Rich Flora of Guimaras Island - a Living Treasure

Abe V Rotor
Living with Nature School on Blog

Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid (People's School-on-Air) with Ms Melly C Tenorio

738 DZRB AM Band, 8 to 9 evening class Monday to Friday

Corazon de Maria (Caladium bicolor)

Fancy-leaved Caladium (Caladium humboltii)

 Euphorbia (Euphorbia splendens)

Red kalachuchi (Plumera rubra)

Pandakaking tsina (Ervatamia divaricata)

 Water plant (Philodendron hastatum)

 Fire tree (Delonix regia)

Mayana (Coleus blumei)

Daisy (Gerbera jamesonii)

Doña Trining (white) - Mussaenda philippica

Doña Aurora (Mussaenda philippica var aurorarae)

 Lantana (Lantana camara)

Tiger hemp (Sanziviera zeylanica)

Yellow  gummamela (Hibiscus rosa-sinensis)

Red gummamela (Hibiscus rosa-sinensis)

Gummamela (Hibiscus schizopetalus)

 

 Variegated gummamela (Hibiscus rosa-sinensis)

Lobsterclaw (Heliconia acuminata)
 
Anahaw (Livistonia acuminata)

 Powderpuff lily (Haemanthus multiflorus)

 

Beach hymenocallis (Hymenocallis litoralis) / Spider lily (Crinum asiaticum)
 
  Garden asparagus (Asparagus officinales)

Croton (Codiaeum variegatum)

 

Croton (Codiaeum variegatum)

Ripe fruits of pandakaki (Tabernamontana pandakaki)

                  Tangled liana  famous Alumnae of St Paul College Vigan 

Lessons Life Taught Me*. Dedicated to the victims of Typhoon Yolanda, and the Bohol-Cebu 7.3 Earthquake

Lesson on Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid, 738 DZRB AM Band, 8 to 9 evening, Monday through Friday

NOTE: Comments in parenthesis were provided during the lesson presentation and interaction by Abe V Rotor, and Melly C Tenorio, broadcast instructor and host-moderator, respectively. (Acknowledgment: Regina Brett for the lessons, Ted Aljibe for the photos, Wikipedia, Google)

Upper photo: Aerial view of airport terminal in the city of Tacloban, Leyte; lower photo: destroyed houses in Eastern Samar. Both taken on November 11, 2013 (AFP, Ted Aljibe) Internet 

What are the lessons we derive from our readings, experiences, the Internet, and from other sources of knowledge? And from the aftermath of a tragedy.


1. Life isn't fair, but it's still good. (You can't have the best of two worlds.)

2. When in doubt, just take the next small step .(Take time to think, pause before you leap.)

3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone. (Time can't wait, and life's too short - why waste both in a negative way?)

4. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends and parents will. Stay in touch. (This is one case of "blood is thicker than water." The essence of the family as unit comes from the adage, "A family sticks through thick and thin."

5. Pay off your credit cards every month. (Use cash, credit is a recourse.)

6. You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree. ("Win:Win Principle is key to friendship, so in business.)

7. Cry with someone. It's more healing than crying alone. (Find a shoulder to cry one - but it should be stronger than yours.)

8. It's OK to get angry with God. He can take it. ("Angry" here means in the long run being angry at oneself for his shortcomings - and subsequently submitting to God. Being angry is openness to understand the ways of God.)

9. Save for retirement starting with your first paycheck. (Be like the Ant in Aesop's fable - not the grasshopper.)

10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile. (The message however, is the opposite: yes, you can.)

11. Make peace with your past so it won't screw up the present. (Build a bridge of the past and present with peace, love and hope.)

12. It's OK to let your children see you cry. (Actually you are sincere, you mean things with seriousness and concern. Let your children feel your love for them.)

13. Don't compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about. (Success has different faces.)

14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn't be in it. (Openness is crucial in a relationship.)

15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye. But don't worry; God never blinks. (God never sleeps.)

16. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind. (Rest the mind, take time.)

17. Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful. (Be positive, remove the negative to enjoy life.)

18. Whatever doesn't kill you really does make you stronger. ("Seasoned timber never gives.")

19. It's never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is up to you and no one else. (Don't let the child in you grow old, otherwise you lose idealism.)

20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don't take no for an answer. (Everything is good about the person you love.)

21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. Don't save it for a special occasion. Today is special. (Usefulness can't wait. Carpe diem.)

22. Ever prepare, then go with the flow. (Don't just go with the current, study it first.)

23. Be eccentric now. Don't wait for old age to wear purple. (When you have to bloom, bloom.)

24. The most important sex organ is the brain. (The brain controls all, including urges.)

25. No one is in charge of your happiness but you. (Happiness is personal.)

26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words 'In five years, will this matter?' (We think in terms of consequence.)

27. Always choose life. (Life is precious, there's no substitute.)

28. Forgive everyone everything. (You may not forget it though, so faults will not be repeated.)

29. What other people think of you is none of your business. (In the first place, how can you read the mind of people?)

30. Time heals almost everything. (Give time time.)

31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change. (Everythging changes, except change itself.)

32. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does. (Relax, keep cool, be happy.)

33. Believe in miracles. (And don't look too far to find a miracle. You yourself is a miracle.)

34. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn't do. (God is a God of kindness; never a God of Vengeance.)

35. Don't audit life. Show up and make the most of it now. (And don't be very strict with accounting.)

36. Growing old beats the alternative -- dying young. (That's how precious life is; there's no substitute to living long.)

37. Your children get only one childhood. (Enjoy life with your children; they'll have a world of their own before you know it.)

38. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved. (It's better to have loved and lost, and not to have loved at all.)

39. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere. (If you don't see the sun you don't enjoy life. Outdoor is still the best life.)

40. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else's, we'd grab ours back. (All of us have problems, others have bigger ones.)

41. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need. (Envy is ill will.)

42. The best is yet to come. (Tomorrow is a better day)

43. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up. (Stand up to your commitment.)

44. Yield. (Give way. Sometimes you win a battle this way. King Solomon gave way for the ants to pass, before his army did.)

45. Life isn't tied with a bow, but it's still a gift." (A gift we never asked, or be asked to repay. It's more than all gifts you have known.) ~

* By Regina Brett

Columnist for The Plain Dealer, a daily newspaper serving Cleveland, Ohio. She was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for commentary in 2008 and 2009. Wikipedia

Born: May 31, 1956 (age 57)

Education: Kent State University

Nominations: Pulitzer Prize for Commentary

"To celebrate growing older, I once wrote the 45 lessons life taught me. It is the most-requested column I've ever written." - R Brett

Thai's Sweet Corn

Dr Abe V Rotor 

Harvested green, sweet corn to the Thais is important to their diet.  It is prepared in different recipes. Filipinos also eat a lot of corn, in fact 20 percent of our population, specially in the south, depend on corn as staple, mainly of the white variety. Golden sweet corn is very expensive, and is considered luxury rather than staple food.  

A Litter of Sow and Piglets Woodcraft - a Symbol

Dr Abe V Rotor

A fine wood carving of a sow and her eight piglets is a reminder of Pork Barrel 

scam in the Philippines. Photo by Ms Cecilia Rotor, Bangkok Thailand.    

A genius' work, a masterpiece, 
     whosoever the artisan
deserves humanity's praise,
     the fine art of huge scam.

the ugliness of deceit and lies,
     refined decor in the home;
sentinel in the darkest history
     discreetly implied and shown.

Unfair to the innocent model, 
     and shame to the guilty,
reliving Orwell's modern fable,   
      indeed man's wise but ugly. ~   
  

Native genes are our ultimate recourse if "modified" genes fail - and they are likely to fail

Native genes are our ultimate recourse if "modified" genes fail - and they are likely to fail

Dr Abe V Rotor

Living with Nature - School on Blog 

Native pineapple (Ananas comosus) of Thailand. Like our native pineapple,  it is resistant to tropical conditions and it needs little care. Native genes are the ultimate recourse when "modified genes" fail - and are likely to fail because they are detached from the natural biological world, and cannot survive without man's care and attention.   

When we consider a plant - or animal - for that matter as wild, and we want to domesticate it, all we have to do is introduce it to a place, or live where its abounds. We propagate it, "fence" to protect and claim it to be our own. This is the concept of early domestication in the Golden Crescent, somewhere between the Tigris-Euphrates Rivers in Syria - the birth place of agriculture. 

Science and technology did more than that. Other than identifying the useful species, and selecting the best members of those species as stock, we have altered  their genes through controlled breeding, thus creating varieties (plants), breeds (animals), and strains (protists, like bacteria) This is the concept of modern agriculture.

Came commercialization of agriculture to meet market demands - domestic and foreign - which necessitated intensive and extensive farming, using more inputs like fertilizer, pesticide, and irrigation on one hand, and expanding to new horizons covering the whole profile of the landscape on the other.  From lowland, and upland, to hills and mountains, and down to the swamplands, estuaries, and sea.        

Not satisfied, we now combine genes across species, in fact across phyla, divisions and kingdoms, producing GMOs (genetically Modified Organisms), like Bt Corn (corn with spliced gene of Bacillus thuringiensis bacteria.  There are thousands and thousands of genetic engineering applied experiments among organisms today, including cloning of animals, including the human being. This is the concept of genetic engineering, the controversial and most recent green revolution.

The trend today is to go back to the original concept.  Save the native genes because they are attuned to evolution through which they successfully passed, and in fact, have been shaped by evolution itself. 

Thai native corn.  The Philippines has been importing corn from Thailand rather than producing it for our needs.  Thailand does not produce BtCorn, unlike us. Our average corn production is among the lowest in the world, in most cases, less than one ton per hectare.   

The native vegetables need no chemicals, energy cost. They are geared to meet the food and nutritional needs of the producer, his family and community. Malunggay, saluyot, amaranth, alukong, katuray, native squash, ampalaya and the like - they grow with the seasons spontaneously.  No seeding, no cultivation - virtually no human intervention.

Native rice is grown over a wide range from mountain terraces to marshes, requiring little care and attention, in hundred of varieties and cultivars from which we select according to our needs and taste, and sufficiency to fill our home granaries. No, not with the IRRI varieties, the japonica, the long grain varieties - they are too expensive to grow, and very susceptible to pest and environmental factors.  

Why pineapple is expensive is because we changed the native with imported 
ones which are dependent on pesticides, fertilizers, tractors, airplanes and railroads. Why chicken is expensive is because we have vastly changed its genes, its feeds, its housing, and they way it is is eaten.  A whole chicken per person, deprives the food supply of one hundred poor people.

Why we have tungro disease of rice, virus of papaya, galls in santol, borer of atis, rust of coffee, mosaic of tobacco, anthracnose of mango, and many more.  We have introduced foreign varieties susceptible to unfavorable local conditions. Worst we have introduced their pests and diseases to attack our local varieties,
We have crossed their genes with our local gene pool, thereby transmitting their
susceptibility genetically.     

I still prefer tinola cooked with native chicken, "solo" or native green papaya, siling labuyo or native red pepper tops, native luya or ginger, with native black pepper or paminta.  And cooked in clay pot, on clay stove and with firewood. A fine idea that fits into the concept of Small is Beautiful ("Economics as if People Mattered.") by EC Schumacher)
Thailand's native cassava (Manihot utilissima) a source of biogas, an alternative fuel to replace gradually fossil fuel. Brazil is the top alcogas producer from sugarcane and cassava.

The native gene pool is human's ultimate recourse for survival, as imagined in "The Day After Tomorrow", in the aftermath of super typhoons Yolanda, Pablo and Ondoy in the Philippines, super hurricanes Katrina and Sandy in the US.  After another 9-11 attack (this time nuclear, God forbid), in the event that deadly diseases become epidemic - and pandemic. 

And in dealing with the biggest problem of postmodern living  - how to live with life.~  

The Bridge on the River Kwai - A Reminder of Infamy

Dr Abe V Rotor 

Living with Nature - School on Blog 
Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid with Ms Melly C Tenorio, 
738 DZRB AM Band, 8 to 9 evening class, Monday to Friday

A visit to the famous (infamous) Bridge on the River Kwai, brings back memories to the old, art to the young, and a reminder to humanity. 

"The notorious Burma-Siam railway, built by Commonwealth, Dutch and American prisoners of war, was a Japanese project driven by the need for improved communications to support the large Japanese army in Burma. During its construction, approximately 13,000 prisoners of war died and were buried along the railway. An estimated 80,000 to 100,000 civilians also died in the course of the project, chiefly forced labour brought from Malaya and the Dutch East Indies, or conscripted in Siam (Thailand) and Burma. Two labour forces, one based in Siam and the other in Burma worked from opposite ends of the line towards the centre." Wikipedia

The Bridge on the River Kwai is a 1957 British-American World War II film directed by David Lean, based on the eponymous French novel (1952) by Pierre Boulle. The film is a work of fiction but borrows the construction of the Burma Railway in 1942–43 for its historical setting. It stars William Holden, Jack Hawkins, Alec Guinness, and Sessue Hayakawa. The film was filmed in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). The bridge in the film was located near Kitulgala.

The film achieved near universal critical acclaim, winning seven Academy Awards (including Best Picture) at the 30th Academy Awards, and in 1997, this film was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and selected for preservation in the United States Library of Congress National Film Registry. It is widely considered to be one of the greatest films of all time.

Academy Awards

The Bridge on the River Kwai won seven Oscars:

·         Best Picture — Sam Spiegel

·         Best Director — David Lean

·         Best Actor — Alec Guinness

·         Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium — Michael Wilson, Carl Foreman, Pierre Boulle

·         Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Film — Malcolm Arnold

·         Best Film Editing — Peter Taylor

·         Best Cinematography — Jack Hildyard

It was nominated for

·         Best Actor in a Supporting Role — Sessue Hayakawa

BAFTA Awards

Winner of 3 BAFTA Awards

·         Best British Film — David Lean, Sam Spiegel

·         Best Film from any Source — David Lean, Sam Spiegel

·         Best British Actor — Alec Guinness

Golden Globe Awards

Winner of 3 Golden Globes

·         Best Motion Picture — Drama — David Lean, Sam Spiegel

·         Best Director — David Lean

·         Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama — Alec Guinness

The bridge over the River Kwai.  The round truss spans are the originals; the angular replace- ments were supplied by the Japanese as war reparations. 

Actual Location: Kanchanaburi, in Myanmar border, is home to the famous Bridge River Kwai. During WW II, Japan constructed the meter-gauge railway line from Ban Pong, Thailand to Thanbyuzayat, Burma. The line passing through the scenic Three Pagodas Pass runs for 250 miles. This is now known as the Death Railway.

The railway line was meant to transport cargo daily to India, to back up their planned attack on India. The construction was done using POWs and Asian slave laborers in unfavorable conditions. The work started in October 1942 was completed in a year. Due to the difficult terrain, thousands of laborers lost their lives. It is believed that one life was lost for each sleeper laid in the track.

At the nearby Kanchanaburi War Cemetery, around 7,000 POWs, who sacrificed their lives in the railway construction, are buried. Another 2,000 are laid to rest at the Chungkai Cemetery.

We are destroying the Earth - our only ship in space.

We are destroying the Earth - our only ship in space.
Dr Abe V Rotor
 Living with Nature School on Blog

Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid (People's School-on-Air) with Ms Melly C Tenorio 738 DZRB AM Band, 8 to 9 evening class Monday to Friday

Deceiving view of wasteful and ostentatious  living at the expense of the environment.

1. Changing Environment, influenced by man, breeds a variety of ailments and diseases. Nature-Man Balance, the key to good health is being threatened.

2. What and Where is the so-called Good Life? The Good Life is shifting with the transformation of agricultural to industrial economy.

3. The Good Life is synonymous to Affluence. People want goods and services beyond what they actually need. Want leads to luxury - to waste.

4. The world’s population is 7 billion. Another billion will be added in less than 10 years. Runaway population is the mother of human miseries

5. The proliferation of cities, growth of cities to metropolises and megapolises, each with 10 to 20 million people ensconced in cramped condition. Cities breed Marginal communities

“People, people everywhere, but not a kindred to keep," in condominiums, malls, schools, churches, parks, sharing common lifestyles and socio-economic conditions. They are predisposed to common health problems and vulnerabilities from brownouts to food and fuel shortage, force majeure notwithstanding.

6. Loss of Natural Environment – loss of productivity, loss of farmlands, and wildlife. Destruction of ecosystems - lakes, rivers, forests, coral reefs, grasslands, etc. Destruction of ecosystems is irreversible.

Marginal farming is a result of environmental destruction 

7. Species are threatened, many are now extinct, narrowing down the range of biodiversity. Human health depends largely on a complex interrelationship of the living world. No place on earth is safe from human abuse. Coral Reef – bastion of terrestrial and marine life, is now in distress.

8. Wildlife shares with our homes, backyards and farms, transmitting deadly diseases like SARS, HIV-AIDS, Mad-Cow, FMD, Ebola, and Bird Flu which can now infect humans, allergies notwithstanding.

9. “Good Life” cradles and nurses obesity and other overweight conditions. Millions of people around the world are obese, wih 34% of Americans in the US obese.

10. Global warming stirs climatic disturbance, changes the face of the earth.

11. Globalization packages the major aspects of human activity – trade, commerce, industry, agriculture, the arts, education, science and technology, politics, religion and the like.

12. . Mélange of races - pooling of genes through inter-racial and inter-cultural marriages produces various mixed lines or “mestizos” - Eurasian, Afro-Asian, Afro-American, Amerasian, and the like. Native genes provide resistance to diseases, adverse conditions of the environment. But will this advantage hold on even as the native gene pools are thinned out?

13. Modern medicine is responsible in reducing mortality and increasing longevity. It has also preserved genetically linked abnormalities; it cradles senility related ailments. It made possible the exchange of organs and tissues through transplantation, and soon tissue cloning. It has changed Evolution that is supposed to cull out the unfit and misfits. Man has Darwinism in his hands.

14. The first scientific breakthrough is the splitting of the atom that led to the development of the atomic bomb as the most potent tool of war as evidenced by its destruction at Nagasaki and Hiroshima, and the nuclear reactor which still holds the promise of providing incessant energy to mankind. The second scientific breakthrough – Microchip led to the development of the Internet which “shrunk the world into a village.”

16. The third breakthrough in science, Genetic Engineering, changed our concept of life - and life forms. It has enabled man to tinker with life itself. Revolutionary industries Examples: In vitro fertilization, surrogate motherhood, Human Genome Project (HGP or gene mapping), multiple childbirth, post-menopausal childbirth, DNA mapping, etc. Birth of the prototype human robot – pampered, he lives a very dependent life.

17. Genetic Engineering gave rise to Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) and Gene Therapy. It has also primed Biological Warfare into a more terrifying threat to mankind and the environment. On the other hand Gene Therapy aims at preventing gene-link diseases even before they are expressed; it has actuallty revolutionized medicine. More and more countries are banning GMO crops and animals through legislative measures and conservation programs, including protection against “biopiracy”

18. Today’s Green Revolution opened up non-conventional frontiers of production – mariculture, desalination, desert farming, swamp reclamation, aerophonics (rooftop farming), hydroponics, urban farming, organic farming, Green Revolution adapts genetic engineering to produce GMOs and Frankenfoods. We may not be aware, but many of us are eating
genetically modified food (GMF or Frankenfood) everyday – meat, milk, chicken, corn, potato and soya products, and the like mainly from the US. Many food additives and adjuncts are harmful, from salitre in longganiza to pesticide residue in fruits and vegetables, aspartame in fruit juice to MSG in noodles, formalin in fish to dioxin in plastics, bromate in bread to sulfite in sugar, antibiotic residue in meat to radiation in milk.

• Hydroponics or soiless culture makes farming feasible in cramped quarters, and it increases effective area of farming.
. Aeroponics or Multi-storey farming Vertical Farming Farming in the city on high rise buildings
• Post Harvest Technology. is critical to Food Production. PHT bridges production and consumption, farm and market, thus the proliferation of processed goods, supermarket, fast food chains, food irradiation, ready-to-eat packs, etc.

19. Exploration into the depth of the sea and expanse of the Solar System - and beyond. We probe the hadal depth of the ocean. We build cities in space - the Skylab. Soon we will live outside of the confines of our planet earth. Now we aim at conquering another planet, another Solar System to assure continuity of mankind after the demise of the earth.

20. Regional and International Cooperation is key to global cooperation: EU, ASEAN, APEC, CGIAR, ICRISAT, WTO, WHO, UNEP, WFO, FAO, like fighting pandemic diseases – HIV-AIDS, SARS, Dengue, Hepatitis, Bird Flu, etc.