Francisca Trinidad is among the last of a fine breed of religious sisters (SVWorld Series)

                           San Vicente Ilocos Sur (Philippines) to the World Series

Francisca Trinidad: "Manang Madre"

"We are not alone. We may be of different races, but God has placed us so that we journey on the same path."  - Fenimore Cooper, The Last of the Mohicans

Dr Abe V Rotor 

Sister Francisca Trinidad Rotor, SPC

All from San Vicente, Ilocos Sur: Manang Madre with Rotor clan: Fe (former UP professor), Cely (retired teacher), Veny (Franciscan sister)

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San Vicente is a small town, three kilometers west of Vigan, the capital of Ilocos Sur. The town takes pride in honoring its outstanding sons and daughters, among them, a diminutive, frail looking religious sister, who devoted her whole long life to the development of children through education and devotion. Author's Note: Search in this Blog, the life of Sister Mamerta Rocero, SPC, also a native of San Vicente.
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There is always the last of a distinct breed, reminiscent of The Last of the Mohicans, a novel written by James Fenimore Cooper. After that a new breed emerges.

Manang Madre is among the last of a fine breed of religious sisters.

She lived a full missionary life with the zeal and dedication of a Mother Teresa. She was simple and humble, and remained a trusted friend, mentor and spiritual adviser.

This is Manang Madre to us. We knew how good and courageous she was even at a very early age. She would warn us of approaching Japanese soldiers, and lead us into an underground hideout, hushing us into complete silence. Like a sentinel she knew when it was safe to go out and resume our chores and play. We would have known more fear and uncertainty were it not for her assuring company.

There was this incident just after the war that Manang Madre risked her life in saving my sister and brother who were trapped in a live charcoal pit. This is the dugout stove chamber used in boiling sugarcane juice to become muscovado or red sugar. It was a miracle, Dad and the people who came to the rescue afterward, said.

Manang Madre remained our elder playmate and guardian of sort. Mother died at the onset of the war, so that having Manang Madre around filled a vacuum in us. Dad always reminded us to be good to her.

There was a time Manang Madre invited us to see her glass aquarium. There beside the window, the morning sun cast a prism on the green Hydrilla plants with numerous bubbles forming and clinging on their leaves. One by one the bubbles rose and popped daintily. A dozen colorful fish gleefully played in the sunbeam. This indeed made a lasting impression in me to become a biologist.

In college I devised an exercise for my students to make a natural home aquarium without artificial gadgets. It was patterned after Manang Madre's aquarium.

It was peacetime. Things were going back to normal. Wounds have become scars, so people said. Children went back to school.

Manang Madre soon entered the convent without our knowledge. But she wrote often, sent us cards, istampita and religious medals.

It was many years after when I saw Manang Madre in the former Vigil House at St. Paul University Quezon City campus. She had retired and was wearing an implanted heart pacer. I too, had retired from government service and was teaching part time in that school.

In spite of her conditions she helped me build the school museum with her collection of stamps. She was a a philatelist. She helped me in the eco-sanctuary, the botanical garden of the school. She was a gardener. So with the school's outreach program in Barangay Valencia. She taught for many years children and adults alike. Why don't we map our family tree? I asked. She had indeed a very good memory to the third generation and fourth consanguinity.

The last time I saw her was two years ago at the new Vigil House at Taytay, Rizal. I was attending the annual school retreat. It was a bright morning. We were walking among the flowers that lined a big fountain pond fronting the modern edifice.

Manang Madre and two other religious sisters formed a triumvirate in the family. They all belonged to St. Paul of Chartres congregation.

• Sister Nathaniel Rocero, SPC, the intellectual, sometimes branded activist for her concern for the poor, a Ph.D. holder in English and Literature, proponent of traditional and classical philosophy.

• Sister Mamerta Rocero, SPC, the scientist, biologist, researcher, she revived the ethnic values of plants, humanist, also a Ph.D. holder (meritissimus). Her dissertation: "Ethnobotany among The Itawes," was published by the National Museum.

• Sister Francisca Trinidad, SPC, educator, school administrator, extension specialist, teacher to countless children as if they were her own, as if they were like us who once grew under the her protection.

Across the fence roared countless vehicles, smoke rose from smokestacks in the distance. The air was heavy with smog. A parade on wheels displayed colorful banner, amidst blaring announcements and reverberating music. Young teachers gathered on the veranda watching and taking pictures.

I remember the last part of The Last of the Mohicans. To quote:

"We are not alone. We may be of different races, but God has placed us so that we journey on the same path."

Sister Madre and her kind, assure us that we are not alone. They are the bridge of unity, ages and generations. They have placed us in that same journey, leading us all on the same path to God." ~

 Manang Madre's Natural Aquarium

- Keyhole View to Magnificent Creation

                                                                      

There was no electricity then, and therefore there were no motorized air pumps and filters, aquarium lights, oxygen generators, and the like, which we use in aquariums today. Yet the aquarium in those days was beautiful in its own natural way, and it was simple and easy to maintain.

 Glass aquarium at home 

When I was a kid I used to visit my cousin who later joined a religious order (Sister Francisca Rotor, SPC) just to watch and ponder on her glass aquarium sitting on a window facing the northeast. The sun shone through the glass, its rays splitting into the prism of the rainbow spreading on the aquatic plants, and the playful goldfish. Bubbles hanged on the glistening Elodea and Hydrilla plants, then rose slowly to the top faintly hissing and popping. I now understand that these bubbles are pure oxygen, the by-products of photosynthesis.

At the bottom and side of the aquarium were small snails which did the job of the janitor fish as gleaners and cleaners. Snails scrape off algal crust and being saprophytes too, convert organic matter into detritus which is equivalent to compost - in turn provides nutrition to the aquatic plants. Carbon dioxide emitted by the fish and snail is used by the plants for photosynthesis, and in the process produce sugar, and oxygen as by-product. Sugar is subsequently converted into other organic compounds which are necessary for the plants to grow and gain biomass. Being herbivores fish and snail depend upon the plant.

The secret of a stable aquarium is balanced gas exchange and organic-inorganic cycle. Once this is attained we can say the aquarium is a "balanced ecosystem," a microcosm of a pond or lake.

Manang Madre aquarium soon led me to search for great minds and their works, among them, Aristotle's Natural History, Darwin's Theory of Evolution, Oparin's Beginning of Life, Cousteau's Oceanography,  EO Wilson's Sociobiology, Leeuwenhoek's

Microscopy, and  Henry David Thoreau's Treatise of Nature and Man. 

On the other hand I taught my students to build aquariums without any electrical gadget, telling them, "In any experiment, understand and apply the laws of nature." 

Why don't you put up a project in your home or school, and replicate Manang Madre's natural aquarium? It is peeping through the keyhole of magnificent creation.   ~

Characteristics of a Natural Aquarium

1. A natural aquarium is a miniature pond, lake, or sea. 
2. The basic principle is conversion of the sun's energy into food and oxygen by algae and plants (photosynthesizers).
3. Food and oxygen are important to fish and other animals.
4. In return, the animals give off "waste" as nutrients and carbon dioxide important to plants.
5. A natural aquarium therefore is a simple ecosystem, balanced environment. 
6. Like any ecosystem, its balance depends on healthy interrelationship of the living and non-living world.
7. The organisms are classified into producers (plants, algae), and consumers (fish, snails), and decomposers (bacteria)
8. Balance is dynamic, it changes, but nature guides it to attain stability or homeostasis.
9. Energy flow goes through the food chain, food web, food pyramid.  
10. Humans are part of this system, and has assumed dominance over other organisms.
11. Nature takes care of itself even without man.  Thus, forests, coral reefs, and the like, are best maintained without man's intervention.  
12. On the other hand it is man that may destroy this natural balance through pollution, over fishing  chemical farming, deforestation - and global warming, which is a consequence of man's increasing number and affluence. ~

                   Natural Aquarium - Miniature Ecosystem 

I loved watching the guppies in an old fashioned aquarium

     sans any gadget for lighting, filter, and fancy screen;

the sun, the provider of food and oxygen through the algae

     clinging on rock, and snails living off the glass clean.  

I was a kid then eager to discover the mysteries of nature; 

     a little of Darwin, Linnaeus, and Arthur Doyle I sought,

of Fleming's serendipity and Leeuwenhoek's microscopy,

     seeing their images in an aquarium my cousin taught.

It was schooling, experimenting, and above all, dreaming,

     it took me to a little Smithsonian, to a niche in biology,

archive of living history, the microcosm of the living world,

     to the ends of the world, far from man's technology.   

     

 Basic microscopy for kids.  Bubbles of Oxygen, by-product of photosynthesis cling on the alga before they are dissolved in water  for the use of fish, or released into the atmosphere for humans and animals. 

Kids in the neighborhood observe how guppies devour mosquito wrigglers, a lesson in controlling diseases carried by mosquitoes without use of harmful and expensive chemicals. Common house mosquito, Culex, lays eggs on water which hatch into wrigglers. 

 Microscopic community nestles on the alga.  It is made up of protists living in a complex interrelationship, and interaction of energy and matter, in dynamic balance. 

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To me, Manang Madre's aquarium was a laboratory, the curious kid that I was.  It introduced me into a realm I would be devoting much of my time as biologist. It left an indelible mark of nature's self-contained system - the dynamic balance that keeps order and harmony in nature which scientists call homeostasis. ~