Nestor Maniebo Pestelos’ Under- & Aboveground Experiences From UP Los Baños Through Martial Law To Abroad To Bohol Are Worth X Million Dollars – He Has An Unfinished Book!

Betty Hemsley, American poetess, has “Talking To The Wild” – her collection of poems she calls “The Bedtime Stories We Never Knew” (facebook.com). Ampy, my wife, saw this one, link shared on Facebook by my old friend Felix Eslava 26 Feb 2023. My wife says this reminds her of my old friend Nestor Pestelos, who shared about a year ago on Facebook that he has begun and I notice he has stopped writing what could be his last book of un-pleasant memories.

From Ms Betty’s book:

We all of us have chapters
That we wish we’d never written
Pages that we’ve torn or burned
Or locked away and hidden
We all have masks and costumes
That we wish we’d never worn
And lines that we have spoken
That we wish could be withdrawn
We all of us have characters
We’d strike clean from the page
And maybe big decisions
That we’re desperate to change
And we are very tempted
To pretend they don’t exist
To tell a perfect story
Where these things are all dismissed
But do not hide those chapters
They’re your story’s little scars
And they’re crucial to your tale
Though you might not think they are
See without them all your story
Isn’t quite the one you wrote
And we have to make mistakes
If we’re to learn what matters most
Yes, without them all your story
Will be hard to comprehend
Remember - some things only make sense
When we’re getting to the end

Nestor was a batchmate of mine at UPCA, now UP Los Baños, in the early 1960s. We met, he a Tagalog from Tiaong, Quezon, and I an Ilocano from Asingan, Pangasinan – because we joined the competition to find the Editor In Chief of the student paper Aggie Green & Gold (AGG). He won – but I also won because he made me the historical 1^st Tagalog Editor of the AGG who was an Ilocano! (I could be, because in high school, I was already an avid reader of the Tagalog magazines Liwayway and Bulaklak.) That is how our friendship started – on paper!

Before or after (I don’t know) our President Ferdinand “FM” Edralin Marcos declared Martial Law on 21 Sept 1972, Nestor joined the underground. (Elsewhere, I was “invited” but I declined as it was not my cup of tea. My “inviter” has since died, of natural causes.) Nestor today is aboveground – first, for having been saved from physical harm by “Fr Acong” (Fr Ciriaco Sevilla); second, by First Lady Imelda Romualdez Marcos, yes, “embracing” him in her project “Habitat For Humanity” – and no, Nestor never forgets how important they are!

But Nestor forgets and/or hesitates and/or neglects to continue writing his book to share with the world! I quote Jerry Pratchett saying above (quotefancy.com): “You can’t die with an unfinished book.” Here I am saying, “You can, but why should you?!” Note that Ms Betty’s poem has no period at the end

Climate Change in PH Is Imported From The United States! How To Start Green Growth And Stop Grim Deaths?

Are you worried about the Philippines’ foreign debt landscape growing from Billions of US$ to Trillions? You should be! But as an agriculturist, I am more interested in the Philippines’ agricultural landscape growing deadlier than ever even while farmers are growing poorer.

Conscious and Unconscious – we are all aware that we are all food consumers, but only a few realize that the production of our food, in millions of hectares of farms, including greenhouse farms, is the public source of Climate Change.

Yes Sir, yes Ma’am! All of us food consumers have a huge role to play to help change the climate of PH external debts – and surprise, climate change!

Actually, you can see that the Business Climate and the Farming Climate are interlinked with the citizens via the Consumption Climate – if you look deeper into Climate Change – but it is hidden in the business climate of Export-Import.

That is what I’m thinking reading the news report of Cai U Ordinario, “PHL Debt Needs A Decade To Cut; Time To Shift To Green Growth” (23 Mar 2022, BusinessMirror, businessmirror.com.ph). Ms Cai quotes retired professor Teodoro C Mendoza as saying, during a forum of the Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC):

“We have a comatose economy because we have a huge debt of PhP13 trillion which is equivalent to 68 percent of our GDP. We have a budget deficit of PhP1.7 trillion,” Mendoza said in the vernacular on Wednesday.

Ms Cai also reports:

In order to improve the country’s chances of attaining higher growth, FDC President Rene E Ofreneo cited a need to focus not just on the primary strength of the economy but also on attaining green growth.

We think we have today “Green Growth” but is actually “Grim Growth!” without us realizing it.

Thus, gladly we Filipinos import chemical fertilizers and chemical pesticides – sadly, we harvest not only the very visible farm crops (and farm animals) – but the deadliest crop of them all: Climate Change.
(“Food Vs Planet” from bing.com, “Climate Adaptation” from climateadaptationplatform.com)

Now then, if we want to Stop Climate Change, we have to Stop Chemical Agriculture and Start Regenerative Agriculture! When we get rid of all those bags of fertilizers and bottles of pesticides and produce our food by any of natural ways, we will start to see that the climate changes for the better!

To “generate” means to “bring into being; give rise to” (American Heritage Dictionary, thefreedictionary.com). To “regenerate” is to produce again; thus, organic methods “reproduce” the ways by which Mother Nature works – no GHGs that could destroy us all, rich and poor. With regenerative agriculture, still the climate changes, but no more supertyphoons and superhot days and super-landslides and super-floods!

With regenerative farming, we achieve 2 things: (1) solve Farmer Poverty and (2) resolve Climate Change. In agriculture, chemical methods are very expensive; organic methods are pocket-friendly – the farmer wins! And organic methods produce zero greenhouse gases, and therefore zero super-climate changes – the people win! 

How green is our valley!@517

Recyclable, Renewable, Or Regenerative? Commercial Citizens Of Competitive Countries Don’t Want You To Discern & Discriminate!

Are you surprised to read “sustainable agriculture vs regenerative agriculture”? You should be! SA versus RA, yes. Today, The Modern 3 Rs, as I see them, are Recyclable, Renewable and Regenerative – and no, they are not compatible or parallel at all. One addresses Climate Change, the others do not. 
(Images: top from researchgate.net, bottom from m.facebook.com)

To give you an idea, when I search
for “renewable energy” Google gives me 273,000,000 results;
for “renewable resources” Google gives me 16,400,000 results;
for “regenerative energy” Google gives me 176,000 results; and
for “regenerative resources” Google gives me 51,800 results.

Those differing numbers of search results give you the idea that those terms are as different as morning, noon, and evening!

Essentially, it is between renewable and regenerative processes – and there’s a whale of a difference!

Now you see why I have been interested in differentiating “renewable” from “regenerative” – in my search for countrywide (and countrywise) solution to Climate Change, I see only “Regenerative Agriculture” and not Renewable Agriculture or even Sustainable Agriculture.

Renewable Agriculture and Sustainable Agriculture people do not talk about Climate Change – because Sustainable Agriculture does not prevent the generation of greenhouse gases (GHGs), which generate Climate Change. Same story with Renewable Agriculture – what is renewable is not necessarily harmless to the environment.

“Sustainable Or Regenerative?” is the question the ethical butcher asks (09 Nov 2021, ethicalbutcher.co.uk):

A very simple definition for sustainable is something that is able to be maintained at a certain rate or level.

The problem we have now is that every business and everybody want to be sustainable in our consumption; we all want to be carry on as we are, consuming what we enjoy but in a way that doesn't negatively impact the ability to continue in the future.

By definition, anything that relies on a finite resource is not sustainable; a good example of this is fossil fuels usage as once they are used they cannot be re-used, we can reformulate burnt petroleum back into more petroleum. However, it could be argued that aluminum is sustainable as it can be recycled indefinitely, as long as we can sustainably produce the energy to do so – it quickly gets complicated.

Since we're involved in food production, let's now look at how the term sustainable is applied to the things we eat.

Intensive factory farming could be called sustainable; the sheds could be powered by renewable electricity and the animals fed grains which we could, in theory produce indefinitely. This type of farming is sometimes called 'sustainable intensification' which really stretches the definition of the term to its limits.

Most agriculture is not sustainable…

… sustainable practices seek to maintain systems without degrading them. Regenerative practices recognize how natural systems are currently impacted and apply techniques to restore systems…

Regenerative means able to or tending to regenerate – to regrow or be renewed or restored, especially after being damaged or lost. The act or process of regenerating… this is what our planet desperately needs.

Need this agriculturist say more?!@517

Reminiscing The 1986 Philippine People Power Revolution – And Missing The Point Of It All!

Saturday, 25 Feb 2023 – we are celebrating the 37^th anniversary of the “EDSA People Power Revolution.” Except that we are putting “power” in the wrong perspective. In the prevailing thinking of Filipinos, “People Power” is the power to say “No!” and not the power to say “Yes!” For the sake of us people of the Philippine Islands, let us trace history and reminisce much. We owe it to ourselves – the people abusive of power are gone, but so what?!

(Lower image from manilatimes.net)

Rigoberto D Tiglao (25 Feb 2018, “Facts About EDSA we didn’t know at the time, hidden from us for decades,” Manila Times, manilatimes.net):

In 1986, Fidel Ramos was the chief of the Philippine Constabulary. A trusted aide of then-President Ferdinand Marcos [FM], he shocked the nation when he turned against his commander-in-chief and marched with the people in EDSA – hailed a hero by many.

I am now reading the book Silver Linings (25 Years of the 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution), authored by Melandrew T Velasco, co-authored by Rafael M Alunan III and Gen Reynaldo V Velasco (ret), 472 pages (including Index) – the copy sent to me by my friend JAQ last year. My wife Ampy had urged me to write today, “kind of paying tribute to FVR, especially his role not only during EDSA PPR but also after it [remember the numerous FAILED coup d’etats (putches) during Cory Aquino’s presidency....” And who am I to say “No” to my wife? Not to mention that Fidel Valdez Ramos (FVR) is a townmate, both of us natives of Asingan, Pangasinan.

The idiomatic phrase “silver lining” refers to “the potential for something positive or beneficial to result from a negative situation” (The Free Dictionary, idioms.thefreedictionary.com). “Silver linings” indicates many potentials – now I ask: “What are those? Have we tapped any of them?”

Published on May 2012 by The Ramos Peace And Development Foundation Inc (RPDEV), total 485 pages. As the very last words of the book, FVR asks: “KAYA BA NATIN ITO??” My translation: “Can we do this?” My response: “Yes Sir! We can!”

The question is: “Which is that which we can?” After FVR, I will now volunteer a concept that covers Filipinos of all creeds and communities: Regenerative Philippines (RP).

And I am happy to tell you, if you don’t already know, that I have been proselytizing about Regenerative Agriculture since at least 1 year ago – see my essay, “Transforming Ifugao Rice Terraces Into Food & Wood Wonders – I Wonder How?” (16 Jan 2022, Regenerative AgriForestry, reagriforestry.blogspot.com).

And so, fondly remembering FVR (who died last year), I ask: “Kaya ba natin ito??” Sir! Here are several demands and my exact same singular response:

“Down with corruption!” Up with Regenerative Philippines!
“Down with red-tagging!” Up with Regenerative Philippines!
 “Down with science for private gains!” Up with Regenerative Philippines!
“Down with lack of leadership!” Up with Regenerative Philippines!
 “Down with lack of landownership!” Up with Regenerative Philippines!
“Down with Farmer Poverty!” Up with Regenerative Philippines!
“Down with Climate Change!” Up with Regenerative Philippines!@517

ClimateChange & Tourism – Can David & Goliath Ever Be Friends & Cultivate Each Other?

We can learn from Red China about restoring Green Landscapes for the sake of attracting more Tourists and at the same time advancing the interests of our own Tribes in the matter of resources both natural and financial! I mean, we should learn how to deal with Climate Change in order to be able to deal with Primate Change – we have to teach our own people how to conserve the natural resources for their own sake.

Here is a friendly individual and/or amiable agency we can learn from and be assured of assistance. ANN says, “Science And Tradition Drive China-Wide Effort To Restore Landscapes” (16 Feb 2023, Author Not Named, UNEP, unep.org):

Ahead of Global Tourism Resilience Day on 17 February, which promotes sustainable tourism for poverty eradication and environmental protection, we take a look at a large-scale, award-winning initiative in China to restore ecosystems from mountains to coastal estuaries across the country.

In those 41 words above, I find my 2 favorite dreamwishes: “poverty eradication” and “environmental protection.” More precisely, I have been writing about how to solve Farmer Poverty and resolve Climate Change.

Now, that country has the “Great Walls of China” as one of the 7^th Wonders of the World – while my country claims the “Banaue Rice Terraces” as the “8^th Wonder of the World” (tripadvisor.com.ph). Sylva says, “I have to say it truly is a magical place, so amazing, and utterly beautiful.”

But because of Climate Change, I do not wonder that all those 8 wonders of the world, and more, are disappearing before our eyes! We now need Christian Science and an uncommon Creative Sense to restore our natural resources – and excite our own wonder!

ANN says the Chinese are busy restoring their village’s beauty and goodness:

Armed with billhooks, hammers and their bare hands, villagers in China's eastern Yunhe County are methodically clearing a series of abandoned hillside rice fields, many perched dramatically over a yawning valley. These terraced paddies had long ago fell into disuse, a product of a strained rural economy. But villagers are aiming to make the land productive again by weeding out invasive plants and building walls to prevent soil erosion.

China’s “abandoned hillside rice fields” and the Philippines’ “abandoned hillside rice terraces” – are suffering the same fate using the same artificial means of maintaining and/or returning the fertility of the soil: “Chemical Agriculture” (CA). Whether you are a farmer in Chongqing or Cavite, your CA is destructive of the natural wealth of the soil, as well as the natural balance of plant and animal lives – all of which disturbs the climate adversely:

What we do comes back to us!

“[The Chinese] villagers are aiming to make the land productive again by weeding out invasive plants and building walls to prevent soil erosion.”

Not enough! This Filipino agriculturist – UP Los Baños alumnus, Ag Edu 1965 – can teach Chinese farmers what I learned from American gentleman farmer Edward H Faulkner – the basics of organic agriculture (OA). OA defeats farmer poverty and Climate Change simultaneously!@517

Brown Rice As Health (& Earth) Food – 22 Years After Asia Rice Foundation Launched That Campaign

Today, my wife Ampy (Tagala) and I (Ilocano) prefer brown rice to white rice. It was not like this before. Some 14 years ago, when Asia Rice Foundation launched its brown rice campaign, I wasn’t enamored. I was thinking of the taste of the rice, not the health of the consumer!

(“Brown rice” from amp.rappler.com), “Regenerative” from flaticon.com)

The last time I talked about the Asia Rice Foundation (Asia Rice) and its campaign for brown rice was 14 years ago when I blogged “Blue Ocean, Brown Rice. If You Can’t Beat Them, Junk Them!” (24 Apr 2009, Frank A Hilario, frankahilario.blogspot.com):

On 11 August 2000, headed by its Chair Emil Q Javier, Asia Rice launched a campaign to promote brown rice as a health food at the University of the Philippines Los Baños, targeting the LBSC, Los Baños Science Community in the town of Los Baños in Laguna, some 60 km south of Manila. I didn’t know about that until today, surfing. I don’t know if they have been successful. I only know they have not been successful in convincing me to advocate brown rice. Of course, I’m rather difficult to please.

Times change. People change. Even the climate changes!

Today, with Climate Change staring everyone in the face, rich or poor, I am looking at Asia Rice and its brown rice advocacy of almost 23 years – well, it has succeeded on me! Today, since Asia Rice is based at the Los Baños Science Community (LBSC), I am challenging the whole of LBSC to rise as one to “sell” brown rice and simultaneously “sell” the basic need for healthy agriculture via:

Regenerative Agriculture (RA), yes. You can simply look at RA as organic farming, with your organic fertilizer. You contradict yourself if you grow brown rice not with black matter or organic fertilizer but with white matter or chemical fertilizer!

In those years, I was visiting Asia Rice at its “borrowed” office space at the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA), which is based at the campus of UP Los Baños in Laguna. I am planning to visit Asia Rice and talk to one of its heads, Santiago Obien (SRO). We are both Ilocanos, so there should be no problem in communication! Wen ngarud a.

The science part is the headache. For instance, I still have to convince SRO that Organic SRI (System of Rice Intensification) is best for rice, including any hybrid variety – and best for the environment!

Here is Revelation to me – almost 8 years ago, I find Rappler already campaigning for brown rice AND climate change! I am now reading Renee Juliene Karunungan and her article, “Why Shifting To Brown Rice Matters” (27 May 2015, (amp.rappler.com):

In a country vulnerable to climate change and its impact, brown rice will help us face the threat of food insecurity.

Isn’t it great!? We are listening to a lady whose family name “Karunungan” translates to “Wisdom”! In here, I say the lady is a triumph!@517

UVO Hiring – Did You Know That Age Does Not Matter If Mind Does Not Age!?

Early today, Friday, 03 Feb 2023 Manila, my daughter Graciela & boyfriend Jeff messaged me via Facebook – what would we do without Facebook! – of uvocorp Philippines hiring work from home (WFH) writers. So, I googled, and this came up – and something else.

The uvocorp webpage says (images above from philippines.uvocorp.com):

There is no other company that offers $15/page written by an ESL writer and $26/page completed by an ENL writer.

No, uvocorp does not explain those acronyms, which is not helping the target WFH writers. Unfortunately! That is a failure in advertising. Minor in appearance but not minor in effect: How then can the prospective writer tell which one s/he fits in?

I am aware of such predicament because I was a copywriter for 2 years with the famous Philippine ad & PR group Pacifica Publicity Bureau of respected Makati-based admaker & PR man Tony Zorilla, with Nonoy Gallardo as Creative Director. (We were all inspired by the British creative genius David Ogilvy, thank you very much!)

Pay attention now, uvocorp!

In fact, there are 3 more acronyms. Googling, I find “ENL” is English Native Speaker, “EFL” is English as Foreign Language, “ELF” is English as Lingua Franca, and “ESL” is English as Second Language.

Acronyms spelled out – success? No Sir/Madam, problem not yet solved. So: “How can you compare the acquired abilities of the EFL, ELF, ENL, ESL people?” Because I am an ENL does not necessarily mean I am excellent in English oral or written. Neither does my being EFL, ELF, or ESL mean that I am less excellent than the ENL fellow! My advice, uvocorp: “Hire an excellent Editor In Chief right now!”

I am myself a Filipino. But I have immersed myself, with nobody advising me, in reading and writing and blogging in the English language (the American way) – since high school in Asingan, Pangasinan, with the American Reader’s Digest and magazines Life, Look, Newsweek and TIME. All free to read at the library of Rizal Junior College (RJC) HS Dept. And I could bring home as many as 5 books for the weekend, from the RJC library, no charges – reading Saturdays and Sundays pasturing our 2 carabaos. That is to say, I learned more English to read and write literally on native soil!

So, how do you classify me now: EFL or ESL? I leave that to you, uvocorp.

Uvocorp, know that, for instance, even before the days that the personal computer (PC) was invented by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, I was already the Editor In Chief of the relatively young Forest Research Institute (FORI) based at the campus of UP Los Baños, and 1975-1980, I founded & became Editor In Chief of what I call “The FORI 3” – monthly newsletter Canopy, quarterly forestry journal Sylvatrop, and quarterly color magazine Habitat. (Today, I am digital and have blogged some 8000 essays since 2000.)

Above – why is uvocorp portraying only teenagers? That disqualifies me, 82+! Uvocorp, I say: “Age does not matter, if mind does not age!”@517