Where In The World Is The Los Baños Science Community?

"Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego?” was a world-wide hit game show that lasted from 1991 to 1995 for a total of 5 seasons and 295 episodes[1] (Wikipedia). “The show was created partially in response to the results of a National Geographic survey that indicated Americans had alarmingly little knowledge of geography, with one in four being unable to locate the Soviet Union or the Pacific Ocean.”

Today, Saturday, 05 December 2020, I ask the question, “Where in the world is the Los Baños Science Community?” My question is different in that I am asking for a place in the geography of knowledge, for essentially a community of people engaged in science for development via agriculture; after all, it is the University of the Philippines College of Agriculture, UPCA (now UP Los Baños) that gave birth to that science on 08 March 1908, thanks to American scientists. (Yes, I am pro-American.)

My question is:

Why has the Los Baños Science Community not been contributing to the survival, revival and triumph of PH Agriculture especially during these lockdown pandemic times?

I’m speaking as an alumnus, UP '65, and as a creative writer for the advancement of “inclusive national development” via agriculture – inclusive of the rise from poverty of the poor, starting with the farmers.

That’s why today I’m looking for the Los Baños Science Community – where is it? I’m talking not simply of UP Los Baños and the other entities that celebrated the virtual 12^th SyenSaya” 2-4 December 2020 – syensaya, a good coinage from sciencia, science.
(SyenSaya[2] image from Facebook page of Los Baños Science Community Foundation Inc)

Carol Yorobe, Undersecretary of S&T Services of the Department of Science & Technology, noted in 2016 that the Los Baños Science Community was now composed of 22 members, including IRRI[3] (Paula Blanca Ferrer, IRRI.org). Easy to say, hard to count!

The units I know are 9: (1) UP Los Baños itself, (2) Ecosystem Research & Development Bureau; (3) Forest Products Research & Development Institute; (4) Philippine Council for Agriculture, Aquatic & Natural Resources Research & Development; (5) National Institute of Molecular Biology & Biotechnology; (6) National Crops Protection Center; (7) UP Open University, (8) IRRI and (9) PhilRice Los Baños.

According to its Facebook page, the Los Baños Science Community, LBSC, was formed in 1984 by President Ferdinand Marcos via Presidential Executive Order 784. The LBSC was registered as a foundation in 2001. The “LBSCFI hopes to transform Los Baños into a model community using science-based technologies[4].”

At most, the vision is for the Los Baños Science Community to become a model community. What about the communities around it – and in other parts of the Philippines?

The Los Baños Science Community has no plans to transform farm communities all over the country using science-based technologies?! With the 12^thSyensaya, the Los Baños Science Community has become virtual, online. On fire? No.

As far as technically assisting in the inclusive national development of PH Agriculture, where in the world is the Los Baños Science Community?!@517

 

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[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_in_the_World_Is_Carmen_Sandiego%3F_(game_show)

[2]https://www.facebook.com/lbscfi/photos/a.366509663473984/2464549123670017

[3]http://news.irri.org/2016/07/the-los-banos-science-community.html

[4]https://www.facebook.com/lbscfi/about/