poor Team ICRISAT! The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics is exulting, celebrating its 35th anniversary this week, November 21-24, with the knowledge that it has been rated O (Outstanding) by the World Bank. Excellent, I say. Now I shall expect more.
I? I am the poor;...
November 22, 2007
Regina Isabelle my granddaughter was 1 year old yesterday (Manila time) in New York, November 20; the 20th Philippine Advertising Congress is being held at Subic Bay in Zambales, Philippines November 21-24; my good friend Naz´s daughter Lina is 30 years old November 22; ICRISAT is holding its ...
November 18, 2007
Almost simultaneously last week, the Parliament of the United Kingdom (UK) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) of the United Nations (UN) published their official statements on global warming. November 15 UK, a bill to be debated by Members of the Parliament. November 17 IPCC, a...
November 16, 2007
Atlanta, Georgia: ´Gov Sonny Perdue stepped up to a podium outside the State Capitol on Tuesday and led a solemn crowd of several hundred people in a prayer for rain on his drought-stricken State´ (Greg Bluestein, November 13, news.aol.com). The Governor was joined by other State elected...
November 12, 2007
Simon says: 'Coping with the inevitability of defeat makes victories all the more sweet' (Simon Barnes, timesonline.co.uk). Pray tell me, Simon, how can you celebrate a victory when it's not yours?
Yesterday, Sunday, November 11 (Manila), in the 2007 World Pool Championship, Daryl 'Dazzler' Peach ...
November 11, 2007
The 4 Es Club. Earth, Environment, Education, Entrepreneurship. Right now, I´m the President and only member. This is a crusade. A crusade begins with one man, one mind.
Actually, I just came out with the new name but this crusade is about 2 years old, and I did not start it. He did. He is Jo...
November 08, 2007
Yes, Sir, the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources Research and Development (PCARRD) was the first such sectoral council in the Philippines; it was so successful in research management that it was emulated in other countries of Asia. This pioneer did the Filipinos proud...
November 06, 2007
This is a long story, and it really began 36 years ago, if you can read that long. It´s in my databank called memory waiting to be told all those years. Memory is a databank that fails every now and then, as any 67-year old will tell you. Ask me. Needs improvement. Quite undesirable, quite necessary...
November 04, 2007
Today, we study figures of speech, but especially metaphors. Why? George Lakoff & Mark Johnson, linguist & philosopher, in their book Metaphors We Live By published in 1980 (theliterarylink.com) tell us: ´We live by metaphors.´ Even if we don´t understand them.
Examples from the ...
November 02, 2007
He called it ´An Offering To Our Lady Of Fatima.´ I call it ´An Offering To The World.´ In time the world will know about it. He said it was built on time, money and efforts donated by men and women of golden hearts devoted to the Blessed Virgin Mary. I say it was built on faith.
This is part of th...
November 01, 2007
Watermarking your book with young John Gokongwei Jr riding his bicycle: Are you saying this is the boy image of entrepreneurship? The boy didn´t even know the word existed. He had to buy & sell for his family to survive. Then, at 15 years of age, he started taking risks. That was when within t...
October 30, 2007
If so, may the Curse be with you! ¶ Since I´m not a doctor, don´t be surprised I´m studying curses, not cures. And for a very practical reason too: It´s easier to curse than to cure.
In 1962, Eleanor Roosevelt addressed the United Nations General Assembly, and Adlai Stevens...
October 29, 2007
Having read many a report, and retort, on global warming, it´s the risqué global scientific language that bothers me, not the rising local everyday temperature. This morning (October 28, Manila) I googled with Safesearch for "global warming" and got 10,500,000 English pages. I looked into 100 ...
October 27, 2007
Estrada´s World is that of make-believe. You make it, you believe it.
Frank´s World is that of the Franciscan Essay. I essay that we´ll see each other in a little while.
This is all about the education of Joseph ´Erap´ Estrada. I began this one thinking of Erap and ...
October 27, 2007
And so Asiaweek ranked the University of the Philippines Diliman #48 among Asia´s Best Universities in 2000 (asiaweek.com). A very hard slap on a proud face in a very public place. By reputation, UP Diliman is the best of the University of the Philippines; the Asiaweek rank rankled the System...
October 26, 2007
The Yankee poultry raisers feed their chickens with expensive food: corn. That is because corn prices have jumped following the high demand for corn for ethanol, gw Bush´s biofuel of choice. Are they riding Volkswagens now? Do Yankees always make terrible food-for-non-food choices?
With each...
October 22, 2007
WHEN THE CUSTOMER SAYS ´NO!´ the sale begins. That´s a mantra of sales people, and it´s a daunting challenge to be creative about a critical situation. So: When the science writer says ´No, I don´t understand this material at all,´ the science writing begins...
October 18, 2007
Bill Gates is a Boy Wonder to me; I wonder what he was doing in 1973 outside school in Harvard – studying law? (He dropped out.) I don´t know him from Adam Smith, but I know he´s a Word Wizard, known that for years, beginning with his alpha Word 1 circa 1987. His Word 4 was a pain in the...
October 17, 2007
IGNRM? Ignoring it is what I have been doing. But there comes a time when you can no longer ignore the technical term, that which I suspect was invented to add some mystery to the science. Or to confound science writers like me who already have enough problems grasping for a metaphor or two.
A met...
October 17, 2007
No, no, no! Science parks? The concept is all wrong. Science parks not, Science stops not. If it doesn´t change, if it stays as is, it´s not Science – it´s Status Quo. Or Art. That goes whether you are in Los Alamos (a nuclear weapons town), Los Baños (a university town), or Las Ve...
October 14, 2007
Making love is beautiful, but these rules apply: Do not fold, spindle or mutilate! Don´t mis-use, dis-use, mal-use. Amuse, don´t abuse. If you´re making love to the body, not both body and soul, you´re pathetic.
If you have never made love, you´re welcome here – you may, however, fail to appreciat...
October 14, 2007
Al Gore ran for US President and lost; he has been running for Global Prescient for 30 years and just won the Nobel Peace Prize, October 13. When running, act locally, think globally. Now at peace, Al Gore is not running for President and losing again. He has been running a greater race. Run, Al Gor...
October 11, 2007
You want to use Microsoft PowerPoint well enough, yes? My professional advice is (and it´s free): Begin with Microsoft Word. I´m a joker, but PowerPoint is no joke – if you don´t get it, you become a jester in a court of no appeal.
I´m writing this, meaning from scratch to finish, as on a car, in...
October 11, 2007
4 scores and 7 years ago we Filipinos learned the lesson of loyalty to our ideals; the Yankees only 4 years ago. In July 1921, the University of the Philippines declared a Loyalty Day (October 10) as I had written earlier (upbeloved.wordpress.com); it was only 87 years later, in April 2003, when Pre...
October 09, 2007
The Philippines, with 7,000+ islands, is perfect for growing biofuel crops, including the drylands, wetlands, infertile soils. We just have to invest on her.
To begin with, Chris de Lavigne, Global Vice President of US-based Frost & Sullivan, says the Philippines is now ´one of the most attr...
October 08, 2007
Filipino hotshot Manny ´PacMan´ Pacquiao won two titles against Mexican legend Marco Antonio Barrera at noon yesterday, October 8 in Manila. That´s how good my countryman is. He´s not unbeatable, but when he´s good, he´s better. (Photo by ydhsu)
PacMan´s t...
October 06, 2007
There is a new AI emerging in the horizon in Asia. It´s called Agricultural Innovation.
It´s coming from India. It´s coming from the United States of America. And, if you´re sleeping, it´s coming to heads near you.
At first it had a long name: ´The India-US ...
October 06, 2007
I´m looking at many a would-be writer of The Philippine Story (Revised Edition): motivated Senators, aspiring Representatives, venturesome PMA graduates, go-getting ex-Cabinet members, daring militarists, enterprising businessmen, starry-eyed journalists.
Men, women they´re all the sam...
October 04, 2007
(1) What is the very basis of life? (2) What is the single most important feature of our planet? (3) What is the most threatened world resource today?
I have already given you two clues. There is only one answer: Water. One word for ´turning point´ is ´watershed.´
Water. ...
October 03, 2007
Bill Gates is acting strange. Microsoft is no stranger to computer science research and development (R&D) – but agriculture R&D?
Today, Bill Gates is into crop research, specifically the Tropical Legumes II Project, in faraway Sub-Saharan Africa, no relation to Microsoft Windows or Office 2007. He...
October 01, 2007
Manila – Do you wish peace for Burma? I don´t. Peace is an impossible dream.
What I wish for the Burmese people is non-violence. Now, today, September 30, I realize that non-violence has two beautiful & deadly senses. The historical one, that it is a means to an end. The original one, the one I j...
October 01, 2007
This time, when I looked at the numbers, lo and behold! I saw Charles Darwin amidst 13 new varieties of sweet sorghum, 13 survivors of selection. Darling, I´m referring to the biologist who revolutionized the world of thought by inventing the concept of evolution, coming out in 1859 with such ...
September 27, 2007
If you´re looking for trouble, you came to the right place. If you can´t solve it, you´re part of the problem!
http://www.icrisat.org/Vision/chapter1.htm. Last night, I surfed to there and while I was reading ´ICRISAT´s Vision and Strategy to 2015,´ I realized t...
September 25, 2007
´@LóRiLi?¿?[xqsVN]??sV;?´
I don´t speak the language either. It´s Telugu, Sahiti tells me so (sahiti.org). If I could write Telugu, Sahiti will translate me into English instantly, and it´s free.
No, I didn´t find Telugu a trickery; I found it a treasure once I started thinking Marshall McLuha...
September 21, 2007
Today Danumán, tomorrow the world!? Today, the drylands.
It´s the water. There is pleasant irony in the fact that William Dollente Dar comes from a village called Danumán West in the lowlands of Santa Maria, Ilocos Sur, Philippines while he was ensconced as the Chair of the Committee on Scie...
September 17, 2007
IT'S 0520 HOURS 2007 September 17 in Manila and I can hear rain pattering on the roof, but who´s complaining? I bought an Intel Core 2 Duo PC system 2 months ago, complete with a 5-in-1 Epson CX2900 color printer – I sold the old one and got 2 times less than I paid for the new one, but who´s compla...
September 16, 2007
If we don't learn from history, who will?
September 12, 2007
Global science has caught up with the Filipino who has talent and technique. William Dollente Dar, from Santa Maria, Ilocos Sur, has just been elected as Chair of the Committee on Science and Technology (CST) in the current (September 3-14) conference in Madrid, Spain under the auspices of the UN Co...
September 07, 2007
He is my kind of hero. He is my Caped Crusader – he is a lawyer who fights for unpopular causes; he is my Superman – he has a lingering health problem yet stands out as he continues to fight for the Filipino soldier. He sits still on his wheelchair while his mind prowls the past and the present, loo...
September 05, 2007
I´m looking for University of the Philippines (UP) lawyers who will prepare and file a case for The Filipino People vs Congress of the Philippines. The Bastards. Those who make it noblesse oblige to gleefully display their ilk as citizens of virtue and to censure most anybody except the loud...
September 03, 2007
Claudia Lopes tells me it was Jose Marti, Cuban national hero, who said, ´There are three things that a man must do before he dies: Plant a tree, write a book, (sire) a son´ (utenvironment.org). I´m 67; I´ve done all those but I´m not stopping at writing a book – I want...
September 01, 2007
My friend, you told me the father was generous and abrasive. You´re wrong. The father was nice, the son was abrasive.
I, who have been writing for 32 years at least on many a subject technical and popular, got a lecture on popular writing this noon at the Blue Danube at Blues Street in Blue...
August 22, 2007
One Vision Indivisible. Pinoys, we modern Filipinos ignore that as requisite for countrywide development, because we are all Los Indios Bobos. Exactly like Jose Rizal, our National Hero, in 1889. No wonder we can´t progress from Third World to First World, even to a Tiger Economy.
Bobos, plu...
August 20, 2007
After the PGA Championship on August 12 at Tulsa, Oklahoma, reading on Tiger Woods in the papers, as I read about great golf, I think about great writing all at the same time and on the same page. Believe me; I don't know about golf, but I know my writing like Tiger Woods knows his golf – and beyond...
August 16, 2007
1907 was a great year. Maybe. The recliner was invented, and so was popcorn. And so was our Cow College.
As to the recliner, it made Edwin J Shoemaker´s La-Z-Boy furniture company one of the most successful companies in the US (britannica.com).
As to the popcorn, Orville Redenbacher co-creat...
August 02, 2007
American minds? They don´t necessarily agree with each other, and that´s the beauty of it all – with an open mind, you can make sense upon nonsense of all that chaos and confusion upon the waters of democracy. The Yankees are the greatest act in history, but that doesn´t mean they&...
June 30, 2007
The Philippines has just conducted the world´s first workshop with a theme song: Alfie in Technical Writing For A Refereed Journal. And we did it, 13 from the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources Research & Development (PCARRD), and I. And it´s all about lov...
June 24, 2007
In the developing world, agriculture is the most promising site of growth – since the Green Revolution, it has always been full of promises, promises, promises.
We need leaders in science – as well as politics – who do not merely promise but deliver. And we have an outstanding one, in the fie...
June 19, 2007
1861 June 19: American pioneer missionary Frank C Laubach writes that in the town of Calamba, province of Rizal, the Philippines, today is born ´the apostle of Filipino freedom´ (1909, rizalslifewriting.tripod.com): Jose Rizal, who became the National Hero. Laubach (born 1882 September 2...
June 18, 2007
I hope the world will always celebrate Father's Day. To make us fathers feel important – for one day at least once a year.
Today, 2007 June 17, I tell my friend Dr O early this morning: ´I have to go home.´ I have been helping his wife edit a book, in Word 2003, the Microsoft versio...
June 11, 2007
Enough! I´ve had enough of your Noise of Democracy, Manila. Your No´s of Democracy tell me you will never understand the music of the spheres. ´Nothing essential happens in the absence of noise,´ says Jacques Attali (answers.com), French genius of noise. Not your noise, Manila. I am declaring indepe...
June 10, 2007
GO? Fair warning to those opposed to George W. Bush, friend of Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, to those who would become US President: Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards, Bill Richardson and the rest of the runners (washingtonpost.com): You can become your own best enemy. I´m ...
June 03, 2007
George Will writes for the Washington Post and for everybody else; I write for myself. I write about software; George writes about soccer (football to you) – now there´s a match and a play; now therein lies genius.
George Will is what I get for ogling at the Flickr Slides girls using the se...
May 31, 2007
What the world needs now is love – and to write, speak & think better, much better. Two software are necessary here: a computer program and a brain. Because the computer helps us think, but we have to think for ourselves.
I think we have user-unfriendly software, especially an inconvenient worp (w...
May 20, 2007
I’m looking at a visible universe on the road to Dabda, that which is the 5 stages of grief according to Swiss psychologist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross: Denial > Anger > Bargaining > Depression > Acceptance. To those who deny global warming, this is a global warning from Ms Elisabeth, who presented Dabda ...
May 15, 2007
To Bill Gates, Lee Iacocca, Osama – or those of you who can’t think beyond today’s Bush, today’s Iraq, today’s Blair, today’s Israel, today’s Musharraf, today’s elections & erections, today’s Vista: Debug your thinking!
And yes, we can learn from Microsoft Windows and Edward de Bono – but first thi...
May 13, 2007
What say the thousands of news items, editorials and columns relating to the government and President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and tomorrow’s mid-term elections? Mostly Cimmerian, Stygian, Tartarean – never mind what they mean!
This is the image in their minds: With GMA, they see dark, foreboding s...
May 10, 2007
Senatorial candidates crossing over party fences is the music that played out among candidates for this year’s Philippine elections. Harsh music to my ears. And some of the senatoriables are playing our song, the song of patriotism. Be careful about patriotism now, as it is the last song of scoundre...
May 07, 2007
´Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down,´ Mary Poppins pipes in, ´in a most delightful way!´
And so children love Mary Poppins and cough syrup, and mothers love their children – somebody out there hates them all. The Mad Barber.
He is the modern Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, barber at d...
May 05, 2007
Man bites dog; Yahoo bites Microsoft – now, Yahoo can say its bite is bigger than its bark.
Yahoo wins! Its stocks shot up 19% Friday. Microsoft stocks shot down 1.3%.
Microsoft contemplating buying Yahoo!? Yahoo deserves the Gold. I look at it differently – it’s the smaller fish enticing the bigg...
April 08, 2007
‘Boo!’ One of the centurions glares at him. ‘Drink it all!’ one of the soldiers shouts into his face. It is myrrh and vinegar. He is going to be crucified.
He drinks with revulsion. The soldiers strip him of his ragged clothes, tie his arms with ropes and drag him up a ladder. So now his wrists, ...
March 03, 2007
PRIMATE, I GO APE! IF YOU ARE HOMO SAPIENS, THE THINKING SPECIES THAT I THINK YOU ARE, BEFORE YOU FINISH READING THIS, YOU WILL TOO.
In my primate mind´s eye, right in the forefront of country-to-country efforts to mitigate Global Warming, I envision Blogal Warming, a rise by 2 degrees Celsi...
February 26, 2007
THE INCONVENIENT TRUTH, ITS ORIGIN IS WESTERN.
Al Gore´s film, Our Film, directed by David Guggenheim, has just won the Oscar for ´Best Documentary´ as I revise this 26 February 2007, at high noon Manila time. An inconvenient truth is that it is high time we revise everything we ...
February 14, 2007
Man invents Valentine's Day, dates it 14 February and celebrates love each year with the Signs of the Times: Valentine cards, greetings, gifts. I shall from now on celebrate it by looking for Signs of Love.
The world stones me with the gravel of hate and showers me with the sand of indifference, u...
February 04, 2007
GLOBAL WARMING IS HEATING UP the thinking of the world about an inconvenient truth: FIRE & ICE. Except that of the Yankees, the Rip Van Winkles of the Millennium.
Remember Washington Irving? You will remember also The Legend Of The Sleepy Yankees a hundred years from now. I certainly hope the worl...
January 12, 2007
SHOCKINGLY INNOVATIVE IS Microsoft´s Office 2007, and I´m convinced that its appearance is evidence that its rival, OpenOffice 2, is winning the game with its suite of application programs equivalent to those of Office 2003, which means that what is 4 years older is as good as new. Office 2007 with ...
December 30, 2006
I, SPECIMEN.
I, the hangman of Saddam Hussein, the one who would be king of kings of Iraq. Iraq – Mesopotamia – the world´s first civilization. He would not be hooded, so he was not; he would be an eyewitness to his own execution, so he was. I circled his neck with the hangman´s noose, and in the ...
December 27, 2006
IN OFFENSE OF CHRISTMAS, 2000 years before Christ: The story of Christmas goes back to malevolent times. Historically, celebrating Christmas begins its history from idolatrous Babylonian, Egyptian, German, Roman, Scandinavian fertility festivals – the factual origins of Christmas are that of wicked ...
December 04, 2006
THE DEADLIER SPECIES IS MALARIA, NOT AIDS. THAT IS IF YOU BELIEVE THE BRITISH DATA, AND I DO. AIDS JUST HAS HAD MORE ADVOCATES, MORE MEDIA ATTENTION.
1 December: Today is World AIDS Day. How do you solve a problem like malaria? President George W Bush of the United States has announced his new anti...
November 26, 2006
He’s Blond, James Blond. He’s a counter-spy, an impostor, a pretender, a double-agent. The aura doesn’t match that of the real McCoy. You ask, rhetorically: ‘Who cares whether James Bond was black-haired or blond in Ian Fleming’s mind?’ I, Moviegoer mind. And I mind not only the color of the hair...
November 22, 2006
Erik Morales’s Reason told him that Science belonged in the Top Rank if he wanted to win – and he did. Manny Pacquiao’s personal Faith told him that his uncommon Sense was the way to go if he wanted to win – and he did.
Faith won over Reason on the 18th of November (19th, Manila time) at the Thom...
November 01, 2006
It is the 1st of November 2006, and I see a dead body. The Bible is dead! You expect an error; I expect a resurrection of the body.
Dead. Having lost life; no longer alive. Marked for certain death; doomed; having the physical appearance of death. A corpse. From American Heritage Dictionary
I ...
September 08, 2006
Revised 09 June 2009
IT TOOK A HANDFUL of Roman Catholic nuns ignorant in mass communication to teach media experts from Canada to the United States of America how to use television to light fires of faith in 100+ countries and 100+ million households all over the world simultaneously broadcasting ...
August 15, 2006
IN MY WILD ROAMINGS AROUND THE WORLD, I HAVE ACCIDENTALLY DISCOVERED SOMEWHERE IN ASIA THE LOST KINGDOM OF MAIA. NOT SURPRISING – DISCOVERIES ARE ALWAYS ACCIDENTAL: PENICILLIN, THEORY OF GRAVITATION, HYBRID RICE, DNA, THE PHILIPPINES, PETER PRINCIPLE, CONTINENTAL DRIFT, AMERICA.
Maia is actually...
July 31, 2006
HIS NAME IS LESS IMPORTANT HERE THAN HIS WORLD-CLASS ACHIEVEMENT IN MANAGING RICE PEOPLE. HOW IMPORTANT IS THAT? RICE IS THE FOOD OF MORE THAN HALF OF THE WORLD´S 6,500 MILLION HUMANS. IN ANOTHER PERSPECTIVE, I GET 200 MILLION ENGLISH PAGES FROM GOOGLE IN 0.50 SECONDS SEARCHING FOR RICE.
In...
July 24, 2006
MY COUNTRY, THE PHILIPPINES, IS AT THE LOWER RUNGS OF THE TALL LADDER OF FIRST WORLD SUCCESS. ACTUALLY, OTHER COUNTRIES ARE JUST A BIT BETTER, NOTWITHSTANDING THEIR MUCH HIGHER WORLD RANKING. AFTER ALL, FIRST WORLD IS NOT ONLY ABILITY BUT ALSO SUSTAINABILITY, MORE SO EQUITABILITY.
True, the Thir...
June 29, 2006
YUPEE/UP. UNIVERSITY OF THE PHILIPPINES IS THE STATE UNIVERSITY: TODAY I REALIZE THAT THE FUTURE OF UP IS THE FUTURE OF THE PHILIPPINES, THAT’S WHY I’M UPSET. UP IS A DAMAGED ACADEME.
When it comes to material wealth, millions of Filipinos are below the poverty line. When it comes to UP, we’re be...
May 16, 2006
IN HIS NEW BOOK, RAPTURE DIALOGUES, TERRY JAMES WRITES A TERRIFYING STORY OF CHOSEN ONES OF MANKIND BECOMING CHOSEN ENEMIES OF THE HUMAN RACE. THE WHOLE NOVEL IS A DRAMATIC IF UNNERVING TALE OF THE BATTLE OF GOOD AND EVIL BETWEEN 1947 AND 2001. AND BEYOND.
The book is subtitled 'Dark Dimension,' ...
April 24, 2006
5 APRIL 2006: A RARE BIRD, STEVEN CURTIS CHAPMAN WINS HIS 50TH DOVE AWARD, SHOWING HE IS THE GREATEST CHRISTIAN MUSIC ARTIST EVER. MAY HIS DOVES INCREASE! AND HIS YEARS ADD ON TO SPIRITUAL HEIGHTS.
He wins, he loses, he hurts. Like every husband, every father, every songwriter, every singer, like ...
April 07, 2006
THE INTERNET IS A MESSAGE, A MEDIUM, IT MIGHT AS WELL BE A MESSIAH.
THE IDEAL: The Internet is a message of universality, borderlessness, relationships. The Internet is a medium of communication characterized by openness, earnestness and high purpose. The Internet is a Messiah as it is all of the ...
March 20, 2006
08 March, International Women?s Day. YOU COUNT HOW MANY THIRD WORLD COUNTRIES HAVE LADY PRESIDENTS. I count how many First World countries have.
There appears much hope in the election of the first woman President of Chile, good-looking Michelle Bachelet. There appears much despair in the admini...
March 03, 2006
100 million Filipinos in 100 tribes in 100 languages: DIVIDED WE STAND, UNITED WE FALL.
My count, composition and grammar, 2006 AD. Aesop counts, composes and grammars it differently as the moral in his fable of the 4 oxen and the 1 lion ? ?United, we stand; divided, we fall.? My punctuation, ...
February 22, 2006
I learned more about feature writing today, 21 February. I have been reading on public speaking.
In the latest issue of TOASTMASTER (February 2006), published by Toastmasters International, Michael Scroccaro writes his own ‘Confessions of a Political Speechwriter’ (pages 14-15) and grabs my atten...
February 14, 2006
What has become of love?
This is the story of love memorialized in the 3rd century in Rome and in the 16th century in England, and made memorable in England in the 15th century and in the United States in the 19th century. A Tale of Four Loves. The first was under a dictatorship, the second was un...
February 11, 2006
When Microsoft speaks, the whole world listens.
Proof: About the change of plan of Microsoft regarding MSN, I searched the Net and found that thousands of papers worldwide carried the news before and after the actual announcement on 10 February. MSN may be in trouble, but Microsoft isn't. Apparent...
February 11, 2006
If we can't solve the problem of the bird flu worldwide, the joke's on us.