UN World Poetry Day March 21, 2026 theme, "Poetry as a Bridge for Peace and Inclusion," (Article in Progress)

 "Poetry as a Bridge for Peace and Inclusion." 

Don't Cut the Trees, Don't! 

Ecology Poems with Paintings and Photographs

In celebration of the UN World Poetry Day, March 21, 2026

Dr Abe V Rotor
Living with Nature - School on Blog [avrotor.blogspot.com]

Dr Abe V Rotor, right, receives first copy of his book Don't Cut the Trees, Don't, from Rev Fr Florentino Bolo, Jr OP and Rev Fr Pablo Tiongco OP, secretary-General and Vice-Rector of the University of Santo Tomas, respectively, during the book launching last February 17, 2010.

Dr Rotor and family pose with Rev Fr Florentino Bolo Jr OP, UST secretary-general.

Message
Armando F. De Jesus, Ph.D.
Dean, Faculty of Arts and Letters
University of Santo Tomas

Environmental degradation, in its various forms, is perhaps the most serious threat confronting this and the coming generations. The key response to meet this challenge is environmental conservation.

Conservation is more than just action for the environment. Conservation is a new ethic deriving from a new way of understanding the environment and of man’s relationship to it. This new understanding assumes that man is an integral part of, not an outsider in, the environmental community. In harming the environment, man hurts himself. He is related to the land as a steward, not a master.

This conception of the environment lays the basis for a new environmental ethics – do unto the land as you would the land do unto you. Treat the land with request, if not with reverence.

Don’t Cut the Trees, Don’t is a collection of ecology poems and paintings of nature. The tree is taken to represent the environment. Each poem and each painting is like a leaf of a tree each revealing a little of the many marvels of this unique creation. Each poem and each painting is a plea on behalf of this new vision and of this new ethics.

Concealed behind each poem and each painting is the spirit of the author, Dr. Abercio V. Rotor, a man whose love and passion for the environment is well-known. I hope the reader will not only find delight in these poems of Dr. Rotor but will also catch his zeal and enthusiasm for nature.

Foreword
Ophelia A. Dimalanta, Ph.D.
Director, Center for Creative Writing and Studies
University of Santo Tomas

What makes this poetry collection by Abercio V Rotor specially significant is its ecological slant which gives it an added dimension rarely attributed to other poetry collections. Poet Rilke reminds the contemporary poet to “get out of the house” and bond with nature. Most of the poems written today are introspective, or retrospective written in the privacy of one’s room but of one’s heart. There is nothing wrong here. But we welcome this attempt to indeed “get out of the house” and establish kinship with every creeping, floating, flying creature outside our private nooks.

It is a substantial collection, departing from the usual stale air of solitariness and narcissism which permeates most poetry today. It is therefore a welcome contribution to Philippine poetry in English, livened by visuals that add color to the poetic images.

The oeuvre is not only pleasurable because of this. The poetic ability of the poet himself enriches the whole exciting poetic experience, a blurring of the line separating man from the rest of the living creatures outside. Every poem indeed becomes “flowers in disguise” using the poet’s own words.

Other books of Dr Rotor published by UST: Light from the Old Arch (2000), The Living with Nature Handbook (Winner 2003 Gintong Aklat Award), Living with Nature in Our Times (Winner 2008 National Book Award), and Living with Folk Wisdom (2009). 

DON'T CUT THE TREES, DON'T - 5 selected poems 

                          1. Ode to a Tree that Wears a Veil

                     

Acacia tree in its deciduous stage, is loaded with epiphytes,

 Ateneo de Manila University QC campus

                 
A veil to shield the sun,
A veil to keep from rain,
A veil to buffer the wind,
A veil to hide the view around,
A veil to muffle sweet sound,
When you wear your crown.

A veil to let the sunshine in,
A veil to welcome the rain,
A veil to dance in the wind,
A veil to view far beyond,
A veil to free those in bond,
When you lose your crown.

A veil to clothe the naked,
A veil to comfort the lonely,
A veil to feed the hungry,
A veil to house the lost.
A veil to welcome the dawn,
When you gain back your crown.

                 2. Leafless Tree by the Window

                                                                 Sacred Heart Novitiate, Novaliches QC

I am a passing wind, I knock on the window pane,
The door is closed, the wall in deathly pallor;
The roof of rusting crimson, eaten by sun and rain.
I knock again - only silence returns my call.

I must have missed summer when everything here -
A single tree, a patch of grass - is a garden;
Long was my way fighting the dark heavy sky,
And autumn lulling all into deep slumber.

Fall is beautiful, but where are the good poets now?
Sleep and the flowers will come one by one;
But I am just a passing wind and soon I'll be gone.
I knock again - only silence returns my call.

                                     3.  Deciduous Trees

                                                         Deciduous Trees in Acrylic AVR 

You lose your crown that you may gain
Freedom to reach out for the sky;
For the sun to bathe your whole being,
To raise the lowly where they lie.

The sky and ground now become one,
Renewing faith in new life to beam;
Rises the sun the prime mover all,
To flow through the living stream.

You litter the floor, keep in the rain,
Feed the microbes, the brute you tame,
Breaking the carbon back to its form,
And the genie for the next game.

Seasons may come and go, obedient
And humble are your ways untold;
Your old gene, it’s the key to loving
Your kin, and fighting the bold.

Against the wind and scanty rain;
The inner signal comes around
Ticking, then it comes, it is fall;
You have earned a bigger crown. ~

4. Agoho Trees

Agoho Trees mural by the author and children: Marlo, Anna and Leo Carlo, SPUQC 2000

Each tree a mark of time,

From past to the age of space;

Of deeds, passing wind a chime,

Spreading peace and grace.

In handshake they seek across

The seas and to the stars,

For some brethren long lost

Bearing hurt and scars.

Strong against the storm,

Their timber will not give

Only to time and reform;

They stand as long as they live.

And many a man well in thought

Walks, arch above his head;

To honor what he had fought,

For the tears he had shed.

Walk to the gate, hurry,

The Sentinel will not wait;

Night falls, dark and dreary,

Go before it’s too late.

               5. Ecology Prayer

Upland wall mural, author's residence San Vicente, Ilocos Sur 

                                                When my days are over,

let me lie down to sleep

on sweet breeze and earth

in the shade of trees

I planted in my youth;

and if I had not done enough,

make, make my kind live

to carry on the torch,

while my dust falls

to where new life begins –

even only an atom that I shall be;

let me be with you,

                                                 dear Mother Earth. ~

Dr Abe V Rotor and Dean Ophelia Dimalanta hold trophies won by the author’s previous books – Gintong Aklat Award (The Living with Nature Handbook, 2003) and National Book Award (Living with Nature in Our Times, 2008) in the presence of Fr Regent, and Dean Armando De Jesus of the UST Faculty of Arts and Letters.

Lesson on former Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid (People's School-on-Air) with Ms Melly C Tenorio 738 DZRB AM, [www.pbs.gov.ph] 8-9 evening class Monday to Friday

It's Spring Equinox Today March 21, 2026 in the Northern Hemisphere; Autumnal Equinox in the Southern Hemisphere. (And vice versa)

Part 1 - Children workshop:

Plot the earth as it moves round he sun

Dr Abe V Rotor

 

Author guides kids in the neighborhood trace the movement 

of the earth around the sun in a summer art workshop. 

Barangay Greater Lagro, QC

Movement of the Earth around the sun in relation to the changing of seasons.  

Plot the earth as it moves around the sun in 365 days, plus one-fourth day, to complete a calendar year (and a leap year every four years); divide it into four phases or seasons: spring, summer, autumn and winter in this order. And while the order is fixed, the occurrence of the seasons in the Northern Hemisphere is exactly the opposite in the Southern Hemisphere. 

Plot the earth as it moves around the sun and mark the longest day (June 21), longest night (Dec 21), and call them Summer Solstice and Winter Solstice, respectively - that is, if you live somewhere in the Northern Hemisphere. In the Southern Hemisphere it is winter when it is summer in the north, summer when winter, and Spring and Autumn are interchanged.    

Plot the earth as it moves around the sun and mark two dates when day is equal to night: Spring Equinox (March 21) and Autumnal Equinox (Sept 21) - whether you live in the Northern or Southern Hemisphere.  These dates are significant to some leaders: "Beware at the ides of March." (warning before the assassination of Julius Caesar), and declaration of Martial Law in the Philippines by President Ferdinand Marcos.  

Plot the earth as it moves around the sun and know when the rains start and ends (habagat), when the rice fields are about to be harvested and when the cold  Siberian winds blow in (amihan).  And in between, a brief hot and dry summer that allows the land to rest (fallow), and children to take a vacation from school. 

Plot the earth as it moves around the sun, and study the relationship of our planet with other planets, the nature of its orbit - apogee and perigee - as these affect our climate and the living things on earth.  In fact, the realignment  of the planets is full of speculations and prophesies regarding the end of the world.  

Plot the earth as it moves around the sun and imagine how the sun's energy is harnessed by plants by means of photosynthesis, how differential heating causes
wind, storm and severe winter, the movement of air and ocean currents that redistribute heat and cold.  Or simply to witness the passing of night to day at different proportions and schedules. 

Plot the earth as it moves around the sun and know it by heart as the calendar of  school and office, of work and play, of planting and harvesting, of various human activities and festivities, it is the calendar measured in seconds, minutes, hours, days, lifetime, generation, epoch. It is the reminder that "we pass this way but once."  And therefore, the greatest gift of our existence. ~

Part 2 - Surrealism Art

Beware the IDES OF MARCH (March 21 Vernal equinox)

"E Tu Brute?"

Last Words of Julius Caesar*

Dr Abe V Rotor

Artist's interpretation of the assassination of Julius Caesar on the ides of March 44 BC, symbolically depicted on a reconstructed shattered marble slab, by Dr Abe V Rotor

 2021

* E Tu Brute? is a Latin phrase literally meaning, 'and you Brutus, or 'also you Brutus?', often translated 'You as well, Brutus", 'You too, Brutus?"  As readers of William Shakespeare know, a dying Caesar turned to one of the assassins and condemned him with his last breath.  It was Caesar's friend, Marcus Junius Brutus. 

Marcus Junius Brutus, a leading conspirator the assassination of Julius Caesar, died by suicide after his defeat at the second battle of Philippi. (Internet).

The "Ides of March" refers to March 15th in the ancient Roman calendar, famously associated with the assassination of Julius Caesar, while the vernal equinox, marking the start of spring in the Northern Hemisphere, occurs around March 20th or 21st.

Top Ten Reasons to Beware the Ides of March
 Here are 10 events that occurred on that date

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
By T.A. Frail
SMITHSONIANMAG.COM
MARCH 4, 2010 INTERNET

1.Assassination of Julius Caesar, 44 B.C.
Conspirators led by Marcus Junius Brutus stab dictator-for-life Julius Caesar to death before the Roman senate. Caesar was 55.

2. A Raid on Southern England, 1360
A French raiding party begins a 48-hour spree of rape, pillage and murder in southern England. King Edward III interrupts his own pillaging spree in France to launch reprisals, writes historian Barbara Tuchman, “on discovering that the French could act as viciously in his realm as the English did in France.”

3. Samoan Cyclone, 1889
A cyclone wrecks six warships—three U.S., three German—in the harbor at Apia, Samoa, leaving more than 200 sailors dead. (On the other hand, the ships represented each nation’s show of force in a competition to see who would annex the Samoan islands; the disaster averted a likely war.)

4. Czar Nicholas II Abdicates His Throne, 1917
Czar Nicholas II of Russia signs his abdication papers, ending a 304-year-old royal dynasty and ushering in Bolshevik rule. He and his family are taken captive and, in July 1918, executed before a firing squad.

5. Germany Occupies Czechoslovakia, 1939
Just six months after Czechoslovak leaders ceded the Sudetenland, Nazi troops seize the provinces of Bohemia and Moravia, effectively wiping Czechoslovakia off the map.

6. A Deadly Blizzard on the Great Plains, 1941
A Saturday-night blizzard strikes the northern Great Plains, leaving at least 60 people dead in North Dakota and Minnesota and six more in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. A light evening snow did not deter people from going out—“after all, Saturday night was the time for socializing,” Diane Boit of Hendrum, Minnesota, would recall—but “suddenly the wind switched, and a rumbling sound could be heard as 60 mile-an-hour winds swept down out of the north.”

7. World Record Rainfall, 1952
Rain falls on the Indian Ocean island of La Réunion—and keeps falling, hard enough to register the world’s most voluminous 24-hour rainfall: 73.62 inches.

8. CBS Cancels the “Ed Sullivan Show,” 1971
Word leaks that CBS-TV is canceling “The Ed Sullivan Show” after 23 years on the network, which also dumped Red Skelton and Jackie Gleason in the preceding month. A generation mourns.

9. Disappearing Ozone Layer, 1988
NASA reports that the ozone layer over the Northern Hemisphere has been depleted three times faster than predicted.

10. A New Global Health Scare, 2003
After accumulating reports of a mysterious respiratory disease afflicting patients and healthcare workers in China, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Singapore and Canada, the World Health Organization issues a heightened global health alert. The disease will soon become famous under the acronym SARS (for Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome). ~

United Nations International Day of Happiness March 20, 2026 Theme Happiness is Caring and Sharing

Usapang Bayan   

United Nations International Day of Happiness March 20, 2026

Theme: Caring and Sharing

Gross National Happiness (GNH)

Dr Abe V Rotor

"Free and Happy as the windmills of Bangui (Ilocos Norte.)"

Usapang Bayan, Ms Melly C Tenorio, host, and Dr Abe V Rotor, guest

Have you heard of a measure of growth and development based on people's happiness?

Well, it is called Gross National Happiness (GNH) by Bhutan, the proponent of the idea. It is more than people's welfare which is the aim of Human Development Index (HDI).  And it is a radical alternative to Gross National Product (GNP) which is a broad and unqualified gross measure of a country's economic growth.  

Bhutan's bold attempt to quantify national well-being and achieve sustainable

development (Gross National Happiness Index) is opening the eyes of the world to the paradox that rising incomes don't bring happiness (Easterlin Paradox, named for American economist Richard Easterlin).  

 Happy Bhutanese people in their native costumes

This is a long known fact but it was shrouded by an apparently progressive capitalistic world  in the last three decades - until recently – when economic crisis gripped the most progressive countries led by the US and members of the European Union, now affecting other countries, among them the the Philippines. 

Filipinos are naturally a happy people

amidst hardship and difficulties in life. 

The paradox is steadily being felt in China as it replaced Japan as the second biggest economy of the world. And the new tiger economies as well -  Singapore, Korea, Taiwan, including India which is 

an upcoming technology giant.

(Singapore Survey: Less than a third of the population doesn’t like to live to a 100 years.)

Unhappiness has been the cause of depression, and depression often leads to self-destruction. Rising incomes, if taken as an analogy to Easterlin Paradox, increases the rate of depression and therefore suicide.  Thus the highest rate of suicide in the world has been observed in highly industrialized countries like Japan, the US and UK, with victims that include young men and women in the prime of their careers, and set to "conquer the world" but have failed to meet their aspirations.

GNH is a Eastern alternative to pressures of the materialistic Western world. The new measure aims at reducing pressure of living on the fast lane. It reduces the influx to cities and consequential buildup of urban marginal communities. It holds on to time-tested, community-based living. It is an alternative to a stressful life, and pressures of  competition.  

To make GNH workable, Bhutan is adopting a program based on four pillars, namely

• sustainable economic development
• conservation of the environment
• preservation of culture
• good governance

What is happiness sought for by a people, by a nation or region? It is really more than material benefit.  It is more than growth of institutions.  Of high rise buildings and wide avenues. It is something that elevates the human spirit on a higher level, albeit religiosity.  It is something that speaks of now and tomorrow, of the welfare of our children and children's children. 

Translated to the individual person, happiness may be gauged by his answers to these simple questions often encountered in daily living.

• "How many people can you count on for help in case you get sick?" 
• "How often do you eat meals together as a family?"
• "How restful can you be after a weekend?"
• "How comfortable are you with the level of household debt?"
• "How satisfied are you in your present work.?"
• "How often do to take time out with the kids?"
• "How comfortable are you at home? In the neighborhood?"
• "How secure are you with your income?  Savings?"
• "How fulfilled are you your career? Livelihood?  Vocation?"  
• "How satisfied are you with you community's governance?" 
•  "How satisfied are you in sharing your talents and resources?  
•  "How well preserved is your natural environment?  

Maybe we might as well ask

• "How happy did you feel yesterday?"
• "How satisfied are you with life today.?

-------------------------------------

Happiness is …. 

Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life. Omar Khayyam (PHOTO FROM RUBAIYAT)

Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get. Dale Carnegie

There is only one happiness in this life, to love and be loved. George Sand

Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. Albert Schweitzer

Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort. Franklin D. Roosevelt

The secret to happiness is freedom... And the secret to freedom is courage. Thucydides

A grateful heart is a beginning of greatness. It is an expression of humility. It is a foundation for the development of such virtues as prayer, faith, courage, contentment, happiness, love, and well-being. James E. Faust

Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony. Mahatma Gandhi

Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you. Nathaniel Hawthorne

Love is the master key that opens the gates of happiness, of hatred, of jealousy, and, most easily of all, the gate of fear. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life. Albert Camus

Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go. Oscar Wilde

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Thomas Jefferson

True happiness is... to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future. Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Happiness depends upon ourselves. Aristotle

Happiness resides not in possessions, and not in gold, happiness dwells in the soul. Democritus

Joy can only be real if people look upon their life as a service and have a definite object in life outside themselves and their personal happiness. Leo Tolstoy

Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know. Ernest Hemingway

The happiness of the bee and the dolphin is to exist. For man it is to know that and to wonder at it. Jacques Yves Cousteau

A happy life must be to a great extent a quiet life, for it is only in an atmosphere of quiet that true joy dare live. Bertrand Russell

“The basic thing is that everyone wants happiness, no one wants suffering. And happiness mainly comes from our own attitude, rather than from external factors. If your own mental attitude is correct, even if you remain in a hostile atmosphere, you feel happy. If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion. When we feel love and kindness toward others, it not only make others feel loved and cared for, but it helps us also to develop inner happiness and peace. If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.”  - Dalai Lama

A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin; what else does a man need to be happy? Albert Einstein

-------------------

The United Nations declared 20 March the International Day of Happiness to recognize the relevance of happiness and well being as universal goals. 

Parameters of Happiness of GNH Index:

1. Psychological Well-Being

2. Health

3. Time Use

4. Education

5. Cultural Diversity

6. Good Governance

7. Community Vitality

8. Ecological Diversity and Resilience

9. Living Standards

10. Family

11. Spirituality

12. Sense of Achievement

Self-evaluation: Rate yourself using the Likert Scale: 1 Very Poor, 2 Poor, 3 Fair, 4 Good, and 5 Very Good. 

Compute the average by adding the values of all the parameter, and divide it sum with 12. This is the general perception of happiness of the person concerned. What is equally - if not more important - is in being able to find out the main source of happiness, at the same time, the least. This exercise therefore, is aimed at re-affirming our sense of values in the pursuit of happiness. So does a community. 

We say we are happy, or a little happy. Or unhappy. Or sad. But how can we quantify happiness like in a grading system?

The founding father of happiness research, Dr Happiness himself - Dr Edward Diener of the University of Illinois.* calls this technique The Satisfaction with Life Scale.

This test can be used in the classroom, in meetings and conferences, or just for the sake of bonding with friends and associates.

On a piece of paper rate yourself in each of the following items. Use a scale of 1 to 7, where 1 is not true at all, 4 is moderately true and 7 absolutely true. The scale allows you to approximate closer to your self-judgment.

Children's summer art workshop, a community project. San Vicente, Ilocos Sur

Here are the criteria:

1. In most ways my life is close to my ideal.

2. The conditions of my life are excellent.

3. I am satisfied with my life. 

4. So far I have gotten the important things I want in life.

5. If I could live my life over, I would change almost nothing.

Compute for the total score by adding all values from the five questions. Here is the interpretation of your score.

· If you got 31 to 35, you are extremely satisfied with your life. Kudos!· If you got 26 to 30, you are very satisfied with your life.· If you scored 21 to 25, you are slightly satisfied. · Those who scored 15 to 19 (slightly dissatisfied) will have to perk up and unload some reasons. Get to the neutral point which is 20, and thence move up the happiness ladder.

It's not hopeless if you got low. The idea of this exercise is to create awareness that there are avenues of happiness, and that there are basic levels of happiness that one can cling to, and say, "Oh well, that's life." And still manage to laugh. And the world laughs with you. “Laugh and the world laughs with you.  Weep and you will weep alone.” Ella Wilcox ~

----------------

* 
The General Assembly of the United Nations in its resolution 66/281 of 12 July 2012 proclaimed 20 March the International Day of Happiness, recognizing the relevance of happiness and well-being as universal goals and aspirations in the lives of human beings around the world and the importance of their recognition in public policy objectives. It also recognized the need for a more inclusive, equitable and balanced approach to economic growth that promotes sustainable development, poverty eradication, happiness and the well-being of all peoples. The resolution was initiated by Bhutan, a country which recognized the value of national happiness over national income since the early 1970s and famously adopted the goal of Gross National Happiness over Gross National Product. It also hosted a High Level Meeting on "Happiness and Well-Being: Defining a New Economic Paradigm" during the sixty-sixth session of the General Assembly. UN/Internet

United Nations International Day of Happiness

March 20, 2026 Theme

 Happiness is Caring 

and Sharing

            

Dr Abe V Rotor

24 Postulates to Build a "Children of Nature" Culture

 24 Postulates to Build a "Children of Nature" Culture

Our children will clean the land, water and air which we the generation before littered. They will heal the earth we defaced, damage. With generation gap closed, the task will be shared by all.

Dr Abe V Rotor

  Young biologist studies a specimen. Children plant trees and vegetables. 

 Author conducts summer painting workshop for kids.

1. Our children need to know the true meaning of biodiversity. Four attributes - richness in kind, population, interrelationship, ecosystem area.

Biodiversity per se does not guarantee sustainability unless integrated with functioning systems of nature.

2. Our children’s development must be holistic In all four stages: genetic, childhood, lifestyle – and fetal (in the womb). Sing, talk to your baby while in the womb.

3. Our children are at the front line and center of people’s revolution spreading worldwide.

Arab Spring is still sweeping over North Africa and the Middle East, The Syrian crisis has escalated and drawn US, Russia and other countries into the conflict, while terrorism has spread into global proportion, which covers our own Mindanao, amid threat of a nuclear war spawned by North Korea. In the US mass demonstrations are denouncing the present leadership. 

4. Our children become new heroes – heroes for the environment, martyrs for Mother Earth. Heaven is in a regained Paradise on earth.

The coming of a universal faith, irrespective of denomination is becoming a popular idea. To many, to be saved is not by faith and promise. Heaven starts here on earth.

5. Let’s prepare our children to face the consequences of loss of privacy and secrecy, from personal to institutional transparency.

Janitor fish - subject of kids' curiosity, an introduction to biology.  

“You can no longer hide. There is no place you can remain with anonymity.” Wikileak unveiled classified information about the Iraq and Afghanistan war. Bank secrecy laws and safeguards are changing. Citizens have the right to know many hidden financial transactions.

6. Our children’s involvement in social media makes them actors and not mere spectators. They become involved, concerned with issues, local and far reaching.

There is need to strengthen Development Communication (DevComm) over conventional entertainment and reactionary media.

7. Our children will inherit our aging infrastructure. Aging Infrastructure pulls down the economy, increases risk to disaster, creates ghost cities and making life miserable.

A new field of biodiversity has been born in deserted towns, on the 38th Parallel between South and North Korea, in land mines areas, ghost towns, among deserted high rise buildings, in high radiation areas like in Chernobyl (Russia) Three-mile Island (US) and Fukushima (Japan).

8. Our children are deprived of natural beauty and bounty with shrinking wildlife, conversion of farms and pastures to settlements, and destruction of ecosystems.

“Canned Nature” (delata) has become pseudo Nature Centers. Gubat sa Siyudad, Fantasyland, Ocean Park, Disneyland

9. Our children, and succeeding generations are becoming more and more vulnerable to various infirmities – genetic, physiological, psychological, pathologic.

Computer Syndrome is now pandemic, and its toll is increasing worldwide. South Korea is the worst hit. The Philippines is not far behind.

10. Our children’s learning through codification defeats logical thinking and creativity. Thus affect their reasoning power, judgment and decision, originality of thought and ideas.

More and more children are computer-dependent. They find simple equations and definitions difficult without electronic gadget.

11. Our children face the age of singularity whereby human and artificial intelligence are integrated. Robotics robs human of his rights and freedom – new realm of curtailment and suppression. (2045 – The Year Man Becomes Immortal – Time Magazine). This is falsehood!

 On-the-spot painting; wall mural painting 

12. Our children finds a world of archives - memories, reproductions, replicas – of a real world lost before their own time.

We are making fossils, biographies, dirges and lament, as if without any sense of guilt.

13. Our children will realize that optimism will remain the mainstay of human evolution, rising above difficulties and trials. Hope is ingrained in the human brain that makes vision rosier than reality.

Anxiety, depression will continue to haunt, in fact accompany progress, but these all the more push optimism up and ahead.

14. Our children are overburdened by education. They need freedom to learn in their own sweet time and enjoy the bliss and adventure of childhood and adolescence.

E-learning is taking over much of the role of schools and universities. Open Universities, Distance Learning will dwarf classroom instruction, the beginning of a new University of Plato’s dream.

15. Our children will witness in their time the beginning of a post-capitalism order, environmental revolution, rise of growth centers and shift in economic dominance and order, more green technologies, and space exploration.

This is Renaissance in in the new age.

16. Our children will continue looking for the missing links of science, history, religion, astronomy etc, among them the source of life itself and its link with the physical world.

Linking of disciplines, narrowing down the gaps of specializations, making of a new Man and culture.

17. Our children become more and more transient in domicile where work may require, and for personal reasons, and when given choice and opportunity in a global perspective, intermarriages notwithstanding.

“Citizen of the world” is a person without a specific country. He is therefore, rootless.

Humans since creation are rooted politically, culturally – and principally biologically.

18. Our children will have a family size of ideally 2 or 3 children, enabling them to achieve their goals and dreams in life. They will strengthen the middle class the prime mover of society.

A natural way of family planning and population planning, trend of industrialized countries.

19. Our children will clean the land, water and air we the generation before littered. They will heal the earth we defaced, damage. With generation gap closed, the task will be shared by all.

We must be good housekeepers of Mother Earth now.

20. Our children will be part of devolution of power, decentralization of authority, a new breed of more dedicated leaders.

Natural History exhibit at the former St Paul University Museum QC

Children hold the key to change. It’s the Little Prince that changed and saved the pilot in an ill-fated plane crash in the Sahara Desert.

21. Our children face acculturation and inter racial marriages. Melange of races is on the rise – Eurasian, Afro-American, Afro-Asian, etc – a homogenization process that reduces as a consequence natural gene pools.

Culturally and scientifically, this is dangerous. Homogenization leads to extinction of races and ultimately the species.

22. Our children will live simpler lives, going back to basics, preferring natural over artificial goods and services. In the long run they will be less wasteful that us.

There is always a hidden desire to escape when things get rough. This is instinct for survival either by detour or turning back.

23. Our children face the coming of the Horsemen of Apocalypse – consequence of human folly and frailty (nuclear, pollution, poverty). More than we grownups, they are more resilient to adapt to the test.

History tells us that this is true.

24. Postmodernism may do more harm than good for our children in a runaway technology and culture. They cannot and will not be able to keep with the pace and direction of change.

This is not true. “I am the master of my fate, I’m the captain of my soul.” (From Invictus, by William Ernest Henley).  And this is what we want our children to become – but only when they are CHILDREN OF NATURE.