Rocielie Valencia: Outstanding Graduate Thesis on Ethnobotany in Australia by a Filipino

Rocielie Valencia: Outstanding  Graduate Thesis on Ethnobotany in Australia by a Filipino

The Masteral Thesis of Ms Rocielie Valencia  proved that plants indigenous to the place continue to play a major role in the maintenance of health and welfare, as well as the quaintness of living, among members of a mixed community.

Dr Abe V Rotor
Living with Nature - School on Blog

Rocielie Valencia visits a store in Darwin, Northern Australia, while conducting a research leading to a Masteral degree in biology from De La Salle University Dasmariñas. Her thesis on the ethnic uses of indigenous plants was adjudged outstanding thesis this year by DLSU. 

While people are introduced into modern living, move in to cities, and gain affluence, the traditional sources of food, medicine, clothing, fuel, constructional and industrial materials are still very important in their lives. In fact, all over the world people are looking back at alternatives to artificial and highly processed goods, that are natural, safe, affordable and readily available, thus re-opening the door to traditional and ethnic science, among them ethnobotany.







Ms Rocielie Valencia gained confidence and trust from the aborigines as well as immigrants from different parts of the world in Northern Australia, particularly Filipinos in conducting her research which proved that plants indigenous to the place continue to play a major role in the maintenance of health and welfare, as well as the quaintness of living, among members of a mixed community - contrary to belief that postmodernism has virtually eliminated ethnicity in the many facets of everyday living and of society in general. ~ 

 Acknowledgement: Thanks to the staff of DLSU-D Graduate School, to Dr. Johnny Ching, Dr Romualdo del Rosario, the country's foremost ethnobotanist, and members of the Panel of Examiners. Note: the author served as thesis adviser 

Photography: Color to Black & White Photos - a magical transformation

“When you photograph people in color, you photograph their clothes. But when you photograph people in Black and white, you photograph their souls!”
― Ted Grant

Dr Abe V Rotor

 

 Leo Carlo and his work in animation.

 

San Juan church bell, La Union church bell 

Bacarra bell tower, Bacarra, Ilocos Norte 

 

Camping: a beautiful feeling 

 

Busted pipe:  instant swimming pool

 

Two kids at play  

 

Black and White photo treated with sepia toner. Sepia is a form of photographic print toning – a tone added to a black and white photograph in the darkroom to “warm” up the tones (though since it is still a monochromatic image it is still considered black and white).  Sepia toning increases longevity of the photo and gives a kind of nostalgic feeling from past memories. 

 
These photos should retain their bright and fresh colors, except for special reason. ~

Meet the Creatures of the Sea on the Wall

 Meet the Creatures of the Sea on the Wall 

Details of Nature Wall Mural by Dr Abe V Rotor

Kudyapi St corner and Lam-ang St, Barangay Greater Lagro, QC

When life is bigger than you,
take it like a big fish;
don't let it go away, 
for no one will believe you.

The sun never sets, goes the adage

of a once powerful empire;

 it did. 

The sun never sets in the deep blue sea,

phosphorescence the secret,

indeed. 

    

Creatures communicate in many ways,

including man;

dolphins and birds think sailboats 

are of their kind.

  

Believe in sea monsters, 

giants, grotesque, fearful,

as they think also of man,

the biggest monster of all!

Once thought extinct millions of years ago,

 the Coelacanth rose from the deep,

exactly the same as its fossil in the museum,

challenging science of its feat.

Camouflaged juvenile shark is safe 

from its enemies,

while it lurks for some unwary prey

 in dual existence.  

 

A school of fish of two kinds

traveling and hunting

in a treatise beyond science,

and folk understanding,

 

Banded groupers like three musketeers,

adventure the name of their game;

Dumas could have been more delighted 

to have met this triumvirate in action. 

On the craggy sea floor life is barely perceptible,

the tenants are better when left alone;

if survival to others is transience and aggression;

here a fish can be mistaken for a stone.  

Not all big fish is an enemy,

it may be a guardian, too,

leading a school in its care, 

like the teacher we know.  
               

A niche is defined by species, boundary, and time,

by common friends and enemies;

yet in times of plenty niches are open and free,

to form wholesome communities.  

   

The rainbow is Cathedral in the sky,

it matters not if incomplete,

or its colors dim, to lovers of Nature,

who pause in prayer and retreat.  

Swarming means danger, sensing enemies down below;

the school forms a circle like the pioneers of the Old West;

the young and fecund in the center, the bold on the guard,

collective survival is universal to evolutionary success.

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

The Five Waves Transforming Our Society (A self-administered test True or False, 20 items)

The Five Waves Transforming Our Society  

(A self-administered test True or False, 20 items)

“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” - Alvin Toffler 

Dr Abe V Rotor

Living with Nature - School on Blog

1. Alvin Toffler is an American writer and futurist, known for his works discussing digital revolution, communications revolution, corporate revolution and technological singularity. 

2. “Society needs people who take care of the elderly and who know how to be compassionate and honest.” Says Bill Gates one of the richest man on earth. “Society needs all kinds of skill that are not just cognitive; they’re emotional, they’re affectional. You can’t run the society on data and computers alone.”

3. The first wave is the society characterized by hunting and gathering – a nomadic society transient and divided – which favored early humans to explore the world in their time. The Fertile Crescent (which was later part of Babylon at the confluence of the Tigris-Euphrates Rivers was the first site ushering the beginning of the First Wave or the Agrarian Society. 

4. The Second Wave Society is industrial and based on mass production, mass distribution, mass consumption, mass education, mass transit, mass entertainment, weapon of mass destruction, mass religion. 

5. The Third Wave Society is a combination of mass movement and bandwagon with standardization, centralization, and synchronization, often ending up with bureaucracy. 

6. Two predictions of the Third Wave by its advocates led by Toffler are paperless office and human cloning. We have not really realized this no doubt, in spite of technological barriers and politico-religious conditions have imposed regulations and generated varying opinions and controversies. 

7. Third Wave means a post-industrial society. It has generated keywords to unwind the complexity that characterize our society today, some of these are Super-Industrial Society, Information Age, Space Age, Electronic Era, Global Village, Cyberspace, Technetronic Age. These include terms like e-Commerce, e-learning, e-mail, on-line teaching, global positioning, Google Earth, ATM, globalization, and the like. 

8. The Third Wave Society is an aging society. It is found in highly industrialized countries where population is coming to a standstill, where longevity breeds octogenarians up to centenarians. There will be need of new medical technologies from self-diagnosis, self-administer therapies delivered by nanotechnology to do for themselves what doctors used to do. Robotics are no longer workers in industries; they are becoming domesticated. 

9. “Prosumers” is a coined word – producer and consumer. It means we are eliminating much of the work of middlemen. We are linking production and consumption directly. Examples are freelance work, open source, assembly kit, instant house package, build  your own car or plane. These belong to the second wave. 

Darwinism, or "evolution and the survival of the fittest" is the most controversial idea that continues to shock the world. From its original application in the biological world, Darwinism as applied in human society has deep implications to ideology, business, politics, religion and in others aspects.

10. The Third Wave changes the concept of retirement (re-tire as good as new tire), child labor (kids are smarter, they can earn and make a living early), education (distance education, on-line, crash workshop), nationalism (citizen of the world, too); concepts of capitalism, socialism, nation-state, so with corporation, cooperatives, entrepreneurship, management, and the like. 

11. The Third Wave depended much on international organizations such as the UN and its organizations like FAO, WHO, WTO UNEP, WFO; and other regional and international organizations like APEC, EU, NATO, ANZUS, International Court of Justice, North American Union.

12. The Fourth Wave of change or the Virtual Age will create a new era in which most aspects of every day life and world affairs will become virtual. Virtual Age is an umbrella which empowers anywhere, anytime, anyone interactions defying the existing time and space limitations we encounter today. The possibilities are endless, for instance; virtual commerce, virtual banking, virtual learning, virtual government, virtual work office, virtual corporations, and so on.

13. Charles Darwin and Thomas Malthus – evolutionist and traditionalist, stirred human thought which may never settle down into universal acceptance, more so with the inevitable and continuing transformation of our society that is taking place.  

14. There are great men who became famous for their prophesies - Nostrodamus and Malthus. One saw tomorrow; the other, The Four Horsemen of Apocalypse.

15. Philosophy – both ancient and modern – can be traced ultimately to Socrates, be it Platonian, or Aristotelian, the philosophies of Emmanuel Kant, Marx,  Henry David Thoreau. 

16. One man fought a nation, and save a nation, abhorring violence His only weapon: peaceful protest and civil disobedience in asceticism that swept the land, people revering him as father and almost god. His name is Gandhi. His name is Mao Tse Tung. His name is Ho Chi Ming. His name is Jose Rizal. Her name is Mother Teresa. Her name is Princess Diana. His name is Alexander Pope. His name is Jose Burgos. They are people of all seasons, of all ages, of all waves – first, second third, and fourth. 

17. We are living in a Post-Modern World, which means we are "living tomorrow." We are living ahead of our time. We call this Futurism. 

18. The 5th Wave is a trilogy of young adult post-apocalyptic sci-fi novels written by American author Rick Yancey. It is revealed that the Others (Aliens) are masquerading as a resistance force, abducting and training the children into a fighting force, which they will deploy as the Fifth Wave to end humanity. 

19. Earth is systematically attacked by a group of aliens known as "the Others". They exist in unknown form, and attack through a series of waves. After the first four waves have decimated the human population, the remaining populace is terrifyingly awaiting the arrival a new Fifth Wave, one that will supposedly wipe the human race clean off the planet. The story follows a group of children as they try to find their way through a world that is slowly reverting to the Stone Age. Everybody dies in the end and Evan is an "Other". This is the gist of the sci-fi novels of Yancey.

20. Little do we know of the unknown great man, like the Unknown Soldier, yet he represents countless people whose deeds are also those of great men and women we   revere today. They are us – each one of us. Each in his own little way to make the world go round and around – or make it slower, that we may taste better the real Good Life, the sweet waters of the Pierian Spring, (“A little learning is a dangerous thing: drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring.” – Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism) 

A personal reflection in these critical times.

In Thomas Gray’s Elegy on a Country Churchyard, “Full many a gem of purest ray serene, the deep unfathomed caves the oceans bear; full many a many flower is born to blush unseen, and waste their sweetness in the desert air.” This unknown great man did not die in vain, in the same way we should regard ourselves because we – all of us has the capacity to be great. Bringing up our children to become good citizens, being a Samaritan on a lonely road, embracing a returning Prodigal Son, “plugging a hole in the dike like the boy who saved Holland from being engulfed by the sea,” or living life the best way we can that make other live the same – these and countless deeds make us great, and if in that little way we fall short of it, then each and everyone of us putting each small deeds together, make the greatest ever deed, for the greatest thing humans can do is collective goodness – the key to true unity and harmony. ~

ANSWERS: All True

LESSON (Updated) Former Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid on DZRB 

Devolution of Life

The Earth is shrinking, orphaned like this Rock Pool.

“Man has reversed the process of evolution and he has put into his hands the pattern and trends as he wishes, playing the role of his Creator.” - AVR

Dr Abe V Rotor

All living things, past and present, are progeny of evolution and are interconnected in one way or the other. And each one has a place in the phylogeny, the chart of evolution.

Imagine the organisms in countless numbers assigned in distinct groupings scientists call as “kingdoms,” with the ancient ones occupying the bottom, and the complex ones at the top. And each kingdom is divided into sub-groups arranged in the same pattern – from simple to complex members.

1. From the first Green Revolution – the transformation of man from hunter to farmer some 10,000 years ago – man has narrowed down the diversity of crops and animals according to his needs.

2. The loss of ecosystems all over the world as population and settlements continue to expand has not only predisposed species to extinction but caused permanent damage of these natural habitats, that it is virtually impossible to rebuild them back into their original states.

3. Life on earth is threatened by Global Warming which is causing sea level to rise and flood low lying area. On the hand polar ice and ice caps are melting. Global warming stirs climate change which is causing climatic disturbances. There is a increasing rate and intensity of typhoons, hurricanes, tornado, flooding, drought, and the like.

4. Pollution on land, water and air, in increasing levels brought about by industrialization, growing population and affluence of living, has triggered man-induced phenomena that threaten species and life itself.

5. Rapid population increase, industrialization and affluent living all lead to changing chemistry of the land, water and air. We do not only mix natural elements and compounds; we synthesize them into products foreign to nature. Plastics for example do not decompose, gases from car react to form acid rain, toxic metal run through the food chain and food web, and natural waterways are open sewers. These do not only disturb life; they maim, kill, annihilate; they turn productive areas into wastelands.

6. Man intrudes into the wildlife which continues to shrink. Gone is 80 percent of the rainforests of the world. Ninety percent of the coral reefs have been destroyed by over fishing and by reckless means. The grasslands are shrinking to give way to farming. The sea is being farmed. Islands are now owned by private persons and organizations.

7. Genetic engineering has broken down the barriers that separate species by directly combining genes of different organisms, thereby destroying the identity and integrity of species, and therefore change their behavior and interrelationships.

8. Evolution it seems is no longer a natural process, but one dictated by human intelligence that continues to build from the indulgence on the fruits of the “Tree of Knowledge that makes man as powerful as God,” the very thing that vanished his first ancestors from the biblical Garden of Eden.

Where have all the rice varieties gone?

There are more than 50,000 cultivars of rice presently stored in the Gene Bank of the International Rice Research Institute at UP Los Baños, Laguna. According to IRRI scientists this number represents but a fraction of the possibly rices (the plural of rice to denote distinct genetic variations) of the world since agriculture began some 5000 years ago or so.

Similarly at the Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento del Maiz y Trigo (CIMMYT) in Mexico the gene bank for wheat and corn faces the same problem as in rice, and if this is the case, it is logical that many varieties and cultivars of field crops we know today are but the selected few that man, the farmer, has intentionally preserved. In short, what these banks as well as those conserved by other organizations, are but the remnant of the world’s naturally occurring genetic pool on the one hand, and those genetically modified by man.

A cursory examination of rice sold in the market makes a short list of about a dozen misleading varieties as sinandomeng, wigwag, intan, which are pseudonyms to attract customers for the likeness of quality with those they have been named after.

To validate this observation through field survey one is likely to find even a simpler classification as upland and lowland rice, or aromatic, glutinous, red rice and the like. This is the same observation in the former prairies of North America, now the biggest cereal granary of the world extending across the Canadian border covering the provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, there are only 10 major wheat varieties planted on the vast plains. For corn, the indigenous varieties are rare to find on the farm. Hybrid corn – a cross of two or more purified varieties – makes up the bulk of corn produced. Hybrids are unstable genetically. In the succeeding generations the lose hold on the genetic vigor of their parents, resulting in drastic decline in yield.

What is the implication of narrowing down the choice of varieties to be planted commercially?

First, it will result in indirect elimination of varieties in the bottom of the list, by displacement by the preferred ones and by neglect on the [art of the farmer in maintaining them.

Second, fewer varieties planted is food security risk. Severe damage to even only one major variety is likely to result in economic disaster.

Third, the narrowing down of genetic diversity disturbs the ecosystem, laying much on man’s care the survival not only of the cultivated crops but other living things in the area as well, thus leading to the further decrease in diversity and population. The loss of diversity in cereal lands applies as well in other areas as evidenced by the following:

• Vegetables sold in the market are limited to those that are salable, leaving out those that are not, and the so-called “wild vegetables” represented by such vegetables as bagbagkong, papait, sabawil, sword bean, and alukong or himbaba-o.

• The kinds of fruits may be counted by the fingers, and like vegetables, only those that are acceptable dominate the fruit stands. Today it is rare to find such indigenous fruits as tampoy, sapote, batocanag, anonang and the native counterparts of guapple and ponderosa.

• Industrial crops are also suffering of the same fate. Take the following:

1. Dipterocarp species of forest trees (narra family) are now endangered. These include apitong , yakal, tanguili, and guijo.

2. Fiber plants such as maguey (Agave family), ramie, kenaf, jute, abaca, have bee vastly neglected since the introduction of synthetics fibers.

3. Today bamboo groves occupy the fringes of wastelands and certain watershed areas. Traditional bamboo areas, like the Dipterocarp forests, are vanishing, so with many of the species and variety of this so-called giant grass.

4. The increasing demand for firewood has decimated many indigenous sources, what with the open exploitation for day-to-day gathering of firewood in marginal communities. These include madre de cacao, ipil-ipil, acacia, and aroma.

5. Even plants of medicinal value are being exploited severely such as quinine for malaria, banaba for kidney trouble, derris for insect control.

6. Seaweeds suffer the same fate as more resorts are put up, aquaculture selective only to those species of major importance are raised, deleterious effects of pollution, notwithstanding.

Agriculture, the Nemesis of Biodiversity Conservation

Whenever a land is cleared for agriculture five consequences are likely to happen. These are

• Direct elimination of plants and animals which interferes and does not constitute or conform with farming practices.

• Breaking up of the food chain and therefore, the disruption of the food web leads to the disorganization of the ecosystem. For example, a swamp converted into riceland will necessarily lose its natural biological and ecological properties. Loss of habitats results in migration or death of affected species.

• Modern agriculture, with the use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers, is destructive to the ecosystem.

Mismanagement leads not only to loss in productivity, as shown in this formula.

Biotic Potential = Carrying Capacity/Productivity over Environmental Resistance

The Carrying Capacity of an ecosystem is dependent upon favorable biological factors (biotic potential), which in turn is affected by the presence of factors that negate them (environmental resistance), among which are lack of water, poor soil condition, and destructive activities of man.

Decreasing productivity therefore, means decreasing biodiversity – which means devolution of life.

Untested by storm, roots are shallow,

Branches are few, the limbs hollow.

When and where did cropping systems originate?

Dr Abe V Rotor

Diversified farming involves proper crop integration which needs intensive labor and innovative technology 

Japan and China are pioneers in evolving cropping patterns suitable for different areas, with priority in rice and corn as the base around which are built specific cropping patterns. Here in the Philippines multiple cropping has its own historical background. Here are the most popular cropping patterns:

1. Rice-sweet potato (Banawe, 3000years old)
2. Rice-tobacco (Ilocos region, 15th century)
3. Rice-watermelon/melon (Candaba, Pampanga, 1900)
4. Onion-cabbage-rice (Nueva Ecija, 1930)
5. Rice-onion and rice-garlic (Ilocos region, 1920)

Multi-storied cropping is known to be existing in Batangas and Cavite even before the coming of the Spaniards. Today, such system includes the simultaneous growing of crops in a given area. These include papaya, citrus, coconut, coffee, cacao, coconut, vegetables and root crops. Multiple cropping is applicable the lowlands, uplands, sugarlands and coconut areas. Generally, multiple cropping schemes are crop rotation, inter-cropping and relay cropping, while it allows wide treatment of diversification and integrated farming. ~

Four Genuine Ilocano (GI) Dishes

  Dr Abe V Rotor 

1.  Ngarusangis shell soup, a rare recipe of Ilocanos.  

Because I can’t find ngarusangis in the Internet and in references on Philippine shells, I took it upon myself to call this extremely small marine bivalve, Fairy Shell. (It sounds like Pearly Shell, a Hawaiian folk song.)  In Nagtupacan, San Vicente, Ilocos Sur, I remember as a child fisher folks gathering ngarusangis on the estuarine by the ganta (around one liter, the size of a large pineapple can), as this was the common means of measurement at that time. The shells are as small as rice, so that there is a technique in removing the shell. Basang, my auntie, would first boil water, then immerse the washed shells immediately, stir the pot until the shells which being bivalves easily open, thus exposing their white to grayish flesh which automatically separate from the shell and settle at the bottom of the pot, which is then gathered. This is done repeatedly until the shells are empty.  The soup is very rich in calcium and other minerals. It is served as soup, cooked with vegetables (bulanglang), or made into omelet.

This shell is now being endangered for a number of reasons. 

• It is gathered in large quantities together with other small shells and fed to ducks. The ballot industry requires tons and tons of live shells which are gathered along shorelines.
• Pollution has destroyed the natural habitat of this shell as well as other organisms.
• Beaches and shorelines continue to shrink as a result of tourism and advancing settlements.
• Conversion of mangroves, beaches and estuaries into fishponds has either destroyed or displaced countless species of marine and terrestrial organisms.  
• Aquaculture of mussels, oysters, seaweeds and fish does not include the culture of less important organisms such as ngarusangis. 
• Global warming renders water temperature intolerable to many organisms.  Rising sea level exacerbates this condition.   
  

      2. Glutinous rice with chicken blood is a rare treat.

The practice of gathering the blood while dressing the chicken is now rare. Well, it is because we get our chicken from the supermarket or grocery already dressed or frozen.  But in the good old days, chicken blood is mixed with glutinous rice (malagkit).  This is done by getting just enough rice, wash it quickly in a small shallow plate, and blood directly coming from the chicken is mixed and allowed to settle, solidifying in a minute or two.  It is easily dislodged from the plate when it is time to cook it with the chicken when cooking tinola (stew). We kids would automatically pick it up even while the stew is still in the pot, but our elders would divide it among ourselves to settle the issue.    

  3.  Padas Bagoong, a rare specialty but ecologically destructive.

Padas is the fry of spinefoot or rabbitfish, locally known as Malaga or samaral.  mainly of the species Siganus canaliculatus and S. concatenates and S corallinus and S. spinus. These species occur in schools in coastal areas around rocky and corals feeding on phytoplankton and browsing on seaweeds and seagrasses.  The grow up to 280 mm.  They tolerate a wide range of salinity that they enter rivers or go down to the open sea.

When passing through Urdaneta and Villasis Pangasinan you find padas bagoong in bottles sold on the shelf or by peddlers.  Sometimes the small fish is beautifully arranged in rows covering the entire bottle.  How skillfully and patiently is the art done considering how small the fry is.  It is preferable to buy  seasoned padas bagoong. Ask the seller; better still check it yourself.  The fish are well settled in the bottle with an appreciable amount of patis appearing as a layer on top. Get a bottle that is sell sealed – and of course, well filled.

Padas is the fry of Malaga or samaral which grows up to a kilo apiece, so that the practice of gathering padas must be strictly discouraged.  Ecologically we are destroying the species every time we patronize padas bagoong.  One kilo of padas probably amounts to several hundreds of individual fish that potentially matures in six months time. It is no wonder the price of samaral in the market is about twice that of ordinary fish.    

 (Ref. Conlu P V 1986 Fishes: Guide to Philippine Flora and Fauna Series) 

4. This is a favorite dish of Ilocanos known as “jumping salad.”  What is it really?

In Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid (school-on-the-air) program, five callers phoned to give their  answers.  Except one who said he learned about this rare dish from a friend, the callers apparently Ilocanos, said they have actually tasted jumping salad.  This dish is prepared from newly caught small to medium shrimps from the estuaries and rivers, and while they are still very much alive are served right there and then with calamansi and salt, momentarily agitating the fated creatures.  Pronto! The shrimps, on removing the cover, frantically jump out of the plate, save the dazed one.  You should be skillful in catching them from the table (and even on the floor) deftly picking them by the head, taking caution so as not to get hurt by their sharp rostrum.  You can imagine the danger you face as the creature makes its last attempt to escape.  You must get a firm hold before putting the struggling creature into your mouth, tail first and quickly bite off the head, severing the sharp dagger in your hold. The creature wriggles in the cave of your mouth and you can actually feel its convulsion fading as it undergoes the initial process of digestion. Being an Ilocano myself, eating jumping salad is an adventure and rarely do you experience having one nowadays, unless you are living near the sea, river or lake, or a good friend brings live shrimps to town in banana stalk container to keep them alive. Try it; it’s one for the Book of Guinness. ~