Interestingly, Inquirer.Opinion has written an editorial about “Championing Nutrition For Kids And Barriers To Productivity.” No, Inquirer does not insinuate that nutrition in the family and productivity of the father are directly related; I am the one saying that if the farmer is not championing nutrition for his children, he is also not championing productivity for his farm.

Are most Filipino farmers come-what-may farmers, and that explains low productivity in the farms? I believe not – they just don’t know how. “Dida ammo ti pammalpalatpatanda gapu’t awan met mangibaga kaniada!” (“They don’t know technical and/or practical ways by which they can overcome their problems of production and profit because nobody is telling them!”) No, not any of those involved in the Department of Agriculture (DA), because the DA is less interested in farmers who are profit-oriented, and more interested in production-oriented farmers. Yields, yields, yields – not gains, gains, gains!

Says the Inquirer further:

“If the government truly wants to attain economic development, it must first help the poorest to overcome barriers to productivity. And breaking generational poverty begins with ensuring that poor Filipino children get the necessary nutritional support to help in their mental and physical development so they can grow to be productive members of society.”

I agree with the Inquirer there, and now I must insist that farming must stop practicing Chemical Agriculture (CA) and start practicing Regenerative Agriculture (RA). With RA, they will gain in their farming much more, as the fertilizers and pesticides in CA are very expensive – there are no chemical fertilizers and chemical pesticides involved in RA.

In RA, the simple rule is, as I see it:

Very Low Costs equals Very High Returns: VLC = VHR.

Am I sure about VLC = VHR? Yes, I have been writing about low-cost farming in the last 5; see my article “Appreciating Organic Farming” (Agriculture Magazine, 03 Oct 2019). I say, “RA food is good food!”@517

 

From a Facebook post from Inquirer “Opinion” (Editorial: “Championing Nutrition For Kids”

“If the government truly wants to attain economic development, it must first help the poorest to overcome barriers to productivity. And breaking generational poverty begins with ensuring that poor Filipino children get the necessary nutritional support to help in their mental and physical development so they can grow to be productive members of society.”

Inquirer equates, by insinuation, and I agree, that barriers to productivity among the poor farmer families must be overcome: poverty and poor nutrition.

“Hunger and malnutrition among Filipino children continue to be prevalent, not so much due to a lack of an institutional framework, but more because of inconsistent implementation of programs meant to address the problem.

Above:

“If the government truly wants to attain economic development, it must first help the poorest overcome barriers to productivity. And breaking generational poverty begins with ensuring that poor Filipino children get the necessary nutritional support to help in their mental and physical development so they can grow to be productive members of society.”

 

I Say That Truth Is Relative – Relative To The One Preaching It! And I Preach What I Call THiNK! Journalism

I value Truth, of course, specially in these times when many different claims to the Truth fly faster than an airplane! I thank God we are now living in an Internet-wide world where anyone can speak to the world at anytime. Freedom of speech has never been more valuable than now.

“Truth is not what you want it to be: it is what it is,” Miyamuto Musashi says; “And you must bend to its power or live a lie.”

But first, who is the one speaking?

“Miyamoto Musashi (c 1584 – 13 June 1645), was a Japanese swordsman, strategist, artist, and writer who became renowned through stories of his unique double-bladed swordsmanship and undefeated record in his 62 duels.” And as it turns out, he was also a wordsman – a killer with the word!

What do you want the Truth to serve – a few, a majority, or everyone? Truth must always be measured by how many people are served for the good. I prefer for ALL.

Truth should be all there is for the good of all the world. That is why I have embraced “Truth” and now preach & practice what I call “THiNK! Journalism.” (“THINK” image from teacherspayteachers.com)

It goes like this:

Is it
True? If True, is it
Helpful? If Helpful, is it
Inspiring? If Inspiring, is it
Necessary? If Necessary, is it
Kind?
THiNK! Before you speak, or do something important, especially when it involves many people.

That is to say, you don’t stop at True, or stop at Helpful, or stop at Inspiring, or stop at Necessary, or stop at Kind – you have to always THiNK! You must always be THINKing!

We go back to multi-talented Japanese expert. Says Wikipedia of him (en.wikipedia.org):

Miyamoto Musashi (c 1584–13 June 1645),[1] was a Japanese swordsman, strategist, artist, and writer who became renowned through stories of his unique double-bladed swordsmanship and undefeated record in his 62 duels. [2] Miyamoto is considered a kensei (sword saint) of Japan. [3] He was the founder of the Niten Ichi-ryū (or Nito Ichi-ryū) style of swordsmanship, and in his final years authored A Book of Five Rings… Go Rin No Sho) and Dokkōdō (The Path of Aloneness).

Thus, I say Miyamoto was a swordsman, not a peace man – he would always try to obtain “peace” with his sword.

And hereby I say, swordsmanship or the sharpness of the sword is not necessary – wordmanship is what is necessary, and we cannot practice wordmanship or the power of the word with the sword.

I go back to my wordmanship and the 5 questions whose combined answers make up the whole as pleasant: true, helpful, inspiring, necessary, kind!

Thus, my THiNK! Journalism:

Is it
True? If True, is it
Helpful? If Helpful, is it
Inspiring? If Inspiring, is it
Necessary? If Necessary, is it
Kind? THiNK!

Now I say, “Whether you are angry or not, before you strike with your sword, or word – think! Especially when you are dealing with the Truth. THiNK Truth!@517

How AI Can Help In Your Writing” – Willy A Renandya, Indonesian. “Not A Good Idea!” – Frank A Hilario, Filipino

This article is all about “how to improve your writing and leave AI alone!” – Frank A Hilario, Filipino blogger.

I’m reading Mr Willy A Renandya’s article 3 April 2025 that appears in his website willyrenandya.com: “Why Writing Is Harder Than Speaking And How AI Can Help.” Mr Renandya is Singapore-based. Based in Manila, as a published writer of 50 years, I Frank A Hilario have never compared writing to speaking and I will say outright that AI is dangerous! As the image from connectjaya.com seems to indicate, AI is actually first Nonhuman and and then tries to relate to Human. From beginning to end of my writing, I want Human!

Nonetheless, I Filipino much appreciate the intellectual efforts of author Mr Renandya in writing about improving one’s writing in his article, above cited. Thankfully, in fact Mr Renandya is saying, “You need to teach yourself to write better!”

Sorry, but personally I reject AI as a tool for writing or rewriting. AI will teach you only to copy, not produce your own copy! If you want to be original, forget AI.

Even as a Filipino, my creative writing journey began with the reading of the American Reader’s Digest in my high school days in my hometown Asingan, Pangasinan, Central Luzon, Philippines. The digest must be the most delightful reading matter if you are after reading pleasure – or teaching yourself how to write with pleasure.

If you want to learn how to write the best way you can – maybe even become a published writer – you have to start from scratch, literally! Your own scratch of a writing. You can only creatively take care of AI’s scratch if you are already an established writer.

I will now give you a simple/not-so-simple formula for improved writing that you yourself will love, whether you are now a good writer or still learning to be one. I’ll call this one

”Think, Trick Or Treat!”

You already have a topic. Or: Think of a crude topic. Write a simple title & then a draft, no matter how small or how crude. The title, no matter how temporary, will help you focus. If you change topic along the way, fine – you may also change title.

Read about what others have written about the subject. (That’s why you need the Internet.) Enjoy while you read and borrow and rewrite.
After at least half a day, read again. Rewrite again.

Sleep on it.

Rewrite again.

Do that rewrite at least 5 times.
Finalize your writing!

Those 66 words above, in red letters, in every rewrite, you would be seeing improvements of your writing. You will begin to like yourself as a writer!

Rewrite! Rewrite! Rewrite! At least 5 times. At best 7 times. Rewrite at different times of the day, at different days of the week if necessary. The more you rewrite, the clearer and better should your piece of writing be – when you rewrite, you are actually teaching yourself to write better!

 

 

 

“Why Exactly Is The Philippines The World’s Top Rice Importer?” IRRI – “Poor Geography.” FAH – “Poor Economics”

Daniel Padilla of Esquire Philippines writes that the reason my country remains Asia’s top rice importer (image from youtube.com) – it lacks what other rice-exporting countries have: “lots of land and river deltas suitable for farming.”

Mr Padilla is quoting from “Why Does the Philippines Import Rice?” an IRRI book published 2004 and edited by David Dawe, Piedad F. Moya, and Cheryll B. Casiwan. (esquiremag.ph) Their answer: “Geography.” What? “The Philippines imports rice because it is a nation of islands without any major river deltas like those in Thailand and Vietnam.”

I’m a pure-blooded Filipino, farmer’s son and UP Los Baños graduate, and I emphatically do not agree with such conclusion. I believe the Philippines imports rice because our farmers are poor farmers – because of technology!

Yes, we Filipinos grow rice almost exactly like Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Myanmar – following steps more-or-less approved by IRRI – following Chemical Agriculture (CA). The lesson that my country refuses to learn is that the Philippines should change its rice culture from the expensive CA to the inexpensive but even-more-productive Regenerative Agriculture (RA).

Under RA, there are no expensive chemicals or pesticides used – and yet yields are quite high. That’s because the rice and other crops grow as they would in a field naturally enriched by allowing crop refuse and weeds to contribute their natural richness to the soil.

No, the reason why the Filipinos import rice is not because of corruption, incompetence, bad politicians, or laziness. It is because of poor thinking!

I now dare IRRI to disprove the claim, via the results of its own experiments, that any of the following 13 practices of RA is productive and richly-rewarding to the farmer:

(1) Cover Cropping,
(2) Crop Rotation,
(3) Farm Crops + Tree Crops (Agroforestry),
(4) Green Manuring,
(5) Intercropping,
(6) Multiple Cropping,
(7) No-Till Farming,
(8) Organic Fertilization,
(9) Ratooning,
(10) Rotational Grazing,
(11) “Three Sisters” Planting,
(12) Trap Cropping, and
(13) Trash Mulching.

If our farmers practiced RA, they would produce rice more than our domestic needs, even for export. And: as a side-effect of RA, little or no greenhouse gases that gather up there and contribute to Climate Change!

Mr Padilla writes:

“Is there any way to lessen dependence on imports without further raising prices and harming poor consumers?” the book asks. “One possibility is reduced population growth, but this debate centers on issues larger than rice self-sufficiency. The best way to sustainably increase production is to invest in agricultural research and transportation infrastructure, thereby providing farmers with more and better options in both production and marketing.

“However, the fundamental factors behind Philippine rice imports – relatively small amounts of land and a lack of large river deltas – can’t be changed. In trying to achieve self-sufficiency, the Philippines is fighting a battle against nature that its exporting neighbors are spared.”

This Filipino begs to disagree! It’s not lack of large river deltas – it’s poor technology! I dare IRRI and UPLB experts to conduct experiment with RA, and I’m sure they’ll change their minds!@517

While I Was Busy With Climate Change, I Did Not Realize That Maria Ressa Was Busy With Primate Change!

Some 18 years ago, on 31 March 2007 in probably my earliest blog, on WordPress.Com – “The American Frank” (wordpress.com), I said:

Consider this Frank Hilario’s Blogal Warning, a 3-decades-delayed response to Al Gore’s Global Warning: We need to change perspectives about Climate Change. Houston, we have a problem! Today, the Global Village is in fact that the electric impulse connects us all through the Internet, as Marshall McLuhan predicted – yet the Global Village is fiction in that the connection is divisive and not distributive, elitist and not equitable, devoid of commitment to community, without a shared vision – absence of global warming to combat the global enemy. Whose fault is it? THE PRIMATES, THE GREAT THINKING APES – THE US!

And so it makes me extremely glad to read today, “Pope Francis: ‘A Moral Giant In A World Gone Crazy’” by 2021 Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Ressa, a compatriot. It turns out that Ms Ressa is a patriot for the times – Climate Change Times (my term).

Ms Ressa says, "Pope Francis’ foundation, Fratelli Tutti, asked us to convene in 2023, and our private and public discussions gave me great hope that if we keep working together, we could help prevent the worst.”

Ms Ressa had been invited with other Nobel winners to Pope Francis’ residence at the Vatican to discuss what they thought man could do to stop Climate Change – see her article “Pope Francis: ‘A Moral Giant In A World Gone Crazy’” (rappler.com):

Pope Francis taught me that faith is essential to surviving – and thriving – in the creative destruction we are living through.

Yes, Ma’am, you put it brilliantly: What we are going through is “creative destruction.”

Pope Francis’ foundation, Fratelli Tutti, asked us to convene in 2023, and our private and public discussions gave me great hope that if we keep working together, we could help prevent the worst.

Yes Sir, yes Ma’am: “We could help prevent the worst.”

Ms Ressa also says:

The man born Jorge Mario Bergoglio led by example: kind, simple, beatific – a moral giant in a world gone crazy. As the leader of 1.4 billion Catholics, God’s representative on earth, he focused on social justice, linking economic inequality to climate change. He spoke against the sexual abuse of children by priests, and changed the tone of the Vatican on homosexuality. He spoke against war – in Ukraine and Gaza repeatedly – and changed the power structure of the Church hierarchy, shifting it away from Europe to Latin America, Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa.

More on technology:

He took a stand against the dehumanizing impact of technology (FAH’s emphasis) and – although he didn’t say this explicitly – against the electoral manipulation on social media that brought 72% of the world today under authoritarian rule.

Until the Vatican reached out to me, I would call myself a wayward Catholic … But since Pope Francis brought us together, I have now been to the Vatican four times in less than two years.

Go on Ms Ressa! Changing yourself, changing primates!@517

“Pope Francis Dies At 88, The Pontiff Who Tried To Change The Catholic Church From Within”

I still see Pope Francis’ “Laudato Si” as a “Message Of Resurrection.” I believe Pope Francis did not want to die until he had proclaimed to the whole world his dying wish: Resurrection. For the world, soon!

Jennifer Earl reports (“Pope Francis: ‘Climate Change At This Moment Is A Road To Death,’" CBS News, cbsnews.com):

"How worried are you about climate change?" CBS Evening News managing editor Norah O'Donnell asked Francis during a historic interview in Vatican City.

"Unfortunately, we have gotten to a point of no return. … Francis replied. "Climate change at this moment is a road to death."

Don’t look at me! I Filipino blogger have been writing about Climate Change for 25 years. See my 03 March 2007 article, “Primate Change? Or Climate Change?” (The American Frank, theamericanfrank.wordpress.com). Here is me:

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 Celsius in the body temperature of primate bloggers all over the world to the level of passion in their advocacy for A Greaner World, greener & cleaner.

Where are the bloggers when you need them most?! Where are our paid columnists?

Joseph Tulloch says (Vatican News, vaticannews.va):

A look at Laudato si’, Pope Francis’ radical encyclical on care for the environment, … has been praised as “the most important piece of intellectual criticism in our time.”

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon praised the document for its “moral voice,” while the Indian novelist Pankaj Mishra called it “arguably the most important piece of intellectual criticism in our time.”

Joseph Tulloch says, “Laudato si’ combines, on the one hand, striking, and at times poetic, theological reflections on the importance of care for the natural world with, on the other, calls for radical political action.

“The Pope writes, for instance, that “The universe unfolds in God, who fills it completely. Hence, there is a mystical meaning to be found in a leaf, in a mountain trail, in a dewdrop, in a poor person’s face. Standing awestruck before a mountain, we cannot separate this experience from God.”

His meditations led the Pope to condemn “politics concerned with immediate results, supported by consumerist sectors of the population” and “driven to produce short-term growth.” Short-term goals, long-term effects.

What we need, he says, is “a new way of thinking about human beings, life, society and our relationship with nature.”

Tulloch says:

Central to Laudato si’ is the idea of ‘integral ecology’ – the notion that the climate crisis is intrinsically linked to our present day social, political, and economic problems, and cannot be addressed in isolation from them.

I first wrote of it in 2007, or 18 years ago; read my “Primate Change? Or Climate Change?” The American Frank, theamericanfrank.wordpress.com):

Consider this Frank Hilario’s Blogal Warning, a 3-decades-delayed response to Al Gore’s “Global Warning:” We need to change perspective about Climate Change. Houston, we have a problem… Whose fault is it? THE PRIMATES, THE GREAT THINKING APES – THE US.@517

The Physical Library Is Your First, Not Your Best Library – Which Is A Non-Library! This is The Editor In Chief Speaking, But Thanks Anyway Ms Mary Ann!

Here comes honor to Mary Ann Ingua, PhD,

Librarian of UP Los Baños, as she receives the “Satimder Kaur Ramdev Memorial Trust for Advancement of librarianship (SATKAL) 12 March 2025 at the India International Centre in new delhi; MIKAELA Rhinoa A Delos Reyes says:

“The (SATKAL) Woman Librarian Award honors Ingua for her dedication and outstanding contributions to her profession. It also highlights Filipino excellence and the impact of women in librarianship and information science.”

“Under Ingua’s leadership, the University Library continues to cater to each individual student, staff member, and researcher who steps through the campus halls. It thrives and has become a home for intellectual growth through inclusive and culturally diverse library services.”

Thanks, Ms Mary Ann Ingua! But, UPLB, as one of your graduates, I reader & writer am saying, “The physical library is your important library, but not your best library – which is a Library In The Mind! This is The Editor In Chief & alumnus speaking.

Elsewhere, In Asingan, Pangasinan, at the Rizal Junior College (RJC) where I took up my high school, we were lucky, nay blessed, to have a 1-room but excellent library – full of books and magazines, and I never had a full week without bringing home 2 or 3 books (fiction & non-fiction) to read Saturdays and Sundays. I was savoring my Saturdays and Sundays as an RJC Reader. Loner and Learner: I did not know this, but if you want to become a writer, along with that you would have to become a reader! Professional Writing is actually Advanced Reading & Writing.

As a self-proclaimed The Editor In Chief, I am after 3 kinds of library users: Reader, Researcher, Writer. And since the UPLB Library (also known as the “SEARCA Library” as it was SEARCA that donated the building) is not that huge, it must encourage readership by other means except providing individual spaces. (image from r.search.yahoo.com).

I am now encouraging Ms Mary Ann to roll out within UPLB, in each individual college, a Reader’s Delight Program where everyone learns and masters how to tap the vast resources of the iniversal library called the “Internet.” (This calls for a great number of personal computers, PCs, purchase funds for which SEARCA will have to solicit.)

I am hereby advocating “the advancement of librarianship” beyond its “borders” (walls of the library) into the whole, wide world of knowledge that includes the Internet!

Because the Internet is the biggest library of all, and it’s within the intellectual reach of all – sadly, we hardly go there (surf)! That is because we don’t have enough personal computers (PCs) available and affordable for hire.

Yes, we should now be thinking of PCs as libraries of whatever intellectual or personal field one is interested in.

In other words, I am looking at Ms Mary Ann Ingual, beyond the UPLB Library, working tirelessly around the UPLB campus pushing for the internalization of more/better knowledge beyond books & theses!@517