Usapang Bayan: Green Revolution Today - Agriculture and Ecology in Balance and Harmony

Second Session  2-3 pm, July 11, 2025

First Session 2-3 pm, Friday July 4, 2025

In celebration of World Rural Development Day July 6, 2025*

 Green Revolution Today - Agriculture and Ecology in Balance and Harmony 

Formerly, Green Revolution at the Grassroots

Green Revolution OF, FOR and BY the People

          Ms Melly C Tenorio, host, and Dr Abe V Rotor, Guest

Dr Abe V Rotor

[avrotor.blogspot.com]

Part 1 - Sustainable Productivity: Key to Profitable Agriculture and Balanced

             Environment
Part 2 - Build a Homesite (Bahay Kubo Concept)

Part 3 - Village Biotechnology: Let's regain biotechnology industries on the village level
ANNEX 1 - Dr Juan M Flavier: "Doctor to the Barrio" Leaves a Legacy
ANNEX 2 - Features of Development Communication

* On 6 September, 2024, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) unanimously adopted a resolution proclaiming July 6 every year as the “World Rural Development Day”. Rural Development is a process, which aims at improving the well being and self realization of people living outside the urbanized areas through collective process. Internet 

Part 1 - Sustainable Productivity: 

Key to Profitable Agriculture and Balanced Environment

I learned these practical farming techniques from old folks at home, and from successful farmers, here and abroad, which inspired me to look into their scientific explanation in college.

Death of large scale agriculture in agrarian societies 

1. East-to-west orientation Arrange the rows of plants on an east-to-west orientation. This allows better and longer sunlight exposure which enhances photosynthesis. There is less overshadowing among plants compared to north-to-south, or any direction, especially when inter-cropping is practiced. You can increase crop yield to as high as 10 percent by this technique lone.

Have a compass at hand, and remember that an-east-to-west orientation of rows does not only increase yield of your regular crop, but allows you to practice layered or storey cropping as well - thus, enabling you to increase the effective area of your farm. Incidence to pest and diseases is greatly reduced by this practice. Crop quality is likewise improved such as sweetness and size.

There's one drawback though. When it comes to sloping terrain, it is advisable to observe the rules of contour farming that minimizes soil erosion and conserves soil moisture. Consult your nearest agriculturist. Learn from local farm models.

2. Inter-cropping and alternate cropping. In peanut-and-corn alternate planting, peanut is a nitrogen fixer and provides nitrate fertilizer to its companion crop - corn. Corn on the other hand, is a heavy nitrogen feeder. When planted alone and repeatedly, the tendency is that the soil becomes depleted of nitrogen. Peanut benefits from irrigation given to the corn, and gains protection from excessive wind and dryness from its taller companion. And to the farmer, having two crops is like doubling the effective area of his farm, not to mention the maximum use of space in double cropping, which also benefit the animals with corn fodder and peanut "hay."

Massive erosion leads to irreversible low productivity  

Here are some common combination of crops.

• tomato and pechay
• sugarcane with mungbeans
• coconut and coffee or cacao
• coconut and lansones
• stringbeans (pole sitao) and rice
• papaya and pineapple
• peanut, corn and sweet potato
• pigeon pea (kadios) and rice
• grape on hedge and cabbage or cauliflower

3. Non-cash technology principle. Don't spend, save on farm input and labor cost through practical means. Here are proven practices.

• Follow recommended use of the land, the crops to plant, cropping system to follow. Consult local agriculturists, successful farmers.
• Go with the seasons and be part of community farming - when to prepare the seedbed, plant, irrigate, harvest. Off-season planting is expensive and risky, and is done only for special reasons.   

Wastes clog rivers and irrigation canals, destroy soil fertility and deposit toxic chemicals.

• Fallowing. Give your farm a break. Nature takes a rest usually in summer. You can hear the land breath, the cracks harbor aestivating frogs, fish, crustaceans, snails and other organisms. Break the life cycle of pest and disease organisms. Give yourself too, a break.
• Plow after the first heavy rain to turn over the weeds, converting them into organic fertilizer, and keeping their population down.
• Plant native varieties, they are sturdier and simpler to take care. Less fertilizer, less pesticide, if needed. There is a growing market for native crops and animals. People are avoiding pesticide and antibiotic residues, more so, genetically modified crops such as Bt Corn.
• Avoid hybrids as much as possible. They are heavy soil nutrient feeders. They are genetically unstable, you cannot make your own binhi (planting material) out of your harvest.

4. Practical Postharvest technology. Avoid crop loss in all stages - from planting to harvesting to manufacturing. At all cost avoid wastage. It defeats your goal and objective. And remember there are millions of people around the world whio have little to eat.

• Harvest on time and promptly
• Know the shelf life of your harvest. For perishables, sell or process immediately.
• Use proper tools and equipment
• Have your harvest properly dried, packaged and stored, specially if you plan to keep it for some time. Keep it away from the elements and pests.
• Consider quality, not only quantity.

5. Processing increases value added. Why don't you do the processing yourself, rather than sell your harvest directly. Milled rice rather than palay. You can go for second processing - or manufacturing - rice flour. puto (rice bread), suman, bibingka (rice cake), rice wine (tapoy). , Promote local industry, generate employment for the family and locality.

6. Use by-products efficiently. Farm wastes are converted into many useful products.

• Rice hull and sugarcane bagasse for fuel.
• Corn stover, rice hay for livestock feeds.
• Rice and corn bran for poultry and piggery feeds.
• Crop residues, and weeds for composting.
• Banana leaves, rice hay for mushroom growing
• Tobacco stalk for pest control (spray or dust)
• Coconut shell for charcoal (activated carbon)
• Rice hay for mulching (bed cover of garlic, onions, other crops)
• Manure as organic fertilizer and composting

7. Multi-commodity or diversified farming. Grow two, three or more crops, with animals and fish, and other commodities.

• Palay-isdaan (rice and tilapia, hito, dalag, gurami)
• Sorjan farming - alternate upland and lowland culture. Field is divided into strip, alternately elevated and depressed.
• Piggery and biogas digester for biofuel. Biofuel to run your own generator.
• Poultry on range, feedlot for cattle, fishpond, field and vegetable crops.
• Agro-tourism. Combine farming with ecology. Make farming attractive to tourists, specially children. Let them experience planting, harvesting, catching fish or butterflies. Have you farm suitable for camping.

Farming is as old as civilization, and for thousands of years has been the mainstay of economy and well-being of man and his society. Farming is the root of festivities and rituals. It keeps the family working, playing and living as a unit. It in turn, sustains communities Farming is food security, it gives the sense of independence and self-sufficiency.

Practical farming is the answer to many problems we encounter today such as

• High cost of production
• Pollution from farm chemicals
• Loss of farm productivity
• Decreasing profitability
• Harmful residues in crops and animals
• Loss of soil fertility, soil loss due to erosion 

Community Gardening, San Juan,

 Metro Manila

• Idle farms, abandonment of farms
• Desertification - farm land to wasteland
• Unemployment and underemployment
• High dependence on mechanization and expensive input
• Technology transfer gap

These and other practices flourish in many farms all over the world. Let's preserve them, they are the fallback to today's modern agriculture.

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This article is dedicated to the memory of my professors, Dr Eduardo Quisumbing, Dr Deogracias Villadolid, Dr Rufino Gapuz, Dr Juan Aquino, Prof Francisco Claridad, Prof Leopoldo Karganilla, Prof Emiliano Roldan, Dr Nemesio Mendiola, Dr Juan Torres, Dr Fernando de Peralta, et al, advocates of natural farming and acclaimed leaders of the so-called Old School of Agriculture. 

Part 2 - Build a Homesite (Bahay Kubo Concept)

This article was adjudged one of related projects that won the Ist Oscar Florendo Awards for Developmental Communication.  Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid (School on Air) 

Home gardening is fun, exercise, and source of food and medicine - and a source of income. Study these models and find out which ones are applicable in your area. Share your experience with the members of the family, school and your community.

This is a floor plan of a homesite you can build, adjustable in area, design and components.  Shift your efforts and finances into an investment, short to long term.  Be healthy and happy with your family.  Learn to live within your means, with less and less food to buy, simple technology, recycling, and many other advantages. Redesign this model to your own situation and need.

These gardening models have been developed from studies and observations of successful projects locally and abroad. They serve as guide to participants and listeners of Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid (School-on-Air) to help them in their projects, particularly in times of food scarcity, such as the present situation caused by the El Niño phenomenon.

But even during normal times, these models are useful to gardening enthusiasts, especially children and senior citizens who find this hobby highly rewarding to health and leisure, and as a source of livelihood, notwithstanding. Those who are participating in projects in food production and environmental beautification, such as the Clean and Green Movement, and Green Revolution projects, will find these models similarly valuable.

One however, can modify them according to the peculiarity of his place, and in fact, he can combine those models that are compatible so as to develop and integrate them into a larger and more diversified plan.

One who is familiar with the popular Filipino composition Bahay Kubo, can readily identify the plants mentioned therein with those that are cited in these models. And in his mind would appear an imagery of the scenario in which he can fit these models accordingly.

Here is a plan of a Homesite - an ideal integrated garden around a home in a rural setting. Compare this with Bahay Kubo. Update it. Innovate it according to your concept, situation and needs. Allow innovations as long as these do not lose the essence of the plan. You can even expand the area, adding more features to it.

In effect, this Homesite model becomes a model farm, a Homestead - one that has economic and ecological attributes that characterize the concept of sustainable productivity cum aesthetics and educational values.

Part 3 - Village Biotechnology 

Let's regain biotechnology industries to the village

"Many village industries bowed out to companies that now control the production of commercial and imported brands, such as patis, suka, puto, nata, bihon, to name a few. The proliferation of many products and the inability of local products to keep up with the growing sophisticated market have further brought the doom of these originally village products. Definitely under such circumstances the small players under the business parameter of economies of scale*** find themselves at the losing end. Bigness is name of the game. Can we regain the lost village-based biotechnology industries?"

 My father, a gentleman farmer, was a brewer. He inherited the trade from my grandfather and from previous generations. I still use today the good earthen jars in producing the same products – basi, the traditional Ilocos wine, and its by-product, natural vinegar - using the same indigenous formula. (PHOTOS)

  

The making of basi and vinegar, as well as a dozen other products of sugarcane, like panocha, pulitiput, kalamay, sinambong, and kinalti, is a traditional cottage industry in the Ilocos region which is traced back to the Pre-Hispanic era when hundreds of small independent brewers like my father lived comfortably on this once flourishing industry.

Things appeared simple then. But time has changed. We know that sugarcane has long been planted with rice, legumes and vegetables, but it sounds like new in modern parlance with terms like crop rotation or crop diversification. Making of wine, vinegar and confectionary products are under agro-industry. Because the process generates profit, we call this value-added advantage. So with the tax that is now slap manufactured products. To determine the business viability of a business we determine its internal rate of return (IIR) and its return on investment (ROI). Brewing today is agro-processing and an agribusiness. And my father would be called not just a proprietor, but a business partner since family members and relatives share in the operation of the business. Possibly his title today would be general manager or CEO.

Things in my father’s time had become outdated, shifting away from traditional to modern. But it is not only a matter of terminology; it is change in business structure and system.

Big business is name of the game

Like many other village industries, the local breweries bowed out to companies that now control the production of commercial and imported brands. The proliferation of many products and the inability of local products to keep up with the growing sophisticated market have further brought their doom. Definitely under such circumstances the small players under the business parameter of economics of scale find themselves at the losing end. Bigness is name of the game.

Monopolies and cartels now control much of the economy here and in other countries. Transnational companies have grown into giants, that one big company far outweighs the economy of a small country. Total business assets of North Carolina is more than that of Argentina, which is one of the biggest countries of the world in terms of land area and population.

Today agribusiness and biotechnology are corporate terms that are difficult to translate on the village level and by small entrepreneurs.

All these fit well into the present capitalistic system that is greatly under the influence of IMF-WB on borrower-countries, and terms of trade agreements imposed by GATT-WTO on its members, many of which reluctantly signed the its ratification. Under the capitalistic system there has been a shift of countryside industries into the hands of corporations, national and transnational. Take these examples.

Coffee PHOTO is raised by millions of small farmers all over the world, but it is monopolized by such giant companies like Nestle and Consolidated Foods. Cacao is likewise a small farmer’s crop, but controlled by similar multinationals. So with tea, the world’s second most popular beverage.

Unfortunately this inequity in the sharing of the benefits of these industries is exacerbated by the absence of a strong and effective mass-based program that emphasizes countryside development through livelihood and employment opportunities. Multi-national monopolies thrive on such business climate and biased laws and program in their favor.

We import rice, corn, sugar, fruits, meat and poultry, fish, fruits and vegetables in both fresh and processed products, when in the sixties and seventies we were exporters of the same products. We were then second or third in ranking after Japan in terms of economic development.

“Small business is beautiful” (PHOTO: EC Schumacher, author) 

There must be something wrong somewhere. But while we diagnose our country’s ills, we should make references to our own successes, and even come to a point of looking on models within our reach and capability to imitate. There are “unsung heroes” in practically all fields from business, agriculture, manufacturing to folk medicine and leadership. Perhaps for us who belong to the older generation, it is good to feel whenever we recall old times when life was better – and better lived.

Biopiracy and technopiracy

Ampalaya (Momordica charantia) is a source of medicinal substances registered iunder exclusive brand names by drug companies here and abroad.

“The biggest piracy that is taking place today is not at sea and on the rich. It is stealing people’s resources – from herbal medicine to indigenous technology – stolen by rich countries and big corporations. Biopiracy and technopiracy constitute the greatest violation to human rights and social justice in that the people are not only deprived of their means of livelihood; they are forced to become dependent on those who robbed them.”

(Biopiracy is a situation where indigenous knowledge of nature, originating with indigenous peoples, is used by others for profit, without permission from and with little or no compensation or recognition to the indigenous people themselves.Informal or “underground” economy.  Internet)

Informal or “underground” economy is the lifeblood of rural communities. They are the seat of tradition, rituals, barter and other informal transactions. They link the farm and the kitchen and the local market. They are versions of agro-processing and agribusiness on the scale of proprietorship and family business. They strengthen family and community ties.

It is for this reason that the NACIDA – National Cottage Industry Development Authority – was organized. And truly, it brought economic prosperity to thousands of entrepreneurs and families in the fifties to sixties.

South Korea for one in the late sixties, saw our PRRM and NACIDA models and improved on them with their SAEMAUL UNDONG development program which ultimately brought tremendous progress in its war-torn countryside. In Tanzania, one can glimpse some similarities of our program with LAEDZA BATANI (Wake up, it’s time to get moving) rural development program. The Philippines stood as an international model, recognized by the WB and ADB, for our countryside development program – cottage industries, farmers’ associations, electric cooperatives, rice and corn production program, which made us agricultural exporters. So with our biotechnology in farm waste utilization through composting with the use of Trichoderma inoculation, and in natural rice farming by growing Azolla in lieu of urea and ammonium nitrate. Another area of biotechnology is in the retting of maguey fiber, which is a work of decomposing bacteria.

The Saemaul Undong, also known as the New Village Movement, Saemaul Movement or Saema'eul Movement, was a political initiative launched on April 22, 1970 by South Korean president Park Chung-hee to modernize the rural South Korean economy. The movement is being revived today as a model for developing countries such as Cambodia, 2015 (photo)

Today there are many opportunities of biotechnology that can be tapped and packaged for small and medium size businesses and organized groups of entrepreneurs and farmers. These opportunities also pose a big challenge to the academe and to enterprising researchers in government and private institutions.

Important organisms for biotechnology

• Spirulina (blue-green alga or Eubacterium) - high protein, elixir.

• Chlorella (green alga) – vegetable, oxygen generator

• Pleurotus and Volvariella (fungi, mushroom) – anti-cancer food.

• Azolla-Anabaena (eubacterium with fern)– natural fertilizer

• Porphyra, red seaweed, high-value food (“food of the gods”)

• Hormophysa (brown alga) – antibiotics

• Eucheuma (red alga) – source of carageenan, food conditioner

• Gracillaria (brown alga) – source of agar, alginate

• Sargassum (brown alga) – fertilizer and fodder

• Saccharomyces (fungus, yeast) – fermentation

• Aspergillus (fungus) – medicine, fermentation

• Penicillium (fungus) – antibiotics

. Caulerpa (green alga) – salad 

• Leuconostoc (bacterium) – nata de coco, fermentation of vegetables

• Acetobacter (bacterium) – acetic acid manufacture

• Rhizobium (bacterium) – Nitrogen fixer for soil fertility

• Nostoc (BGA or Eubacterium) – bio-fertilizer

• Ganoderma (tree fungus) – food supplement, reducer

• Halobacterium and Halococcus (bacteria)- bagoong and patis making

• Lactobacillus (bacterium) lactic fermentation, yogurt making

• Candida (yeast) – source of lysine, vitamins, lipids and inveratse

• Torulopsis (yeast) – leavening of puto and banana cake

• Trichoderma (fungus) – innoculant to accelerate composting time.

Before I go proceed allow me to present a background of biotechnology in relation with the history of agriculture.

Three Green Revolutions

The First Green Revolution took place when man turned hunter to farmer, which also marked the birth of human settlement, in the Fertile Crescent, (PHOTO) between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers where the present war in Iraq is taking place.

The Second Green Revolution is characterized by the improvement of farming techniques and the expansion of agricultural frontiers, resulting in the conversion of millions of hectares of land into agriculture all over the world. This era lasted for some three hundred years, and marched with the advent of modern science and technology, which gave rise to Industrial Revolution. Its momentum however, was interrupted by two world wars.

Then in the second part of the last century, a Third Green Revolution was born. With the strides of science and technology, agricultural production tremendously increased. Economic prosperity followed specially among post-colonial nations - the Third World - which took the cudgels of self rule, earning respect in the international community, and gaining the status of Newly Industrialized Nations (NICs) one after another.

Towards the end of the last century, the age of biotechnology and genetic engineering arrived. Here the conventions of agriculture have been radically changed. For example, desirable traits are transferred through gene splicing so that trans-generic – even trans-kingdom – trait combinations are now possible. Bt Corn, a genetically modified corn that carries the caterpillar-repelling gene of a bacterium, Bacillus thuringiensis, exemplifies such case. Penicillin-producing microorganisms are not only screened from among naturally existing species and strains; they are genetically engineered with super genes from other organisms known for their superior production efficiency.

Biotechnology for people and environment

The need for food and other commodities is ever increasing. Together with conventional agriculture, biotechnology will be contributing significantly to the production of food, medicine, raw materials for the industry, and in keeping a balanced ecology. This indeed will offer relief to the following scenarios:

1. World’s population increases from today’s 8 billion to 10 billion in 10 years.

2. Agricultural frontiers have virtually reached dead end.

3. Farmlands continue to shrink, giving way to settlements and industry,
while facing the onslaught of erosion and desertification

4. Pollution is getting worse in air, land and water. (Photos: right, garbage clandestinely exported by Canada to the Philippines)

 

5. Global warming is not only a threat; it is a real issue to deal with.

These scenarios seem to revive the Apocalyptic Malthusian theory, which haunts many poor countries - and even industrialized countries where population density is high. We are faced with the problem on how to cope up with a crisis brought about by the population-technology-environment tandem that has started showing its fangs at the close of the 20th century.

Now we talk in terms of quality life, health and longevity, adequate food supply and proper nutrition - other human development indices (HDI), notwithstanding.
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As scientists open the new avenue of genetic engineering to produce genetically modified organisms for food, medicine and industry, entrepreneurs are shaping up a different kind of Green Revolution on the old country road – the employment of veritable, beneficial microorganisms to answer the basic needs of the vast majority of the world’s population.

Green Revolution for the masses

This Green Revolution has to be addressed to the masses. The thrust in biotechnology development must have a strong social objective. This must include the integration of the mass-based enterprises with research and development (R&D). Like the defunct NACIDA, a program for today should be cottage-based, not only corporate-based. Genetic engineering should be explored not for scientific reasons or for profit motives alone, but purposely for social objectives that could spur socio-economic growth on the countryside, and the improvement the lives of millions of people.

Alternative Food

These lowly organisms will be farmed like conventional crops. In fact, today mushroom growing is among the high-tech agricultural industries, from spawn culture to canning.

Spirulina, a cyanobacterium, has been grown for food since ancient times by the Aztecs in Mexico and in early civilizations in the Middle East. Its culture is being revived on estuaries and lakes, and even in small scale, in tanks and ponds. Today the product is sold as “vegetablet.”

Seaweeds, on the other hand, are being grown extensively and involving many species, from Caulerpa to Nori. (PHOTO below)  Seaweed farming has caught worldwide attention in this last two decades, not only because it offers a good source of food, but also industrial products like carageenan and agar.

Environmental Rehabilitation

In the remote case that a nuclear explosion occurs, how possible is it to produce food and other needs in the bomb shelters deep underground? Fiction as it may seem, the lowly microorganisms have an important role. For one, mushrooms do not need sunlight to grow. Take it from the mushroom-growing termites. Another potential crop is Chlorella. While it produces fresh biomass as food it is also an excellent oxygen generator, oxygen being the by-product of photosynthesis. But where will Chlorella get light? Unlike higher plants, this green alga can make use of light and heat energy from an artificial source like fluorescent lamp.

Sewage treatment with the use of algae is now common in the outskirts of big cities like New York and Tokyo. From the air the open sewer is a series of reservoirs through which the sewage is treated until the spent material is released. The sludge is converted into organic fertilizer and soil conditioner, while the water is safely released into the natural environment such as a lake or river.

Marine seaweeds are known to grow in clean water. Their culture necessitates maintenance of the marine environment. Surprisingly seaweeds help in maintaining a clean environment, since they trap particles and detritus, and increase dissolved Oxygen and reduce dissolved CO2 level in water.

Bacteria being decomposers return organic substances to nature. So with algae and fungi. Fermentation is in fact, a process of converting organic materials into inorganic forms for the use of the next generation of organisms. In the process, man makes use of the intermediate products like ethyl alcohol, acetic acid, nata de coco, lactic acid, and the like.

Speaking of sustainable agriculture, take it from Nature’s biofertilizers like Nostoc and other Eubacteria. These BGAs form green matting on rice fields. Farmers in India and China gather this biomass, and use it as natural fertilizer. Another is Rhizobium, a bacterium that fixes atmospheric Nitrogen into NO3, the form of N plants directly absorb and utilize. Its fungal counterpart, Mycorrhiza, converts Nitrogen in the same way, except that this microorganism thrives in the roots of orchard and forest trees.

Let me cite the success of growing Azolla-Anabaena (PHOTO) on ricefields in Asian countries. This is another biofertilizer, and discriminating consumers are willing to pay premium price for rice grown without chemical fertilizer - only with organic and bio-fertilizers. At one time a good friend, medical doctor and gentleman farmer, Dr. P. Parra, invited me to see his Azolla farm in Iloilo. What I saw was a model of natural farming, employing biotechnology in his integrated farm –

• Azolla for rice,
• Biogas from piggery,

• Rhizobia (photo) inoculation for peanuts and mungbeans,
• Trichoderma for composting.
• Food processing (fruit wine and vinegar)

His market for his natural farm products are people as far as Manila who are conscious of their health, and willing to pay the premium price for naturally grown food.

Genetic Engineering

It is true that man has succeeded in splicing the DNA, in like manner that he harnessed the atom through fission. Genetic engineering is a kind of accelerated and guided evolution, and while it helps man screen and develop new breeds and varieties, it has yet to offer the answer to the declining productivity of farms and agriculture, in general, particularly in developing countries. Besides, genetically engineered products have yet to earn a respectable place in the market and household.

Genetic engineering of beneficial organisms is the subject of research institutions all over the world. I had a chance to visit the Biotechnology Center in Taipei and saw various experiments conducted by Chinese scientists particularly on antibiotics production. But biotechnology has also its danger. One example is the case of the “suicide seeds”. These are hybrid seeds which carry a trigger enzyme which destroys the embryo soon after harvest so that the farmers will be forced to buy again seeds for the next cropping. It is similar to self-destruct diskettes, or implanted viruses in computers. This is how Monsanto, the inventor of suicide seeds, is creating an empire built at the expense of millions of poor farmers over the world.

Medicine and Natural Food

As resistance of pests and pathogens continue to increase and become immune to drugs, man is corollarily searching for more potent and safe kinds and formulations. He has resorted to looking into the vast medicinal potentials of these lowly organisms, as well as their value as natural food. Here are some popular examples.

1. Nori or gamet (Porphyra, a red alga) – elixir,
claimed to be more potent than Viagra (PHOTO)

2. Edible seaweeds - rich in iodine, vegetable substitute.
There is no known poisonous seaweed.

3. Seaweeds as source of natural antibiotics, much safer than conventional antibiotics.

4. Mushrooms have anti-cancer properties.(PHOTO: author with wild mushroom from the field)

6. Cyanobacteria prolongs life, restores youthfulness.

7. Yeast is a health food

8. Yogurt is bacteria-fermented milk, health drink.

9. Carica and Momordica extracts for medicine and health food

10. Organically grown food (without the use of chemical pesticide and fertilizer)

Dr. Domingo Tapiador (PHOTO), a retired UN expert on agriculture and fisheries, helped initiate the introduction of Spirulina in the country. He showed me the capsule preparation produced in Japan. “Why can’t we grow Spirulina locally?” he asked.

 

Today a year after, there are successful pilot projects. Spirulina is not only good as human food but feeds as well. Prior to obtaining his doctorate degree, Professor Johnny Ching of De la Salle University found out that Spirulina added to the feed ration of bangus improves growth rate. (MS Biology, UST). Similar studies point out to the beneficial effects of Spirulina on the daily weight gain in poultry and livestock. Earlier studies also discovered Azolla, an aquatic fern with a blue-green alga symbiont – Anabaena, as a valuable feed supplement to farm animals.

These lowly groups of organisms which cannot even qualify as plants, but instead protists with which protozoa are their kin, biologically speaking that is, are after all “giants.”

They hold the promise in providing food, medicine, clean environment, and as a whole, a better quality of human life for the people today and the coming generations.~
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*The 2021 Global Report on Food Crises (GRFC 2021) highlights the remarkably high severity and numbers of people in Crisis or worse (IPC/CH Phase 3 or above) or equivalent in 55 countries/territories, driven by persistent conflict, pre-existing and COVID-19-related economic shocks, and weather extremes. The number identified in the 2021 edition is the highest in the report’s five-year existence. The report is produced by the Global Network against Food Crises (which includes WFP), an international alliance working to address the root causes of extreme hunger.

** The theme for International Day for the Eradication of Poverty 2021 is “Building Forward Together: Ending Persistent Poverty, Respecting all People and our Planet”. How many people live below the international poverty line?
736 million people lived below the international poverty line of US $ 1.90 a day in 2015. In 2018, almost 8 per cent of the world’s workers and their families lived on less than US$1.90 per person per day. Most people living below the poverty line belong to two regions: Southern Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

*** In microeconomics, economies of scale are the cost advantages that enterprises obtain due to size, output, or scale of operation, with cost per unit of output generally decreasing with increasing scale as fixed costs are spread out over more units of output.

ANNEX 1 - Dr Juan M Flavier: 

"Doctor to the Barrio" Leaves a Legacy

Special Topic in honor of the late Dr Juan M Flavier, Health Secretary and two-time senator. President, International Institute for Rural Reconstruction. True Filipino, hero.

Former health secretary and senator Juan M. Flavier. FILE PHOTO

Quoted from Doctor to the Barrios
" Dr Flavier is one of those rare persons who is actually at home in the barrio and among the leaders of the nation. In one day he may spend the morning discussing methods of family planning with barrio women; in the afternoon, he may confer with mountaineers from Vietnam about land reform; in the evening he may be found working with the Department of Social Welfare on strategy for national development." Quoted from the back cover of his first book Doctor to the Barrios 1970, New Day Publishers. Before his second book, My Friends in the Barrio, came out four years after, Doctor to the Barrio's printing reached 24,000 copies, and was translated in Indonesia and other countries. To date, 44 years after, Dr Flavier's books (7 major ones) are still in great demand.
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Quoted from My Friends in the Barrios
Dr Flavier introduces the reader to some of the friends in the barrios - and soon they become his friends also. They come alive as, with deft, down to earth strokes, the authors paints them on his canvas of rural life. Readers discover the answers to such intriguing questions as "Do eggs die?" "Why does operating a poultry lead to having many children?" "How does a rural swain woe his girl?" "Who gets rich in rice production?" "How do you explain the IUD in the barrio?"
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Quoted from Back to the Barrios
"For the sophisticated Metro Manilan or any other city-bred reader the stories about his friends in the barrios that Dr Flavier relates in his books are refreshing. We can all achieve fresh insights by every so often, going back to the barrios."
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Born in Tondo, Manila on June 23, 1935, Flavier grew up in Baguio City where he attended his elementary and secondary years. He attended medical school at the University of the Philippines where he graduated in 1960. 

Shortly after he obtained his medical degree, he chose to be an educator through the Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement (PRRM) and the International Institute of Rural Reconstruction (IIRR), organizations which served Filipinos in the provinces through education and training. He later led the organization from 1977 to 1992.

As health secretary, Flavier introduced effective public health campaigns such as curbing smoking and combating HIV/AIDS.

After leading the PRRM and IIRR, Flavier was designated by former president Fidel V. Ramos as the health secretary. By being the health secretary, Flavier was known as “Mr. Let’s DOH It!” which was derived from the DOH campaign slogan under his term.

He instituted campaigns such as the “Yosi Kadiri” campaign, ‘Sangkap Pinoy”, a campaign addressing micronutrient malnutrition, and the “Oplan Alis Disease”, a nationwide immunization campaign.

Under his helm, the Department of Health became an active government agency and became the number one government office under the Ramos presidency. Flavier is a two-termer senator who championed health and rural development issues.

After serving as the nation’s health secretary, Flavier won as a senator in 1995. As a neophyte senator during the 10th Congress, he was recognized as the senator who attended the most number of committee hearings and did not incurred any absences in Senate sessions.

He won a second term as senator and served until 2007.

Some of the landmark legislations he authored and sponsored include: 

• the Traditional Medicine Law, 
• Poverty Alleviation Law, 
• Clean Air Act, 
• Indigenous People’s Rights Act, 
• Anti-money Laundering Act, 
• Dangerous Drugs Act, 
• Philippine Nursing Act, and 
• the Tobacco Regulation Act.

He was once called an “agent of Satan” by Manila archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin.

When he was the health secretary, Flavier implemented the first anti-HIV/AIDS campaign in the country. Part of his campaign includes the distribution of condoms to Filipinos. Due to this particular effort, he was described by then Manila archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin as an “agent of Satan”

Sources: Reprint from the Internet; Inquirer archives, Senate website, DOH website

ANNEX 2 -  Features of Development Communication

"Lawin endeavors to elevate writing from journalism to authorship; and arts to humanities - the highest level the intellect can reach: philosophy - love of knowledge, and wisdom distilled through experience and time. " - avr 

The lawin circles and cries up high above our community: a cry calling for self-reliance and self-identity; a cry of joy in simple and practical living; and a cry of relief, a catharsis, freedom from within, where peace-of-mind and true happiness reign. Painting of a lawin on a backboard by the author.  Excerpt from a speech delivered by the author as president of Lawin (association of writers) before LGU and NGO officers, members and guests, Barangay Greater Lagro, QC 2022

What really does the lawin symbolize?

One early morning my granddaughter pointed at the bird in the sky. I explained what I know about the bird. Lawin symbolizes the young generations. It brings in the morning sun, it connects us grownups with the young generations. It gives our children a break from iPads and TV. .

One time children in the neighborhood in our place could not play their favorite game basketball. Somebody rebuilt their backboard, and games resumed. There's one difference: the other player on the back bard is a big lawin with outstretched wings seemingly playing with the kids.

Nearby a garbage dump began to transform into a vegetable and herbal garden. The children called it Lawin Garden. It is a local version of the Phoenix bird rising from the garbage ashes.

The lawin has a peculiar cry while in flight - clear and loud whistle of two notes. But most often, it is a silent flyer with panoramic and telescopic vision.

It can see like a satellite monitor what is happening over its broad area of vision, yet able to focus on the slightest movement - a prey or an enemy.

Writers and artists to a great degree are like the lawin. Like the lawin, true writers and  artists are a vanishing breed, they are an endangered species victim of instant and unguided social media, and worst assassination of journalists. The Philippines is compared to worn-torn countries like Syria and Afghanistan for having the highest number of killings in mass media.

The Lawin writers and artists have "eyes for news and the arts," Their aerial perspective is holistic and contiguous. They see the multiplicity and unity of space and time, people and events. And they never veer away from their community which they watch over.

At the onset of organizing LAWIN, we did some research on our trust and functions, and on the long run - our projected goal.

Our reference is the our own Gazette. Lawin is DEVELOPMENT COMMUNICATION. DevCom recognizes the power of communication as a catalyst for social development. It utilizes the tools and principles applicable in the community they serve for the advancement of society.

In an outline DevCom is

• Information dissemination and education
• Social Marketing - ideas, knowledge and wisdom
• Purposive communication - it sets targets
• Social mobilization - involvement and militancy
• Community improvement mainly on felt needs
• Positive change (social, political, economic, moral, environmental, etc)
• Participatory development - bottom-up approach
• Humanities development - applied aesthetics
• Sentinel and vanguard of code of media 
• Pathfinder - pioneering and visionary

Development Communication as the INTEGRATION OF STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION IN DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS, based on a clear understanding of real and down-to-earth situations, with people's participation and shared equitable benefits.

What then would be our guiding principle in our program? It can be summarized as follows, for an anonymous source:

"If it is of high quality, people will respect you;

  If it is relevant, people will need you; 

  If it is measurable, people will trust you; 

  If it is innovative, people will follow you." 

If you were the lawin up in the sky over Greater Lagro, you are likely to see these
the need to reduce waste by not being wasteful, and in making use of waste through recycling.

• the need to motivate people towards common goals, reinvigorate those in their senior years,
• the need to clean our streets and sidewalks - and our homes
• the need to train students in our schools not only in the field of mass media and applied art to run their school paper but to help then attain their chosen careers. 
• the need to take care of the trees, and plants more tree, to make Lagro an extension of the shrinking wildlife.
• the need to expand outdoor activities, participate in wholesome games and sports, creative activities.
• the need to guard Greater Lagro from the incursion of bad elements, vices, violations of human rights, peace and order.
• bringing in honors and prestige to the community through the talents of its citizens, particularly the young.
• unifying relationships of families, strengthening bonding, making the community senior citizen friendly, grandchildren friendly as well.

There are one-thousand-and-one other visions that challenge the organization LAWIN and its members giving meaning to their membership, above all, building a legacy for the next generations.

When we hear the lawin cry up in the sky, let us heed its message.

• A call for self-reliance, self-sufficiency. self-identity;
• A cry of joy to remind us that simple and practical living makes a full life; and
• A cry of relief that takes away the tensions of living, liberates us more than freedom symbolized by our flag, because it is freedom within where peace of mind and true happiness reign.

But we can only attain our goal with the support of our community, the various organizations, and networking of all sectors of society, and if our commitment is not only for our own generation but that of our children - and children's children. ~

TATAKalikasan: Let's Preserve our Marine Ecosystem. The case of Samal Bridge and the Writ of Kalikasan (Article in progress)

 TATAKalikasan, Ateneo de Manila University

87.9 FM Radyo Katipunan, every Thursday 11 to 12 a.m., 

July 10, 2025

Let's Preserve our Marine Ecosystem  

The Samal Bridge and the Writ of Kalikasan 

 Hosts: Fr JM Manzano SJ, Dr Abe V Rotor, Prof Emoy Rodolfo, AdMU 

and Prof Pauline Salvana Bautista

 Guest, Director Carmela Marie Santos

Ateneo de Davao University

The Davao-Samal Bridge project summary

The Davao-Samal Bridge project is still under construction and is expected to be completed by 2027. Construction is ongoing, with reports indicating that the project is progressing steadily despite some legal challenges related to right-of-way issues in Davao City. The 3.9-kilometer, four-lane cable-stayed bridge will connect Barangay Limao in Samal to R. Castillo-Daang Maharlika junction in Davao City.

Here's a more detailed breakdown:
Project Status:
Construction is ongoing and the project is reportedly on track for completion by 2027.
Legal Challenges:
There are ongoing legal challenges related to the project, including a petition for a Writ of Kalikasan, but these have not significantly disrupted the construction timeline.
Physical Accomplishment:
The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) has reported that the project has surpassed 12% in overall physical accomplishment.
Timeline:
The project is expected to be completed and operational by 2027.
Key Features:
The bridge is a 3.9-kilometer, four-lane cable-stayed bridge. It will reduce travel time between Samal and Davao City from 30 minutes via ferry to just 5 minutes. AI Overview

Background
SC issues Writ of Kalikasan vs. Davao-Samal bridge project
By Benjamin Pulta
July 1, 2025, 5:29 pm

PNA file photo by Yancy Lim

MANILA – The Supreme Court (SC) has issued a Writ of Kalikasan against the China-funded Samal Island - Davao City Connector Bridge Project, and has referred the case for a temporary environmental protection order (TEPO) to the Court of Appeals (CA).

The respondents include the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), the Samal Island Protected Landscape and Seascape Protected Area Management Board, and the China Road and Bridge Corp.

In a press briefing during the first day of the resumption of the SC session on Tuesday, spokesperson Camille Ting said the tribunal "required respondents to file a verified return on the petition within a non-extendable period of 10 days after service of the writ."

"The Supreme Court referred the prayer for a temporary environmental protection order to the Court of Appeals - Cagayan de Oro, for action," Ting added.

As a rule, so-called questions of fact in cases must be settled before lower courts, as the SC generally rules exclusively on questions of law.

Various groups have filed a petition before the SC to halt the construction of the PHP23 billion project that aims to connect Davao City and Samal, Davao del Norte.

The petitioners claimed the project will cause “actual, serious, and irreversible damage” to coral reefs in Paradise Reef, Samal Island, and the marine protected area in Davao City. (PNA)

Mongabay.
China-funded bridge threatens Paradise Reef in southern Philippines
Bong S. Sarmiento
7 Mar 2023AsiaOceans

Samal Island, a popular tourist destination near Davao City in the southern Philippines, is fringed by a 300-meter (980-foot) coral system known as Paradise Reef, which hosts more than 100 coral species.

A plan to build a bridge linking Davao to Samal threatens to destroy the reef, scientists and conservationists warn.
Campaigners in the area are calling on the Philippine government to reroute the bridge to minimize damage to the ecosystem.

SAMAL ISLAND, Philippines — Its official name, the Island Garden City of Samal, tells you all you need to know about this bucolic township off the coast of the southern Philippines. It’s an established tourist destination just offshore from the large city of Davao, and is known for its nature-based attractions such as beaches, waterfalls, a sanctuary for giant clams, and the world’s largest colony of Geoffrey’s rousette (Rousetteus amplexicaudatus), a species of fruit-eating bat.

A favorite getaway for Davao residents as well as other domestic and foreign tourists, the island can be reached from the city by passenger boat for less than $1 in about 10 minutes. Taking a car across involves a longer trip by ferry.

This narrow passage of water, home to the popular Paradise Island Park and Beach Resort, is also the site of a coral reef that runs 300 meters across and 50 wide (980 by 160 feet), known as the Paradise Reef. The reef hosts 79 species of hard corals, 26 species of soft corals, and at least 100 species of reef fish, according to a study commissioned by the resort owners.

But a massive bridge project, meant to boost tourist traffic from the mainland to Samal, threatens to wipe out Paradise Reef if construction pushes through, according to marine biologists and environmentalists. They’ve called on Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to order a rerouting of the $400 million China-funded project to

 save the coral garden. Tourists enjoy the waters off Paradise Island Park and Beach Resort. Image by Bong S. Sarmiento for Mongabay.

A vital ecosystem
Originally proposed 40 years ago, the Samal Island–Davao City Connector (SIDC) project was finally inaugurated in October 2022 at a groundbreaking ceremony attended by Marcos and the Chinese ambassador to the Philippines, Huang Xilian. The construction contract was awarded to China Road and Bridge Corp. (CRBC), a unit of state-owned China Communications Construction Co. Its Philippine partner on the project is the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH).

Ninety percent of the funding is in the form of a loan from China, signed toward the end of the administration of former president Rodrigo Duterte. Once completed by the 2027 target date, the 3.98-kilometer (2.47-mile) dual carriageway would allow vehicles to make the crossing in just five minutes, compared to a trip of roughly an hour by ferry, which includes the waiting time.

In the process, however, the bridge will cut across Paradise Reef, and run through land owned by the Rodriguez-Lucas family who have for the past 35 years operated the landmark Paradise Island Park and Beach Resort.

Paradise Reef is a precious coral garden with significant importance to the marine biodiversity around Samal Island, says marine biologist John Michael Lacson.

Lacson strongly recommends rerouting the bridge to save the reef ecosystem. “Paradise Reef is a spawning site — kind of like a bank that keeps hundreds of different kinds of precious coins that were collected throughout history. Spawning is when the bank multiplies those coins and dispenses them into the ocean. The future of coral reefs on the western side of Samal Island depends on this bank,” he said.

In January this year, Lacson took this Mongabay contributor on a guided snorkeling tour of Paradise Reef, which teems with corals and various fish species. Giant clams could be seen dotting the reef and a table coral believed to be more than 100 years old.

If the bridge is built through the site currently proposed, Lacson says the reef won’t survive the five-year construction period; the sedimentation and siltation from the dredging and construction activity will smother the coral polyps through the natural tidal current and kill them.

“The very same current that brings life to this reef will result in its death,” he tells Mongabay.

Lacson’s concern is echoed in the project’s final environmental impact analysis, prepared by advisory group Ove Arup & Partners Hong Kong Ltd. and published in October 2020. The report classifies the bridge as an “environmental critical project” because of its potential significant impacts on the local marine ecosystem.

“The largest potential impact foreseen would be during construction,” the EIA says. “Sedimentation and siltation would be a crucial source of risk and impact.” It adds that marine habitats and organisms in the area are at potential risk as resuspended sediments can settle and suffocate the ecosystem.

Lacson also says that a 10-square-meter (108-square-foot) portion of the coral reef has already been destroyed by the anchors of vessels used to drill boreholes for the geotechnical survey; in all, 97 boreholes will be drilled on and offshore ahead of construction.

Those responsible must held accountable, Lacson says, noting that the Philippine Fisheries Code of 1998 outlaws any activity that damages coral reefs.

Paradise Reef is a precious coral garden with significant importance to the marine biodiversity around Samal Island. Image by Alfredo Medina.

Calls to reroute the bridge

On the Davao side, the bridge runs through the village of Hizon, a designated marine protected area with known coral communities, and will connect to Samal in the village of Limao, cutting across the Paradise Island and Costa Marina beach resorts, both owned by the Rodriguez-Lucas family.

The project’s EIA notes that construction over the sea would destroy and disrupt soft corals and patches of hard corals on both sides of the bridge, and also identifies disruptions to seagrass meadows, fish habitats and natural sedimentary habitats. However, the developer’s environmental management plan, which forms part of the EIA, says the project’s impact on soft and hard corals “can be addressed by removing quickly any debris” and proposes regular monitoring of the reef.

The engineering, geological and geohazard report for the project also notes that a sinkhole lies adjacent to the location of the bridge in Samal, and that areas along the coastline exhibit clear indications of limestone dissolution features. These geological features could compromise the integrity of the bridge. However, the EIA says there are “engineering solutions that could address the problem.”

The government has rebuffed fears about the environmental impact of the bridge project. Emil Sadain, senior undersecretary at the DPWH, said in a statement that the final routing of the Samal-Davao bridge “has been exhaustively studied with most beneficial effects in terms of technical, financial, economic, environmental and social impacts.”Davao City’s skyscrapers loom from Samal Island. Image by Bong S. Sarmiento for Mongabay.

Lower-impact alternatives exist

In 2016, the Japanese government through its Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) commissioned a study on a potential Davao-Samal bridge. It identified an old shipyard, now called Bridgeport, as a suitable landing point for the bridge in Samal.

The span would be shorter and cheaper than the Chinese-backed SIDC project, at 2.62 km (1.63 mi) and around 16 billion pesos ($295 million at current rates).

Ramon Lucas, a spokesperson for the Rodriguez-Lucas family, says the METI routing would have been the best option in terms of both cost and environmental impact. The family owns a property close to the shipyard and offered to donate it as an alternative landing site to spare Paradise Reef in front of the beach resort, says Lucas, a lawyer.

In December 2019, the family commissioned a team led by marine biologist Filipina Sotto to conduct a study of the marine biodiversity in three sites in Samal: the chosen landing site, the site proposed by METI, and the property the Rodriguez-Lucas family offered to donate.

They found that the government’s chosen landing site had the healthiest coral, with 36.3% live coral coverage, or LCC. The next healthiest was the site offered by the Rodriguez-Lucas family, with 25% LCC, followed by the METI site, with LCC of just 7.8%. This indicates that either of these alternative site would result in less ecological damage than the plan proposed by the government. Building the bridge as planned, the team of marine biologists wrote, “will definitely cause irreparable, irreversible and incalculable damage to the best marine ecosystem in Samal Island that will have adverse ecological impact to the Davao Gulf as a key marine biodiversity area.”

The bridge on the side of Samal will land on the property owned by the Rodriguez-Lucas family. Image by Bong S. Sarmiento for Mongabay.

The project’s EIA, which used a different methodology, rated the live coral coverage at the chosen landing site at just 20.2%. Sotto and her team say the 2019 survey conducted by Ove Arup “was largely incomplete, misleading, deceptive and highly inaccurate.” Ove Arup & Partners did not respond to Mongabay’s request for comment.

The call to reroute the bridge is backed by the Sustainable Davao Movement (SDM), a coalition of at least 20 environmental organizations. And an calling to “Realign the Samal-Davao Bridge,” has gained almost 8,500 signatures since launching three months ago.

Carmela Marie Santos, director of Ecoteneo at Ateneo de Davao University and SDM’s point person for the Save Paradise Reef campaign, has appealed to President Marcos to order the rerouting of the bridge to save Paradise Reef, and to the DPWH to listen to the clamor of environmental groups.

References and Review Articles

                          Part 1 - "All in the Name of Progress"

- Ecology's Dilemma Today

Coral Reef, counterpart of our forest on land

• It looks like man has been able to trace the source of the water that comes from the proverbial Pierian Spring, the secret of health and long life. For years it was believed that the spring lies up in Shangrila atop the Himalayas, or according to the Greeks on Mt. Olympus, or the Egyptians in the Pyramids. One does not have to go there now. 

Even today the average life span of man is mid 70. It will not be a surprise if one out of a hundred individuals will be a centenarian. One report claims that the life span of man can be increased up to 140 years by the middle of the millennium. How long did Moses live?

• But cancer is on the rise, so with AIDS, and the spread of genetically linked defects and illness. Work-related and stress-related deaths will likewise increase with heart and severe depression as the leading diseases, followed by the traditional diseases like respiratory and diarrheal diseases. Already there are 15 million people who have died of AIDS and 40 millions more who are living with HIV, the viral infection. A pandemic potential with up to 1 billion people to become affected with HIV has started appearing on some crystal balls and this is not impossible if it hits populous Asia.                                     
• Cloning, the most controversial discovery in biology and medicine, will continue to steal the limelight in this millennium, stirring conscience, ethics and religion. It is now sensed as the biggest threat to human society, and if Frankenstein is back and some people regard him as a hero instead of a villain, we can only imagine the imminent destruction our society faces - the emergence of sub- and ultra- human beings. On the other hand, there are those who look at cloning as an important tool of medicine to enable doctors to save lives and increase life expectancy. They also believe that cloning in situ (on site) will do away with tedious and unreliable organ transplants.

• Gene therapy is in, medicinal healing is out. It means diagnosing the potential disease before it strikes by knowing its source. Actually diseases are triggered by specific genes. Reading the gene map of an individual, the doctor can “cure” the disease right at it genetic source. We call this gene therapy, the newest field in medical science. But the altered gene will be passed on to the next generation. Playing God, isn’t? Definitely it is, and it is possible to use this technology not only for the sake of treatment but for programmed genetic alteration. Another Frankenstein in the offing? But scientists are saying gene therapy can be a tool in removing permanently the genes that cause cancer, AIDS, and genetically linked diseases like diabetes, Down’s Syndrome, and probably alcoholism.

• We are in an age of test tube babies. There are now 100,000 test tube babies in the US alone since 1978, the arrival of Louise Brown, the world’s first test tube baby. The industry has just started booming with sperm and ova banks established and linked with the Internet and other commodity channels. Not only childless couples can have children, but even a sixty year old woman can - through what is coined as menopausal childbirth technology. Surrogate mothers for hire, anyone?

• If diseases can be predicted and successfully treated, and life can be prolonged – these have indeed grave consequences to population increase. Already there are 7.7 billion people inhabiting the earth today, and we are increasing at the rate of more than 80 million a year. After 2150 we shall have reached 13 billion, the estimated maximum capacity our planet can support. Is Malthus right after all? It looks like the ghost of this English political economist and priest is back to warn us, this time more urgent than his 1789 prediction that our population would grow until it reaches the limits of our food supply.

Marine life painting by the author.  With him is Sis Bernadette S Racadio, SPC, PhD, educator and environmentalist 

• Our Earth is getting warmer, and this is not any kind of comfort but destruction. We have experienced seven of the ten warmest years in the past decade and we are heading toward another Noah’s episode. Low lying areas where the rich farmlands and many big cities virtually squat will be flooded. Heat is trapped by the carbon that we generate from our cars and industries creating a “greenhouse effect.” As the world’s temperature increases, the polar ice will melt, more rains and climatic disturbances will ensue. Climate scientists have predicted that by year 2100 the earth’s temperature will go up from 1 to 3.5 degrees centigrade. But wait, the worst is yet to come. Global warming will plunge us ultimately – towards the middle of the millennium – into another ice age! There will be a buildup of ice at the polar regions as the ocean currents fail to carry warm water to the poles and back.

• The trend of lifestyle will be toward the simple and natural, even in the midst of high tech living. More and more people will go for natural food and natural medicine as they become conscious of their health. The media and the information highway will provide more people access to entertainment and information. Remote management and distance learning will greatly influence business and education. But people will still seek greener pastures in cities and in foreign lands.

• “Save the earth!” has yet to be a denominator of cooperation and peace among nations. The failure of the Earth Summit some years ago at Rio de Janairo, and the first summit before in Stockholm, has produced valuable lessons leaders must learn. There is only one ship in which all of us are riding. Let us all save our ship.

All in the name of Progress

It is all in the name of progress that nations are pursuing. The West insists of pushing the frontiers of technology into the so-called “third wave.” The East, the Asian Pacific region, insists on industrialization in order to catch up with the progress of the West, while the Middle East has yet to undergo a major socio-cultural and political transformation while aiming at lofty economic goals.

Progress, it is generally believed, is the aim of globalization, and globalization is building of a world village. Isn’t this the key to peace and cooperation? Sounds familiar to scholars and leaders.

Maybe, but the greatest challenge lies in the preservation of a healthy Mother Earth, a common denominator of concern irrespective of political, ideological and religious boundaries. It is the saving of the environment that will be the biggest challenge to this and the coming generations.

Poor Rating of Earth Summit

The recent Copenhagen Earth Summit renewed basically the agenda of previous summits. But demonstrators expressed pessimism over the sincerity of world leaders on environmental issues. 

They had in mind what happened to the promises made by leaders from 178 nations who gathered in the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro some years ago. These are the four areas of accord: biodiversity, climate, deforestation, and population.

On the biodiversity accord signed by 161 countries (except the US), ecosystems continue to be assaulted and fragmented. On arresting global warming as a result of emissions from industries and vehicles, developing countries on the path of industrialization have exacerbated the problem. Deforestation virtually knows no limits and bounds as long as there is wilderness to conquer. Every year forests are lost the size of Nepal. Asia has lost 95 percent of its woodlands.

There are now 7.7 billion people on earth. Every year about 85 million people are added. This is slightly bigger than the Philippines’ total population. Although birth rates are going down in the West as well as in the NICS, there is a boom in babies in rural Asia, Latin America and Africa.

What is the score of the Earth Summit? Rhetorics and promises can not be relied upon. It is in this area that globalization should be reviewed. Globalization should be defined in economic, cultural and environmental terms. This triad approach has yet to be addressed to all members of the global village. And there should be a new world governance, more credible than the UN, to undertake this gargantuan task.

Idyllic rural life.  People tend to go and live in the city. Painting by the author. 

“Hundreds of millions of people will starve to death,” warned Paul Ehrlich in his book, The Population Bomb. This is an echo of the Malthusian Theory raised 250 years ago. This means farmers, in spite of biotechnology, can not keep up indefinitely with increasing food demands. Yet there is a great disparity in food distribution. While the average adult needs 2200 calories a day, an American consumes 3603 as compared to the intake of a Kenyan which is only 1991 calories.

Degradation of the land, the breaking up of ecosystems, are resulting to modern day exodus of ecomigrants who cross borders, invade cities and build marginal communities, threaten security of nations, and creates other socio-economic problems. Desertification, soil erosion, overuse of farms drive multitudes to search for greener pasture, many in the guise of overseas workers, settlers, refugees.

The birth of megacities is a human phenomenon in modern times. The world’s cities are bursting at the seams. Half of the world’s population live in urban areas today, and more are coming in. In developed countries 75 percent of their population live in cities. By year 2015, 27 of the world’s 33 largest cities will be found in Asia, with Mumbai and Shanghai bursting with 20 million each. Today the most populous city in the world is Tokyo with 27 million people. New York has 16.3 million which is about the same as Sao Paolo. Metro Manila has 10 million.

On global warming, figures show how the world fares under greenhouse effect. This phenomenon is attributed to the severity of the last three episodes of El Nino in the last three decades, and to the prevalence of deadly tornadoes, hurricane, floods and natural calamities.

A hole in the sky was caused by damaging chemicals that tear down the vital atmospheric ozone shield that keeps us from too much heat and radiation. The size of the ozone hole about the Antarctic region is estimated to be like the whole continental US – and is still expanding. CFC use is now restricted in most countries, but there are other damaging chemicals used by agriculture and industry. Methyl bromide for one is 40 times more destructive to ozone than CFC.

Indeed, this millennium is the deciding point whether we can save Mother Earth - or fail. Already a decade has passed, and the trend of destruction has even increased. If we fail it is also the doom of mankind and the living world. It is yet the greatest challenge to civilization. ~

Credit: Museum of Natural History UPLB, Marlo Rotor for the photo. and Wikipedia

Part 2 - Let's Save the Giant Clam (Taklobo -Tridacna gigas)*

Dr Abe V Rotor

Living with Nature School on Blog [ avrotor.blogspot.com ]

Former Professor, UST Graduate School

Author and his students lift a living specimen of the Giant Clam 

(Tridacna gigas) from its natural habitat during an on-site study

off the coast of Masinloc, Zambales.

A seven-kilogram Tridacna gigas is examined by students in Environmental Science from the UST Graduate School.  Lower photo shows its natural habitat at 6 to 14 feet on coral reef of San Salvador Island, east of Masinloc, Zambales.

Facts about the giant clam, Tridacna gigas.

1. In the Philippines it is called taklobo. It is the largest living bivalve mollusk and one of the most endangered clams.

2. It lives on shallow coral reefs of the South Pacific and Indian oceans, up to 20 meters deep.

3. It weighs more than 200 kilograms (440 pounds), and measures as much as 1.2 m (4 feet) across. It has an average lifespan in the wild of 100 years or more.

4. Although larval clams are planktonic, they become sessile in adulthood. Growth is enhanced by the clam's ability to grow algae in symbiosis. The creature's mantle tissues act as a habitat for the symbiotic single-celled dinoflagellate algae (zooxanthellae) from which it gets its nutrition. By day, the clam opens its shell and extends its mantle tissue so that the algae receive the sunlight they need to photosynthesize.

5. T. gigas reproduce sexually. They are hermaphrodites (producing both eggs and sperm), but self fertilization is not possible. Since giant clams can't move across the sea floor, the solution is broadcast spawning. This entails the release of sperm and eggs into the water where fertilization takes place.

Let's save the giant clams. It's better to be assured they are alive on the seafloor than to have their fossils in our home.~

 

Tridacna in its natural habitat - lighted seafloor.  Right, Tridacna graveyard. 

Shell is highly prized for locally and for export.  Collection and selling 

of Tridacna shell is strictly prohibited. 

 

Mrs Cecilia Rojas Rotor, author's wife. poses before a giant Tridacna shell as holy water receptacle in Mount Carmel Church, QC

------------------*Why are giant clams endangered in the Philippines? Giant clams, which can weigh up to 200kg and live for more than a century, face an existential threat from illegal poaching – and very likely organized crime – which has spiked in the last few years across Philippine and Indonesian waters, conservationists have warned. Internet Apr 26, 2023

References: Living with Nature by AVRotor; Marine Biology: An Ecological Approach by JW Nybakken; Wikipedia.
 Lesson on former Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid with Ms Melly C Tenorio 738 DZRB AM Band, 8 to 9 evening class, Monday to Friday

Part 3 - The Ocean Biome

Scientists today believe that eighty percent of the world’s species of organisms are found in the sea.

Dr Abe V Rotor

Atoll, acrylic painting, AVR 1995

Coral Reef, detail of mural at SPUQC, AVR 2000

UST students in phycology, study of seaweeds, Bacnotan, La Union

Scientists today believe that eighty percent of the world’s species of organisms are found in the sea. One can imagine the vastness of the oceans as their habitat – four kilometers deep on the average (12 km at the deepest, Mariana Trench and Philippine Deep), covering 78 percent of the surface of the earth. 

Young people create scenarios of Jules Verne’s, “Ten Thousand Leagues Under the Sea,” such as the diorama shown here, imagining man’s futuristic exploration in the deep led by Captain Nemo, the idealistic but ruthless scientist. Such scenarios are no longer fantasy today – they are scenes captured by the camera and other modern tools of research. 

Latest development 

An international team of scientists has discovered 17,000 species living in darkness some three miles beneath the surface of the world's oceans. Scientists believe there are thousands more species yet to be discovered. Among the bottom dwellers discovered are Enypnioastes - a species of transparent sea cucumber that feed on sediments on the ocean floor; Neocyema,

rare fish, elongated and orange in color found in the Atlantic Ocean; Dumbo, a six-foot octopus; and Copepods, almost microscopic crustaceans sub-species of freshwater species. (Time, December 17 2009)

 

Left, Enypniastes is a genus of deep-sea sea cucumber. Due to its unique appearance, the genus has been dubbed the headless chicken fish, headless chicken monster, and the Spanish dancer. It is also known as the swimming sea cucumber. Right, Dumbo, a six-foot octopus

Our concern on the ocean biome is not one of exploration alone, but conservation, for our oceans, limitless as they seem, are facing the same threats of pollution and other abuses man is inflicting on land and air. The sea is man’s last frontier. Let us give it a chance.~

Miniature diorama of a tropical coral reef, by the author, 

former St Paul University Museum, QC 

Part 4 -  Kugtong - Giant Grouper (Lapulapu)

Dr Abe V Rotor

Living with Nature - School on Blog

I am a witness of a pair of giant lapulapu (kugtong) in Sablayan Occidental Mindoro caught by local fishermen sometime in 1982. I had been hearing kugtong since childhood, a threat to fishermen and picnickers because it could swallow a whole human being, and here with my own eyes the kugtong in Lola Basiang’s story is true after all. 

Groupers (lapu-lapu).  Giant lapulapu is locally called kugtong. (Photo credit Internet)

So huge are these overgrown lapulapu that two men could hardly carry one of them with a bamboo pole on their shoulders. A third man had to lift its tail from the ground as they inched their way to a waiting truck. I examined the fish; its body is coarse and shaggy, covered with seaweeds and tiny mollusks, and had lost all semblance of the favorite lapulapu on our dining table. But this makes a perfect camouflage that suits the predatory habit of this benthic fish.

There is a story about a kugtong that lived under the old pier of San Fernando, La Union. For a long time the strange fish was feared by the residents and many animals around had mysteriously disappeared. Then the local fishermen decided to catch it with a big hook luring the fish with a live piglet as bait. The fish took it and struggled until it was finally subdued. It was hauled by many men and if the story is accurate it took a six-by-six truck to transport it.

There is mystery in the biology of lapulapu or grouper as it is known worldwide.  Groupers are hermaphroditic, which means that sex switch from male to female and vice versa.  The young are predominantly female but transform into males as they grow to about a kilogram in a year, remaining adolescent until they reach three kilos.  From here they become females.  But wait. When they are about 10 to 12 kg they turn to males and grow very, very big. Lengths over a meter and weights up to 100 kg are not uncommon.

 A newspaper reported a 396.8 pound grouper being caught off the waters near Pulau Sembilan in the Straits of Malacca in 2008. Shenzhen newspaper reported that a 1.8 meter grouper swallowed a 1.0 meter whitetip reef shark at the Fuzhou Sea World aquarium.

So I asked my friend Dr. Anselmo S Cabigan, a fellow biologist.  “What is really the sex of a full grown kugtong, such as those I found in Mindoro?”

In my research it is male. The male is larger and wilder than the female, and I use as analogy the bull to cow, rooster to hen, peacock to peahen, lion to lioness. Dr Cabigan thinks it otherwise.  The female is larger, in fact much larger, that the male is virtually a remora-size creature attached to the female. I imagine the huge size of the queen termite as compared to the tiny king termite. The enigma of the groupers, considering their varied genera and species, and worldwide distribution could yet reveal other amazing facts about the kugtong.  At least we are sure the kugtong does exists. 

How dangerous is the kugtong?  It has the strategy of lying in wait, rather than chase in open water. It swallows prey rather than bite pieces of it. According to a report, there is at least one record, from Mozambique, of a human being killed by one of these fish.

There are giants in the deep. After the tsunami in 2004 that hit the Indian Ocean, by coincidence I saw giant squids measuring 3 feet long being sold at the SM Fairview supermarket. I surmise that these were flushed out from their deep dwellings and landed in the fisherman’s net when the calamity struck. I remember the giant squid that almost sank Captain Nemo’s submarine in Jules Verne’s “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.”

NOTE: Groupers belong to a number of genera, the biggest being Epinephelus and Mycteroperca of then Family Serranidae, Order Perciformes. Not all serranids are called groupers; the family also includes the sea basses. Their mouth and gills form a powerful sucking system that sucks their prey in from a distance. They also use their mouth to dig into sand to form their shelters under big rocks, jetting it out through their gills. Their gill muscles are so powerful that it is nearly impossible to pull them out of their cave if they feel attacked and extend those muscles to lock themselves in. Many groupers are important food fish, and some of them are now farmed. Unlike most other fish species which are chilled or frozen, groupers are usually sold alive in markets. Many species are popular fish for sea angling. Some species are small enough to be kept in aquaria, though even the small species are inclined to grow rapidly. (Wikipedia)

Part 5 - Phycology:  Seaweeds - Vegetables of the Sea 

 

Arusip or ar-arusip, is the most popular sea vegetable in the local market. It is now widely cultivated on seaweed farms.

“Food of the gods.” This is what the ancient Greeks call a special kind of seaweed which the Chinese and Japanese call “food of the emperor.” And only members of the royalty have the exclusive right to partake of this food. It is Porphyra – nori to the Japanese, laver to the Europeans, and gamet to Ilocanos. Thus elevating the status of some 30 species of edible seaweeds to a premium class of food - sea vegetables.

The fact is seaweeds have a wide range of importance from food and medicine, to the manufacture of many industrial products. In nature, seaweeds together with corals and sea grasses, constitute the pasture and forest of the sea, a vast ecosystem, unique in its kind because it is the sanctuary of both marine and terrestrial life, and in the estuaries.

Lately however, we have intruded into this horizon, pushing agriculture beyond land towards the sea. We build fishponds, fish pens and cages, resorts, and we introduce poison from our wasteful living.

And yet we have barely discovered the many uses of seaweeds. Ironically we are indiscriminately and unwittingly destroying the very production base of this valuable resource before we have discovered its full potential – in the same way we are destroying the forest even if we have studied barely 10 percent of the potential value of its composition.

A happy note however, may be found in our success in cultivating seaweeds even before naturally occurring species and stands become exhausted. Seaweed farming has been established in coves and sheltered coral reefs such as in Danajon Reef between Cebu and Bohol, on flat coral beds in Calatagan in Batangas, Zamboanga and Tawi-tawi, to mention the most important plantations. Eucheuma PHOTO, the source of carageenan is the main crop, followed by Gracillaria, Gellidiella and other species as source of algin and agar. 

These seaweeds built a multi-million dollar industry locally. Their extracts have revolutionized the food industry, mainly as conditioners in food manufacture. More and more products are derived from them for our everyday use, which other than in food, are used in the manufacture of medicine and drugs, cosmetics, fabrics, paints, films, to mention a few.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------Unlike land plants, no seaweed has been found to be poisonous or pathologic. On the contrary seaweeds are rich in minerals and vitamins, which make them elixir of health. Only one species so far is known to cause dizziness when taken in excess - lato or Caulerpa. A substance responsible to this effect is caulerpin, which may be explored of its potential value in medicine as natural tranquilizer.
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Seaweeds, botanically speaking, are not true plants, but rather algae – giants among their counterpart in the micro-world such as the Chlorella and Spirogyra. Biologists have assigned seaweeds into classes based on their color or dominant pigment, hence green (Chlorophyta), brown (Phaeophyta) and red (Rhodophyta). In terms of niche, these three groupings grow naturally at varying depths - in increasing depth in this order. This is ecologically advantageous and definitely a tool in their evolutionary success.

Food Value of Seaweeds

Fishes that feed on seaweeds contain high levels of Vitamins A and D in their liver, apparently absorbed from the seaweeds. Algae also synthesize appreciable amounts of Vitamins B12, C and K. Another advantage they have over land plants is their rich content of iodine, bromine, potassium, and other chemicals that have been discovered recently, many of which have potential value to medicine and industry.

It is no wonder why people who take seaweeds as regular part of their diet are sturdier and healthier and seldom get sick of anemia, goiter and scurvy. It is an observation that the Ilocanos who are the country’s top consumers of seaweeds generally enjoy good health and long life.

The cultivation of other edible seaweeds now include Enteromorpha, Monostroma, Laminaria, Porphyra and Undaria. The importance of seaweed culture is fast expanding this century, principally for food. This is to show the food value of seaweeds using kelp as a model.

Kelp (Laminaria japonica) contains the following nutrients based on a 100-gram sample: Carotene, 0.57 mg; Thiamine, 0.09 mg; Riboflavin, 0.36 mg; Niacin, 1.60 mg; Protein 8.20 g; Fats, 0.10 g; Carbohydrates, 57 g; Coarse fiber (roughage), 9.80 g; Inorganic salts, 12.90 g; Calcium, 1.18 g; Iron, 0.15 g; and Phosphorus, 0.22g.

Philippine seaweeds which approximate the food value of Laminaria are Eucheuma, Gracillaria PHOTO and Gellidiella. On the other hand, gamet or Porphyra has the following food value. Based on a 100-gram sample, gamet contains protein, 35.6 g; fat, 0.7 g; carbohydrates, 44.3 g; provitamin, 44,500 IU; Vitamin C, 20 mg; Vitamin B1, 0.25 mg; Vitamin B2, 1.24 mg; and Niacin, 10 mg.

Seaweeds Sold in the Market

These seaweeds are commercially sold in Metro Manila, mainly in public markets and in talipapa.

1. Lato or Arusip [Caulerpa racemosa)(Forsk)L Agard], Chlorophyta
2. Guso (Eucheuma sp.), Rhodophyta
3. Gulaman (Gracillaria verrucosa), Rhodophyta
4. Kelp (Laminaria sp.), Phaeophyta
5. Gamet (Porphyra crispata Kjellman ), Rhodophyta
6. Kulot [Gelidiella acerosa (Forsk) Feldman ]

Lato or Caulerpa is of two commercial species, C. racemosa which is cultured in estuaries and fishponds and and C. lentillifera which is usually found growing in the wild. It is the racemosa type that predominates the market. Because of frequent harvesting of this species by local residents lentillifera it is no longer popular in the market. Besides, the cultured Caulerpa is cleaner and more uniform. It has lesser damage and is less pungent than its wild counterpart.

Guso or Eucheuma cotonii is cartilaginous and firm as compared with Caulerpa and because it is very much branched air can circulate better in between the fronds, which explains why its self life may extend up to 3 days. Guso is eaten in fresh state mixed with vegetables or cooked in water and sugar to make into sweets.

Gracillaria verrucosa and G. coronipifolia are the two common species of gulaman. The thallus is bushy with a firm fleshy texture. It is cylindrical and repeatedly divided into subdichotomous branches with numerous lateral proliferation. Gulaman grows up to 25 cm long and has a disclike base. It is found growing in protected, shallow waters.

Gamet or Pophyra crispata Kjellman has a deep red thallus which is flat and membranous with soft gelatinous fronds. Three to nine blades usually form clusters which grow from a very small adhesive disc which has tiny rhizoids attached to the rocky substratum. Gamet grows on rock promontories and rocks exposed directly to the action of waves and wind. This can be observed along the coast of Burgos, Ilocos Norte, which is the major producer of gamet. To date we have not succeeded in culturing gamet in spite of our knowledge on how nori, a species of Porphyra similar to our own gamet, is raised on marine farms in Japan and other parts of the world. The most authentic reason is because the natural habitat of Porphyra is temperate.

Why gamet grows along the northern most tip of Luzon is because the cold Kuroshu Current coming down from Japan reaches this point during the months of December to February. The current probably carries also the reproductive parts of the organisms, which explains the similarity of the Japanese and Philippine species.

Gamet is sold in dried form, compressed in mat, either circular with a diater of 20 to 30 cm, or rectangular in shape measuring some 50cm x 100 cm. Gamet is blanched with boiling water and allowed to cool before salad garnishings are added. It is also added to soup or diningding.

Kulot or Gelidiella acerosa (Forsk) Feldmann and Hamel has tough and wiry thalli, greenish black to dull purple in color. They lie low and creeping on rocks and corals along the intertidal zone. It is very much branched when mature with secondary branches cylindrical at the base and flattened towards the tip and beset on both sides with irregular, pinnately short branches. The fertile branchlets have conspicuous swollen tips.

Kelp or Laminaria is also found in the market. This is popular seaweed growing only in temperate seas. The main supplier is China. Kelp grows to several feet long and is usually thick and broad. It is sold in dried form or cut into strips and soaked in water and rehydrated.

As a source of nutrition and natural medicine, seaweeds are important in commerce and industry and as direct source of food of the people. On the point of ecology, protection of seaweeds in the wild, as well as their cultivation on reefs, farms and estuaries should be integrated under a sound management program of our coastal areas. Thus preserving God’s Eden under the Sea. ~

Author (top, right) leads UST students in Phycology (study of algae) in a field research at Bacnotan, La Union

Codium or pokpoklo is popular among Ilocanos as fresh salad

A species of Caulerpa has became invasive  in the Mediterranean like weed in a field.   

Corals and algae for a symbiotic relationship, that one cannot exist without the other.

Part 6 - Heroes for Mother Earth

Today, rather than defending himself against nature, 

man has realized that he needed to defend nature against himself.

Dr Abe V Rotor

Man throughout evolution struggled to survive the harsh environment. This reminds us of the gargantuan task of building of the Panama and Suez canals where man was pitted against wilderness. Remember the days of the pioneers, the travails of Albert Schweitzer in penetrating the heart of Africa. Three thousand years ago, Alexander the Great died of malaria on the banks of Tigris-Euphrates rivers.

Endangered Earth in acrylic by the author

Then in the past century man began to dominate nature and soon attempted to overrun the planet. It was a 360 degrees turn. Today, rather than defending himself against nature, he has realized that he needed to defend nature against himself.

This is the beginning of a new environmental movement. Leaders of this movement are acclaimed protectors of our home – our only home, Planet Earth. They are regarded as the new breed of heroes. Now, who are these heroes? As we go through these names and analyze their contributions we hope to be able to understand this new concept of heroism.

Theodore Roosevelt, often referred to as Teddy or TR, was an American statesman, author, explorer, soldier, naturalist, and reformer who served as the 26th President of the United States, from 1901 to 1909.

• Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) was the first president to make conservation as a national policy.

• Ernest Schumacher (1911-1977) did not believe in endless growth, mega-companies and endless consumption, His book Small is Beautiful became a best seller. 

Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher was an internationally influential economic thinker, statistician and economist in Britain, serving as Chief Economic Advisor to the UK National Coal Board for two decades. 

• Barbara Ward (1914-1981) is the author of Only One Earth which shaped the UN environmental conference.

• E.O. Wilson (1929- ) PHOTO founded sociobiology in the 70s, saying that such human behavior as sexuality, aggression and altruism had a genetic basis. Recently he articulated the importance of bio-diversity in keeping the Earth healthy.

Edward Osborne "E. O." Wilson FMLS is an American biologist, researcher, theorist, naturalist and author. His biological specialty is myrmecology, the study of ants, on which he is considered to be the world's leading expert. 

• Paul Crutzen (1933- ), F. Sherwood Rowland (1927- ) and Mario Molina (1943- ) showed that man-made chemicals, the major culprit chloro-fluoro-carbons or CFC, destroys the ozone layer. The 1987 Montreal Protocol phased out CFC. Nobel prizes were given to the three scientists.

• Jacques-Yves Cousteau (1910-1995? ) Oceanographer and showman, espoused the need to arrest the declining health of the oceans.

• Rachel Carson (1009-1964) Mother of modern environmentalism, wrote Silent Spring documenting the deadly carnage of wrought by pesticides.

Rachel Louise Carson was an American marine biologist and conservationist whose book Silent Spring and other writings are credited with advancing the global environmental movement.

• Aldo Leopold (1887-1948) advocated the total protection of certain wilderness areas, established the land ethic which is summed up, “anything that harms an ecosystem is ethically and aesthetically wrong.”

• Barry Commoner (1917- ) Paul Revere in ecology, one of the first scientist to worry about the deteriorating environment, organized the eco-based Citizens’ Party ticket which paved a new political movement.
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• Barry Commoner was an American biologist, college professor, and politician. He was a leading ecologist and among the founders of the modern environmental movement.

• Wangari Muta Maathai was a Kenyan environmental and political activist. She was educated in the United States at Mount St. Scholastica and the University of Pittsburgh, as well as the University of Nairobi in Kenya.

• Wangari Maathai (1940- ) activist, organized the Green Belt Movement against reckless development in Kenya, stopped construction of a 69-storey office tower in a vital public space.
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•  Robert Hunter (1941- ) and Paul Watson (1950- ) pioneers of Greenpeace, then founder a more radical eco-organization, Sea Shepherd Conservation, and latest, Greenspeak and Frankenfood which are against genetically modified foods.

• Medha Patkar (1954- ) activist, forced WB to withdraw support Sardar Sarovar Dam along India’s Narmada River, saving half a million villagers from being displaced.

• Chico Mendes (1944-1988) Brazil environmental conscience, formed human barriers whenever chain saws and bulldozers threatened the rainforest, cut down by ranchers’ bullets.

There are many other Heroes for the Planet Earth, unknown and unsung. On the part of the church, St. Francis of Assisi is regarded as the patron saint of ecology. In ancient times, Aristotle was the first naturalist of global significance, and whose works are still relevant today.

Among the philosophers, Henry David Thoreau is known for his discourse on human liberty and survival in “Walden Pond” which still stirs imagination on how one man can live alone in the wilderness yet retains his rationality. 

When Mac-liing was gunned down by unknown assailants for openly protesting the government’s Upper Chico River dam project his image was that of a rebel rather than one who was fighting for the preservation of the ancestral lands of the Kalingas. Thousands of hectares were to disappear under water when the dam is completed, a case similar to Pantabangan dam which forever submerged a whole town, vast farmlands and forests.

                                    Philippine national hero Jose Rizal as a student

We have our own national hero Dr. Jose Rizal as an environmentalist in exile at Dapitan, and a naturalist even when he was a boy.~