#17: Loyalty Day 2007.

And Independence Day, UP Los Baños?

4 scores and 7 years ago we Filipinos learned the lesson of loyalty to our ideals, the Yankees only 4 years ago. In July 1921, the University of the Philippines declared a Loyalty Day (October 10) (UP, Beloved) 3 years after the act; it was only 87 years later, in April 2003, when President George W Bush proclaimed for the United States a Loyalty Day (May 1) (whitehouse.gov). So, the Yankees don’t have a monopoly of intelligence.

Loyalty is necessary, in the words of GW Bush in his Presidential Proclamation, to ‘reaffirm our allegiance to our country and resolve to uphold the vision of our Forefathers.’ Loyalty cannot be any less than that.

On October 10 of 1921, the College of Agriculture of the University of the Philippines (UP) celebrated the very first Loyalty Day 3 months after the Board of Regents of UP approved a student body resolution to honor 200 staff and students of the College who volunteered to fight the war in Europe in the name of democracy. I had questioned such loyalty myself 40 years ago, my satire of an open letter ‘What Did You Do In The War, Daddy?’ declaring it subservience (to the Americans), but I’ve come to realize it was appropriate, it was loyalty to the country (americanchronicle.com).

I’m writing this after an exhausting day, alumni and UP Los Baños celebrating the 89th Loyalty Day. UPLB Alumni Association President Pids Rosario and UPLB Chancellor Luis Rey I Velasco leading the commemoration, with easily 3,000 watching the foot parade and the presentations (at UP Los Baños, that’s mass appeal). Toward noon, the UP Los Baños part of the celebration of the UP Centennial (2008) was launched with the unveiling of the logo.

8 groups competed for the Most Colorful, Most Symbolic, Most Creative trophies in the traditional presentations part. At this point in time, I had already walked all over the place shooting the scenes I liked with my Canon PowerShot A540, exhausting 2 sets of batteries (Eveready alkaline) and 2 GB of recording media (Kingston memory card). At this time, I had probably pressed the shutter at least 600 times to take pictures; at the end of my day, past 1500 hr, I had taken 763 shots totaling 1.43 GB. While my first love is writing, self-taught, I began my earnest off-and-on teach-yourself photography in 1968 while I taught at Xavier University; in 1972, I learned much from Pat Laforteza (from Los Baños) of the National Science Development Board; I learned from the one-and-only Mao Chanco (Quezon City), whom I accidentally met when I was Editor of the Forest Research Institute starting 1975 – we were both into conservation, Mother Earth etc. (Both Pat and Boo are gone now, but the happy memories and shared knowledge remain.)

About the competition, the town of Los Baños represented by dancers (boys and girls) from my village of Mayondon was Most Colorful. PhilRice Los Baños’ presentation, conceived by Mar Movillon, Station Manager, was long, comprehensive, imaginative, historical, using mostly local materials, native talents. I heard from another source that Marites Cayton and Helen Dayo, having seen the PhilRice presentation, were both of the opinion that it was ‘No contest.’ PhilRice was a sure winner. Today, my vote for Most Creative went to PhilRice.

Yesterday, my vote for Most Creative went to Fernando Bernardo, who launched his twin books at the UPLB Alumni Awards and Fellowship Night in proper ceremonies at Baker Hall. His first is a coffee-table book, containing some 1,000 photographs, the Centennial Panorama: A Pictorial History Of UPLB, 300+ pages; the second, which I final-edited and desktop-published, I call a text book because it’s mostly narrative, UPLB: A Century of Challenges And Accomplishments, 240+ pages. Both published at Los Baños by the UPLBAA, both just off the press. (It’s a Buy One, Take One unbeatable offer: you buy the coffee-table book, 2.5K pesos, you get the text book free.)

In his 1-year-plus research for his twin books, Bernardo came to realize that the little town of Los Baños in Laguna, some 65 km south of Manila, may be The Most Scienced City in Asia (my coinage); in fact, it may have the highest concentration of scientific expertise and experience in the world. Bernardo based his conclusion on (a) number of staff with higher academic degrees obtained, and (b) number of centers of excellence in research. There are 300+ holders of Master of Science degrees, 500+ of Doctor of Philosophy degrees. At the UPLB campus alone, there are 11 colleges, institutes and schools. Comprising the Los Baños Science Community are 38 national and international research & development institutions. On campus, there are several museums and nature gardens: the International Rice Research Institute’s Rice World, the UP Los Baños’ Museum of Natural History, Makiling Botanic Garden, Science Park, Agri-Park, Makiling National Park.

Also last night, my vote for Most Intelligent went to Senator Juan Miguel ‘Migz’ Zubiri who came to give a beautiful response for the awardees (with beautiful, pregnant wife Audrey Tan). Zubiri was honored as a ‘Most Outstanding Alumnus of UPLB’ – for active advocacy in Congress of laws for the environment; for instance, he is the Father of the Philippines’ Biofuels Act. The other Most Outstanding Alumnus for 2007 was Jaime Aristotle Alip – for his inspired application of micro-finance, successfully assisting so far 300,000+ landless poor women in setting up small enterprises for their families.

In his response, Zubiri acknowledged his cerebral debt to UP Los Baños as his alma mater – he finished Agribusiness. He also shared a little anecdote of when UP senatorial candidates in this year’s elections were being called onstage. He went up; Mike Defensor, of UP Diliman, told him, ‘You’re Los Baños,’ the old put-down, implying that only UP Diliman deserved to be called ‘UP.’ Migz to Mike, this is his punchline: Look who won and look who lost?

Intellectually, Zubiri intrigued me with this proposition: ‘I want UP Los Baños to be the center of excellence in renewable resources.’ Instantly, I wedded it to Bernardo’s proposition (read his books!) that UP Los Baños ought to be a University entire of itself. I await The Declaration of Independence. I predict that within 5 years, we’ll have a State University of the Philippines. Because UP Diliman has no monopoly of intelligence.