Malunggay Stories

According to my WordPress blog stats, my three blog posts that have the most viewers are the following: Number one is Alternative Learning Systems, with 589 views. Number three is Alternative Learning Systems and EFA, with 396 views. I think it is safe to put the two numbers together.

What caught my attention, and got me wondering, is why the the number two most viewed post is Malunggay and 9/11, with 441 views.

I mentioned this to Danny Manayaga, head of Secura International, when we accidentally met last June 12 at the office of People and Advocacy. While waiting for our separate meetings, we got to talk about malunggay. “I just came from giving a briefing on malunggay to the CBCP and PAX, the association of ex-seminarians,” he said.

He had an interesting story about his visit to a three-hectare malunggay farm in Cabugao, Ilocos Sur: “Would you believe, he is making 40,000 pesos a week from his malunggay sales!” How can that be? He said it is because he has a steady market that extends as far as Pangasinan among Ilocanos who eat the malunggay pods in their dinengdeng.

I still couldn’t believe that a three-hectare malunggay farm would earn so much just from local markets. But our conversation turned to the global markets for malunggay.

It was two years ago that I first heard about Danny and Secura International in connection with biotech. I was told that Secura had a patented biotech process for extracting “natural ingredients” of papaya and malunggay, which managed to pass EU standards. The demand was rising, and he was looking for partners who would plant malunggay, and sell him the leaves he needed. His initial projection was that he could absorb the produce of up to 15,000 hectares of malunggay.

“How many hectares do you think are planted to malunggay in the whole Philippines?” I asked. Danny said there are around 30,000 hectares, but only in small family-sized farms, like the one in Cabugao.

“That is not enough. We need 200,000 hectares,” he added. The reason is the new demand for malunggay oil as a biofuel.

Danny said that he has already received a letter of intent from a North American Biofuels Inc. that wants to import oil extracted from the seeds of malunggay, which they call moringa, after its scientific name morigna oleifera.

Malunggay or moringa oil can also be used as cooking oil, but for now the global interest is in its use as biofuel. Since most Filipinos do not eat the seeds, but only the leaves, malunggay can be a source of both food and fuel.

“In addition to the oil, we can use the remaining material as animal feed,” Danny said. “But we need to wash it first to remove the bitter taste. But the substance that causes the bitter taste can also be used as a coagulant.”

I wondered aloud: “With these multiple potential of malunggay, why is there more hype about jathropa?” Danny’s response was a wry smile.

He added a cautionary note on jathropa: “It is supposed to be planted on hilly places. But remember that jathropa is poisonous. When the fruits fall to the ground and are washed by rain into the rivers, they could kill the fish.”

“How long does it take for a malunggay plant to bear fruit?” I asked. Just one year, I was told. I had to double check, since it seemed such a short time.

I thought of asking my relatives to plant malunggay in Naujan, so I asked further: “How far apart do we plant malunggay?” The answer again surprised me. Malunggay can be planted only a meter apart. That’s why a hectare can have 10,000 malunggay trees.

The average seed production is 2 kilos per tree, and Secura’s buying price per kilo can go up to 10 pesos. I did a quick calculation: That’s 200,000 pesos per hectare. Again, I had to double check, since it seems too good to be true.

There was just one downer info: Malunggay is sensitive to too much water. That is the other side of its strength, which is its being drought resistant.

That’s one more reason to push for a more decisive solution to the periodic flooding in Naujan.

Before leaving the office, I picked up the publications of Bionet Pilipinas. One issue had a one-pager on malunggay whose title made me smile: Malunggay, ang Power Gulay.

A Long Day’s Journey to Botolan

A week ago on June 3, I took the 7 am Victory bus to Botolan Zambales. Letty Gomez, president of PBAZ - Paaralang Bayan ng Ayta sa Zambales, had invited me to join their delegation for their dialogue and negotiations with Mayor Roger Yap of Botolan.

It was a long five-hour trip, with stops in Lubao, Pampanga and Olongapo City. But it turned out to be an even longer journey into the past, since I got to meet some of the first leader-graduates of ELF, the Education for Life Foundation, and got updated about their life and work.

When I arrived at the Botolan town hall, I was met by the Ayta delegation, most of whom are graduates of the grassroots leadership course or GLC of ELF. The GLC is designed to develop the participants’ skills in communications and negotiations, not just through workshops and role playin, but through actual practice negotiations.

Mayor Roger Yap is on his third term as mayor, and has been consistently supportive of the Ayta communities in Botolan. Although the Ayta delegation had prepared a formal presentation, we dispensed with most of it, since the mayor had already been meeting with Carling Domulot of LAKAS while waiting for our arrival.

He committed himself to support the IMs (instructional managers) for the alternative learning system of Ayta out of school youth. He also agreed to the PBAZ proposal to conduct an information drive among the barangays about EFA (Education for All) and to set up local Literacy Coordinating Councils.

Over a quick lunch at the market carenderia, I teased the Ayta leaders: “If you keep having such easy success in your negotiations, your skills may not develop!”

We were joined at the negotiations by Romy Manalac from Floridablanca, Pampanga. Romy was part of the first batch of leader-graduates who named themselves Unang Ani, first harvest. After our lunch, he insisted on splitting the bill with me. “Why are you so generous?” I asked. He said that he had more than the usual income from his farm and store.

Romy repeated what he told me once: “I really benefited from the distance learning course on Leadership and Entrepreneurship.” He said that all previous courses he took with ELF taught him how to serve the community; the course in entrepreneurship taught him how to take care also of his own livelihood.

He heads DANGLE, an organizations of civic-minded friends in Floridablanca. Most of them are ELF graduates, but not all. They have been offering ALS for out of school youth. “In appreciation of our work, the mayor gave us a place on the second floor of the public market,” he informed me. “We use it for the sessions of the learning groups.”

Unlike other NGOs, the members of DANGLE support their work out of their personal contributions; they received no external project funding. “But now, we have started to get some donations, “Romy said. “It seems that our work is getting recognized.”

One Floridablanca businessman found out that some of his workers were graduates of the ALS; he gave 5000 pesos to support other learners. A professional who had migrated to Australia found out about the program and gave 10 thousand pesos.

Romy is also active with the core croup that successfully campaigned to have Among Ed, Fr. Ed Panlilio, elected governor of Pampanga. He expects that they will be mobilizing again, to defend Among Ed against the moves of his defeated opponent to unseat him through a recall.

Before taking the bus back to Pampanga and Quezon City, Romy and I took a tricycle for a quick visit to the LAKAS community in Bihawo. We were met by Tay Ben, who told us about recent visits by armed men to the community. “They came at night, and some of the younger leaders wanted to confront them,” he said. “But I told them to keep calm, and avoid provoking hem.” He thinks the harassment may be related to their refusal to give a mining company right of way through their community.

I asked to see the house that LAKAS has offered to PBAZ for its office. From there, we went to another lot where they plan to set up the nursery of indigenous tree species, for the reforestation of their ancestral domain. It is also where they dream of putting up a “House of Ayta History and Culture.”

Just before we left, Letty came on her motorbike. She had gone to her house in Loob Bunga to pack her clothes. She will sleep in the LAKAS community because the next day, they would travel early to the Iram community of Aytas in Subic. The young Aytas joining her are part of “Biyaheng Ayta,” a traveling theater group that presents the story of the Aytas’ life journey since the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo. But before they perform their theater piece, they conduct workshops on indigenous people’s rights, and trains Ayta children to dance the traditional Ayta talek.

On the way back to Quezon City, I told myself that someone turning 65 this July should not be taking these sort of long tiring trips anymore. But this was a long days journey worth taking.

In those few hours at Botolan, I got glimpses of the vision we had when ELF started 17 years ago - “a community of leaders and learners.”

12 Brain Rules

“If you can get only one book this year, make it this one.” That is quite an endorsement for a book from one of my favorite blog sites, Garr Reynold’s Presentation Zen.

The book is Brain Rules by Dr. John Medina, a developmental molecular biologist. His professional title can be intimidating, but don’t worry, his writing is accessible to non-professionals. In fact he has built a very nice website on the topic - www.brainrules. net. It’s a good thing he did that since I can’t find a copy of the book in our bookstores.

Brain Rules distills the findings of research into the human brain and applies them to learning and presentations (teaching). His website has a succinct definition of “brain rule” - It’s one thing scientists know for sure about how our brain works.

Garr Reynolds used the principles in the book to make a slide presentation on the book - Takeaways and Quotes from Brain Rules. That’s a neat way of delivering the message.

Most of the 12 Brain Rules have been used and advocated by good presentors and educators. What Dr. Median has done is to present their basis in what scientists have learned about how our brain works. But by way of caveat, the best neuroscientists caution us that although we know much more today about the brain, there is even more that we do not yet know.

Here are the 12 Brain Rules as found in his website, without commentary:

Rule 1: Exercise. Exercise boosts brain power.

Rule 2: Survival. The human brain evolved too.

Rule 3: Wiring. Every brain is wired differently.

Rule 4: Attention. We don’t pay attention to boring things.

Rule 5: Short-term memory. Repeat to remember.

Rule 6: Long-term memory. Remember to repeat.

Rule 7: Sleep. Sleep well, think well.

Rule 8: Stress. Stressed brains don’t learn the same way.

Rule 9: Sensory integration. Stimulate more of the senses.

Rule 10: Vision. Vision trumps all other senses.

Rule 11: Gender. Male and female brains are different.

Rule 12: Exploration. We are powerful and natural explorers.

This list of rules is too skimpy and act more as “teasers.” But they remind me of other books and articles I have read about effective teaching and learning, and I look forward to finding a copy of Brain Rules soon.

In the meantime, we can get a sense of what to expect through these excerpts from the author’s introduction:

My goal is to introduce you to 12 things we know about how the brain works. I call these Brain Rules. For each rule, I present the science and then offer ideas for investigating how the rule might apply to our daily lives, especially at work and school. The brain is complex, and I am taking only slivers of information from each subject—non-comprehensive but accessible.

• For starters, we are not used to sitting at a desk for eight hours a day. From an evolutionary perspective, our brains developed while working out, walking as many as 12 miles a day. The brain still craves the experience, especially in sedentary populations like our own. That’s why exercise boosts brain power in such populations. Exercisers outperform couch potatoes in long-term memory, reasoning, attention, problem-solving tasks, and more. I am convinced that integrating exercise into our eight hours at work or school would only be normal.

• As you no doubt have noticed if you’ve ever sat through a typical PowerPoint presentation, people don’t pay attention to boring things. You’ve got seconds to grab someone’s attention, and only 10 minutes to keep it. At 9 minutes and 59 seconds, something must be done quickly—something emotional and relevant. Also, the brain needs a break. That’s why I use stories in this book to make many of my points.

• Ever feel tired around 3 o’clock in the afternoon? That’s because your brain really wants to take a nap. You might be more productive if you did: In one study, a 26-minute nap improved NASA pilots’ performance by 34 percent. Even so, the brain isn’t resting while it sleeps. It is surprisingly active. And whether you get enough rest affects your mental agility the next day. Sleep well, think well.

• Most of us do more forgetting than remembering, of course, and that’s why we must repeat to remember. When you understand the brain’s rules for memory, you’ll see why I want to destroy the notion of homework.

Although he calls them brain “rules” the author does not want us to treat his ideas as prescriptions. Instead, he says that his book is a call for real world research. He explains:

I occasionally would run across articles and books that made startling claims based on “recent advances” in brain science about how to change the way we teach people and do business. And I would panic, wondering if the authors were reading some literature totally off my radar screen. I speak several dialects of brain science, and I knew nothing from those worlds capable of dictating best practices for education and business …

There was no need to panic. You can responsibly train a skeptical eye on any claim that brain research can without equivocation tell us how to become better teachers, parents, business leaders, or students. This book is a call for research simply because we don’t know enough to be prescriptive. It is an attempt to vaccinate against mythologies like the “Mozart effect,” left brain/right brain personalities, and getting your babies into Harvard by making them listen to language tapes while they are still in the womb.

His introduction winds up with the following provocative propositions:

What we know about the brain comes from biologists who study brain tissues, experimental psychologists who study behavior, and cognitive neuroscientists who study how the first relates to the second. Evolutionary biologists have gotten into the act as well. Though we know precious little about how the brain works, our evolutionary history tells us this: The brain appears to be designed to solve problems related to surviving in an unstable outdoor environment, and to do so in nearly constant motion. I call this the brain’s performance envelope.

Each subject in this book—exercise, survival, wiring, attention, memory, sleep, stress, sense, vision, gender, and exploration—relates to this performance envelope. Motion translates to exercise. Environmental instability led to the extremely flexible way our brains are wired, allowing us to solve problems through exploration. Learning from our mistakes so we could survive in the great outdoors meant paying attention to certain things at the expense of others, and it meant creating memories in a particular way. Though we have been stuffing them into classrooms and cubicles for decades, our brains actually were built to survive in jungles and grasslands.

I am a nice guy, but I am a grumpy scientist. For a study to appear in this book, it has to pass what some at The Boeing Company (for which I have done some consulting) call the MGF: the Medina Grump Factor. That means the supporting research for each of my points must first be published in a peer-reviewed journal and then successfully be replicated. Many of the studies have been replicated dozens of times…

What do these studies show, viewed as a whole? Mostly this:

If you wanted to create an education environment that was directly opposed to what the brain was good at doing, you probably would design something like a classroom. If you wanted to create a business environment that was directly opposed to what the brain was good at doing, you probably would design something like a cubicle. And if you wanted to change things, you might have to tear down both and start over.

In many ways, starting over is what this book is all about.

Whenever I read books about how the brain works, and the implication for how we learn and teach, I am faced with a dilemma. I am part of the campaign for Education For All as president of E-Net Philippines and as board member of GCE, the Global Campaign for Education. But the premises on which the current school systems are based are being challenged by the findings into how our brains work and learn.

We need to continue campaigning for all children to have access to quality basic education, within the present system. But we can not ignore or postpone the need to reform our schools and learning systems to take advantage of the findings into how we learn better, if not best.

But how to do both? I am reminded of the metaphor from another context, that it will be like repairing a plane while in flight, or a ship while sailing on the sea.

Perhaps these ideas and their methodological consequences have better chances of being tested in the process of constructing alternative learning systems or ALS. If so, then ALS may eventually also mean advanced learning systems.

Between Honesty and Hope 2

Yesterday at the E-Net Philippines office, I was interviewed by writers of the abs-cbnnews.com. They introduced themselves as staff of Newsbreak who are writing a special report to be posted online.

“Are you going to the press lunch tomorrow in Makati?” I asked them. The PBED - Philippine Business for Education has asked me to join them; there will be a lunch-discussion on the state of Philippine education and what we can do to help it.”

They had not received an invitation. I called Peter Perfecto who is organizing the event, and he agreed to invite them.

The interview was more of an extended conversation. They wanted to focus mainly on the data they got from the DepEd that participation rate has been declining these past 10 years. That came as a surprise to me, since I usually cite our high participation rate ( one time up to 98% ) as one of the few bright spots.

“Last year’s figure is just 84 per cent,” they told me. That was a shock, and I asked to see the charts given them by the DepEd. The official figures were really low.

When Otso-Otso was still a popular novelty song, I used it as a pop-ed device to communicate the state of Philippine education: Of the 6 and 7 year olds who should enter Grade One, 98% do. That was the good news. Then a series of bad news, also ending in eight, otso: Of every 100 who enter Grade One, only 68 will finish Grade Six. Of the same 100, only 48 will finish fourth year high school.

I usually add in jest, “I don’t know the figures from CHED, the Commission on Higher Education, but maybe only 28 enter college, to insure it remains otso-otso.“

The bad news yesterday is another otso - only 84 of every 100 six and seven year old Filipino children enroll in Grade One. That is really alarming, and I wondered why I missed noticing this in the numerous briefings I have attended.

Perhaps it is because we tend to focus immediately on completion rates ( how many finish Grade Six and 4th year high ), and performance in the National Achievement Test ( NAT ).

So what are the reasons for the decline? We tossed ideas back and forth. I asked them to check the BEIS ( Basic Education Information System ) data on annual enrollment in Grade One. If the rate of increase is just over 1%, then population growth is a major factor, since our annual population growth is over 2%. I don’t think that the rate of building new classrooms or new schools has kept pace. In fact there are stil a couple of thousand barangays that do not have a complete elementary school.

We went through the usual litany of other factors - household poverty, informal school fees, displacement through armed conflict and natural calamities. But we also exchanged stories and ideas about the reforms that are starting to have some results, especially in places where the local government gets involved and mobilizes the community, like Mayor Jessie Robredo and other Synergeia mayors.

For today’s lunch-discussion, PBED e-mailed me a draft statement and asked if E-Net would sign it. I said I would, as E-Net president, though I wills till try to consult the other Excom members.

Like any group statement, it must have gone through many drafts ( I think at least 10 ), but I am glad that it tries to give both sides - what’s going right and what needs to be fixed. It’s a combination of appreciative inquiry and critical inquiry. It’s the same spirit that informed the statement of the Latin American bishops in the late 60’s about their continent - Between Honesty and Hope.

Honesty can make us see just the dark side and the failures, the problems and the frustrations. Hope alone may be “Pollyanish” and unrealistic. We need the healthy tension between honesty and hope. That’s why I chose it also as the theme of the art exhibit I am preparing for August.

So what’s the good news about Philippine education that feeds our hope? According to our joint statement:

1) We have revived public attention to education as an urgent national priority

2) We have raised education reform as an effort demanding sustained commitments by entire communities at local and national level.

3) The DepEd has adopted BESRA - Basic Education Reform Agenda, which is a framework for collaboration between government and other sectors.

4) There are modest improvements in average NAT scores: For Grade 6 students, it has increased from 43.55% in 2003 to 59.94% in 2007. For 4th year high school students from 36.13% to 46.64%

5) We are beginning to think right about education reform. It’s not just about good programs and implementing them, but about continually improving how Filipinos learn and how Philippine institutions and social processes help Filipinos learn.

Still relatively modest gains. The improvement in NAT scores must be judged against the traditional standards I remember from my grade school days, when the acceptable passing score was 75%.

I will have to take a taxi to Makati in 30 minutes. Let me jump to the five action points proposed in the statement:

We should build a permanent nationwide alliance based on enduring values and principles of education reforms among groups and individuals concerned with continuous improvement of Philippine learning systems at national and local levels, in public and private sectors, in basic and higher education. We should broaden the public discourse on the content of the education that our children are being instructed to master. We must emphasize acquisition by everyone of basic learning skills, particularly, reading proficiency as a key instrument for learning to learn. And we must place the highest importance to continuously raising the quality of teaching practice consistently demonstrated in all our educational enterprises at all levels and spheres.

We must increase investments in education by the government and from the private sector. From PhP90B in 1999, the 2008 General Appropriations Act now earmarks PhP149B for basic Philippine Education. Private sector contributions through the Adopt-A-School program has likewise soared from PhP0.2B in 2002 to PhP4.0B in 2008. However, we must remind the national leadership and our legislators —who shall soon deliberate our 2009 appropriations— that our per capita investments in education remain one of the lowest in ASEAN. We continue to lag far behind the proposed annual 8-10% increase in the education budget (PIDS study) for us to close the gaps and achieve our Education for All targets. Increased budgets for education must prioritize programs to improve teacher quality – including decent compensation packages - and enhance school based management.

We should organize a multi-sectoral and multi-agency committee to develop a master plan for the setting-up of the 12 year plus pre-school Philippine basic education cycle. The global standard for basic education today is 12 years, according to the UNESCO. In a 12-year basic education cycle spanning elementary and secondary school (but excluding pre-school), a child is presumed to have developed sufficient higher order thinking skills, analytic tools, and knowledge to enter either college or the world of work. We welcome the national government’s move to “start the process of developing a consensus on the gradual implementation of the 12-year basic education track policy” as contained in a memorandum from the president to DepEd, CHED and TESDA dated 6 October 2006. The National Competitiveness Council (NCC) has likewise adopted a consensus for the move to 12 years.

We must disengage the education system from the electoral and political process. The practice of mobilizing our teachers for poll duty must be stopped. Many other more foolproof alternatives and technologies – computerization is one of them – are now available to the electorate. Utilizing our teachers and schools for elections puts the performance levels of our education system at a distinct disadvantage, administratively and academically. Our teachers must be allowed to focus on what they were trained to do – mold the minds and hearts of our children. Using them to count votes—and sometimes become parties to electoral fraud —greatly disrespects their stature. Furthermore, politics rather than competency becomes a basis for hiring and promotion. In our education system, politics and politicians should have no place except at the level of articulating national education policies to which the DepEd Secretary should be responsible for leading their implementation. We should unite to keep politics away from hiring and promotion, funding and activities in education; and most especially away from the appointment of our national leaders in education.

Let us work to secure a Department of Education that truly serves our people. We should begin at our schools, which should have adequate facilities, including libraries and laboratories, and teaching staff; a principal with proper preparation and support; and operating funds necessary for day-to-day needs. Our teachers should have access to continuous learning via institutionalized training programs reinforced with motivation to continuously learn via career tracks that link promotions to demonstrated teaching competencies.

To further safeguard the education system from politics, we launch today the Philippine Education report card project as an objective evaluation, monitoring and planning tool for the massive multi-sectoral and multi-stakeholder education reform effort. Every two years, beginning the summer of 2009 we shall release to the Filipino nation the report card of Philippine Education that shall grade our policy and program implementation focusing on teachers, learning time, core subjects, pedagogy, language, learning materials, facilities and leadership. These areas have long been established as key levers in making schools more effective and helping our students learn to learn so that they can learn to achieve.

I look forward to a stimulating discussion, with the draft statement as a starting point. I hope I can introduce the issue of Alternative Learning Systems for out of school youth and adults, since the focus thus far is only on the formal school-based system. But I guess their plate is full enough even with just that.

Blended Learning

Last Wednesday, I took a taxi to the airport from the Development Academy of the Philippines; I was part of a panel that commented on a research into farmer beneficiaries in the banana plantations.

Waiting for me at the Centennial airport was Franklin Quijano, former mayor of Iligan City. We flew together to Cebu, to speak at the convention of ISD ( institutional services department ) managers of electric coops.

During the Thursday sessions, Fr. Paking Silva used the format of round table discussions, in small groups and in plenary. Although the groups were given specific questions to discuss, they were also given freedom to raise other questions in the plenary.

It was not quite the “open space” approach that Franklin uses in other workshops, but it partook of the same spirit of allowing the participants to choose their agenda.

One of the questions that came up was about continuing education opportunities for department managers. There is an ongoing program for general managers, designed by a group of Ateneo professors in partnership with NEA. “Will we get to join the same program?” one ISD manager asked.

The initial and frank answer was “No.” That program is rather expensive and customised for general managers. A big part of the expense was the board and lodging for three residential sessions that lasted a week each.

“But of course the department managers need continuing education, especially since the policy environment is changing due to EPIRA,” the NEA representative said. “We just need to customize it too.” And since there are at least three department managers for every GM, the electric coops cannot afford the same cost as that of the GM course multiplied by three.

When asked for my comments, I shared with them ELF’s successful experience in developing a distance learning program for grassroots leaders. Our leadership formation program started out with only residential courses, lasting for six weeks. Even though the venues we rented were much cheaper than those used for the GMs, the board and lodging costs were still huge.

We obviously couldn’t use the same expensive method for the continuing education of the grassroots leader-graduates. That led us to explore distance learning.

Based on the positive results, we later redesigned our whole leadership formation program. Instead of starting with a six-week residential course, followed by distance learning, we had shorter ( one week ) residential courses at the beginning, middle and end of the program, combined with distance learning in between the “face to face” sessions. The participants studied individually and also met in smaller learning groups in their communities. The whole program stretched over six months.

“That’s what we call blended learning,” Gil de los Reyes told me last Monday at his Makati office. He is a former undersecretary of DAR, and we met by chance in Baguio during my visit a few weeks back. He invited me to visit his office to talk about his e-learning programs on climate change and international trade. His courses are geared to corporate and government participants, but he wants us to explore how e-learning courses can be developed for grassroots community leaders.

We agreed that pure e-learning won’t work for the grassroots. In fact, it is not advisable either for professionals. There are topics that are still best learned face to face, over longer sessions, with the help of resource persons and peer discussions. Hence “blended learning.”

Part of the reason for the distance learning part of blended learning is scale and costs. Even if board and lodging costs are high, if there are only a few target participants e.g. the GMs of 119 electric coops, residential courses may be affordable. But the courses couldn’t last too long, since the GMs cannot be away from their work.

The calculations change if there are a couple of hundred department managers. And even more, if we want a program for barangay leaders.

Think of the following numbers: There are 42,000 barangays, and there are 9 elected leaders ( the barangay captain, seven barangay councilors, and the chair of the Sangguniang Kabataan). Add three appointed members of the Barangay Development Council, since by law they should be at least 25% of the BDC. Thats 12 formal leaders in every barangay, or over 500,000.

A purely residential course may be possible for the initial sessions, but for subsequent and continuing education, we need a combination of face to face and distance learning - a blended learning program.

Beyond cost and time considerations, blended learning, especially the distance learning part, puts more responsibility on the learners for their learning. There is still need for external reinforcement, in the form of learning groups sessions and having a learning coordinator, but a lot depends on the internal motivation and discipline of the learner. That is why distance learning is also described as “autonomous learning” and “self-directed learning.”

I had to fly back early Friday morning, to be present at the meeting of the National EFA Committee. But at breakfast, just before I left, Jun Pan of NEA and I agreed to work on such a blended learning program for the department managers of the electric coops.

That could also be a stepping stone to developing a blended learning program for grassroots community leaders, at least in rural barangays, since they are also member-consumers of the electric cooperatives.

Tech-Voc and Lifelong Learning

I spent this Sunday editing the documentation from the Strategic Planning Workshop I facilitated for TESDA Region 1. But in between, I read the web postings in the virtual seminar hosted by ICAE, the International Council for Adult Education, as part of the run up to CONFINTEA 6 in 2009.

When the case is made for tech-voc, the pitch is that it offers a faster entry into gainful employment. After all, tech-voc courses are shorter than degree courses - at most three years, some as short as one year. And if the TVI (tech-voc institution) has industry partners, the courses offered are those whose graduates are needed by existing industries.

The main value invoked is earning and employment, and Abraham Maslow would agree. In his “hierarchy of values,” the bottom rung we must take to climb up toward the higher values of self-esteem and self-actualization is security, which includes earning a living.

The same priority came up at the TESDA Strategic Planning Workshop. Using the TOP, Technology of Participation method of Practical Visioning, we clustered all their goals into 10. Each participant was given three votes to choose which priority goals would answer the Focus Question: “By 2010, what should happen in Region 1 and the four provinces, so that our stakeholders will be satisfied?”

Top vote-getter was the cluster that had this heading: There is a 60 to 70% rate of employment of TVET graduates, including 10% entreperenurs.

This was followed by the cluster: There are enough quality assured TVIs in every province. A close third was the cluster: TESD is institutionalized as an integral part of local development programs.

I thought again of the AVESS seminar I attended in Adelaide in 2006. I found the theme “Adult and Vocational Education for Social Sustainability” evocative and stimulating, since it tried to bring together the two separate traditions of adult and popular education ( with its emphasis on “empowerment” and citizenship and that of TVET ( technical-vocational education and training ) which emphasizes skilling for employment.

Ove Korsgaard, a colleague in the Association for World Education and head of research at the Danish Pedagogical University, once gave an informative account about the idea of “lifelong learning.” It started out as a humanist and liberal concept, ignored by most governments and corporations, but has become a key word in the European Union. Why? Because it has been appropriated as a strategy for competitiveness in a rapidly changing economy.

The mantra is “Who learns fastest, wins.” Lifelong learning means learning for flexibility, and learning for competitiveness.

The Korean government and business groups seem to have taken this up in a major way. At a conference last year in Busan, we learned that there is a Presidential Commission on Lifelong Learning, chaired by the president himself. There are annual “lifelong learning festivals” hosted by different “learning cities.” The driving theme is that in a dominantly knowledge economy, learning is key.

This enthusiasm for lifelong learning is both an opportunity and challenge for educators of all stripes. For those of us in the adult and popular education tradition, there may be a wariness that learning will be narrowly limited to functional demands of the economy. Such a conception of “lifelong learning,” according to Ove, would be contradictory to that of “learning for life.”

For those in tech-voc and who counter pose it to higher education, the contemporary understanding of lifelong learning is also a challenge to reconceptualize their understanding of tech-voc.

In 1998, when i was considering whether to accept my appointment as director-general of TESDA, I checked its website to read about its mandate and mission. There were five tasks, and the first two dismayed me - to insure that the workforce has globally competitive skills and meet the changing demands of the market. I didn’t feel qualified or “called” to that mission.

But the next three tasks gave me some comfort. The third was to promote the critical and creative thinking underlying the technical skills, and the fourth was to promote values than included nationalism. The fifth was to promote public-private partnerships which I interpreted to include not just business but also NGOs and civil society.

Early in my stint at TESDA, I realized that all those grand tasks faced a daunting obstacle - the general bias against tech-voc in favor of degree courses that promise entry into “white collar” jobs. The irony was that tech-voc itself reinforced the bias by declaring proudly that is is ‘blue collar.”

I thought we should stop pitting degree courses and tech-voc courses against each other, white collar and blue collar, Rizal and Bonifacio, CHED and TESDA. While there are still boundaries, these are being blurred both by the changing nature of the economy and by changing conceptions of learning.

Going back to the TESDA workshop, I was pleased that after the fourth priority cluster - Advocacy for Tek-Bokresulting in a 10% annual increase in TVET enrollment, the fifth priority was: Ladderized Education Program (LEP) effectively promoted and implemented by TESDA and CHED.

Educators and social activists have successfully lobbied the European Union to balance the one-sided emphasis on lifelong learning for productivity and competitiveness with lifelong learning for citizenship and participation.

That comes close to my casual comment on Ove’s counterposing of lifelong learning and learning for life. Let’s combine them into “lifelong learning for life.”

TESDA Revisited

Girlie and I flew to Laoag City last Wednesday evening, and were fetched at the airport by Merle Blanco, TESDA Provincial Director of Ilocos Norte. She brought us by car to Ilocos Sur, to the Cabugao Beach Resort, where Washington “Boying” Agustin, TESDA Regional Director, was waiting.

TESDA Region 1 had invited me to to be resource person and facilitator for a Joint Strategic Planning Workshop of the PTESDC (Provincial Technical Education and Skills Development Committee) of four provinces: Ilocos Norte, Ilocos Sur, La Union and Pangasinan, and of the RTESDC (Regional TESDC) of Region 1. They asked me to take care also of documentation; I told them I might as well ask Girlie to do that, since she has not yet been to the Ilocos region.

The workshop was only for two days, so I used Technology of Participation (TOP) methods because they are more rapid than the usual strategic planning approaches. In the closing session, Jun Catipon, provincial director for Pangasinan, reflected that we managed to achieve our goals, but without the stress that he had experienced in other similar exercises.

“Why did you invite me here, anyway?” I asked Boying. He said that he wanted me to help clarify the role of TESDA as an authority to the PTESDC and RTESDC members, since many of them are new. He added that Region 1 is the first to hold this kind of joint planning workshop; other regions may pick up cues for their own workshops.

When I was introduced to the participants, they started with my usual triple XXX identity: ex-priest, ex-prisoner, ex-rebel. Then they added a fourth X, ex-government official, as former TESDA director-general. During the breaks, some participants wanted to know more “titillating” details about my former identities, but I told them that’s for another time. I guess they turned to Girlie for that.

Because so many of the participants were new to their role as TESDC members, I was happy that TESDA started with a number of briefing inputs, so they could have some levelling off.

Boying gave the briefing on the national TVET situationer, while Gemma Rendon gave the regional TVET situationer. I last met Gemma when she was TESDA Quezon City director; she is now Ilocos Sur provincial director.

Another briefing I found interesting was on the Region 1 development situation and directions, especially since NEDA regional director Leo Quintos Jr. has served in place for almost three decades, and has an “institutional memory” of the region.

I may have found the briefings useful, since they updated me about TESDA and the region, but I sensed that the participants had information “overload.” So I introduced them to the TOP method of participatory recap - ORID: objective, reflective, interpretative, and decisional.

I asked five groups - four PTESDCs and the RTESDC - to discuss and decide on seven items that they found most interesting and most significant, and those that they think call for decision. That became the baseline for our action planning workshop.

In my opening comments on my experience in TESDA and my understanding of its role as an authority, I took off from the “trifocalization” of the education system by Congress when it split the unitary DECS - Department of Education, Culture and Sports. In its place, there is the DepEd for basic education, the CHED for higher education, and TESDA in between, for technical education and skills development.

What Congress had split into three were supposed to have been brought together in a National Coordinating Council for Education (NCCE). Unfortunately, this never got legislated. It’s a good thing that there are efforts by TESDA and CHED to develop a “ladderized education program.”

In the ORID feedback, two groups included my comments on TESDA as the “Holy Spirit.” I had told them that as a former priest, I could interpret trifocalization in religious terms - from a Unitarian to a Trinitarian governance. From one person-one God, to three persons in one God.

But who is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit? The DepEd wins the God the Father without dispute, since it takes care of basic education and is the oldest and biggest agency.

What about God the Son? I thought at first that it should be TESDA, since tech-voc offers “salvation” for many of our young, especially those who come from poorer households. But I reluctantly conceded this to CHED, since even poorer families look to a four-year degree course as the way for their children to take them out of poverty, even if they can’t afford the money and the time.

So that makes TESDA the Holy Spirit. “Mysterious,” I usually comment. “We don’t know exactly what it is, but we know it’s important.”

Since TESDA is supposed to promote tech-voc programs that are “market-driven,” I draw some parallelism between the invisible hand of the market and the invisible Spirit. That’s always good for some laughter.

Since the CHED regional director was present, I teased her that while most Filipino households look to degree courses, like Jesus Christ, for salvation, we should remember that Jesus was also blamed and crucified by a disappointed crowd.

Shifting metaphors, I recalled that during my stint in TESDA, I compared the bias for degree courses, against tech-voc to Rizal and Bonifacio. “Rizal is CHED - he was a doctor, a multi-talented intellectual, global. And TESDA is Bonifacio, an out of school youth working in a bodega.” But I would hasten to add, “When Rizal was exiled to Dapitan, he constructed a water system, organized a coop and engaged in other practical development work.”

“On the other hand, Bonifacio read a lot of books when he was not at work. He translated Rizal’s poems, and himself wrote poetry,” I would remind ourselves. In fact his poem Pagibig sa Tinubuang Lupa was a favorite among us in prison, and it had a stanza that could presage the sentiments of our OFW:

Sa aba ng abang/mawalay sa bayan; Gunita may laging/Sakbibi ng lumbay; Walang ala-ala’t/Inaasam-asam; Kundi ang makita’y/Lupang tinubuan.

My proposition then was that we should not counterpose Rizal and Bonifacio, CHED and TESDA, degree course and tech-voc course. In fact, I changed the narrow skills-focus of the slogan carried over by TESDA from the NMYC - Galing Pinoy. Instead, we should aim for Galing at Talinong Pinoy. This is particularly important as the knowledge economy becomes more dominant.

More on this tomorrow.

X Men

Saturday May 10, I was invited to speak at the first assembly of PAX - Philippine Association of Ex-Seminarians. We met under the shade of the trees at the Bantayog ng mga Bayani Memorial Center.

It was a chance to get in touch with some friends I knew in the SVD seminary, including Fr. Mike Padua who was introduced as the chaplain of PAX; he has been also supportive of the XVDs - the association of former SVDs. I also met alumni of other seminaries.

Atty. Ribo from Leyte is one of the prime movers, and said in his welcome remarks that there is really no specific and clear purpose for PAX, as of now. Just a gathering and fellowship.

I said that the fellowship is reason enough, especially since PAX could be a “learning fellowhip.” After all, ex-seminarians and ex-priests need to learn many things that we didn’s in the seminary - how to be parents and partners, how to earn our living, how to serve the wider community not as full-time celibates but as people with families.

 Since we were at the Bantayog, I explained that the names on the Wall of Remembrance used to be restricted to those who fought and died as martyrs for democracy during martial law. But what about those who survived? Later, the Bantayog board recognized those who continued to work for democracy after EDSA 1986 and died of old age or sickness.

I drew some parallelism to the church’s ideas about whom to honor as saints. The first were the “martyrs” those who gave up their lives giving witness to their faith. But later, the church recognized “confessors” - those who lived out their witness day by day and eventually died of old age or sickness. I said that as a young priest-activist, I may have had a “martyr complex,” expecting to die young in the struggle. But now I prefer to be a confessor, and live to a ripe old age.

As an educator, I commented that martyrs are not the best resources for learning. Their main lesson is about courage in the face of death. We cannot learn much from their lives, since it is not acceptable to talk of their faults and failings; these have been washed away by their shedding of blood. In the pithy phrase of some commentators, martyr-saints are “to be admired, but not imitated.”

And yet we are only too conscious of our own limitations, our failings and weaknesses, even as we strive to overcome then and learn. That is why confessors are better teachers. They stumble and fall, but rise and learn, and more important, they persevered till the end. They are an early example of sustainability.

The other church tradition gave honor first to virgins who didn’t marry but dedicated their lives to the service of the church, and to widows who didn’t marry again after their husbands died. Only much later did the church come up with another category of saints, using a double negative “nec virgo nec vidua” - neither virgin nor widow.

Just as confessors are a model for the majority; martyrdom is not to be sought, but it comes, only for a minority, so also “neither virgin nor widow” is the life condition of the majority.

That is the life path that ex-seminarians and ex-priests have to explore, and we can benefit from exchanging notes in a fellowship like PAX.

But there is also an X factor in the identity that unites the members of PAX, our being ex-seminarians. Is this merely a historical reference, that once we spent time in the seminary studying to be priests? Or does it mean something more - a commitment to and a search for ways to contribute to the wider community?

We had a second guest speaker at the PAX assembly - Among Ed Panlilio, governor of Pampanga. it’s the third time we meet, all of them unplanned. “This may mean something,” we told each other. He spoke about his crusade against jueteng, and asked PAX for help in filing a case against Bong Pineda, and asking PNP General Razon to assign an anti-jueteng officer to Pampanga.

I recalled that of the 15 mayors in Oriental Mindoro, four are ex-seminarians, alumni of Saint Augustine Seminary in Calapan. I teased the rector that maybe the seminary curriculum should be revised to take this into account - have a common basic curriculum, then have two tracks, one for those who will be priests and another for those who will go into public service.

Is there really an X factor in the fact that at one time in our lives, we responded to a perceived call to service? And though we responded later to another call - to family, business, public service, development work etc., can we say that the spirit that made us respond to the first call is still there, looking for new contemporary ways of service?

PAX is a venue to pursue this question.

 

 

 

24 Hours

No, this does not refer to the TV series, just a recent quick trip to Baguio.

Wednesday at 12:15 am, I took the Victory de luxe bus from Quezon City to Baguio City. The non-stop trip on a solo reclining seat was worth the 600 pesos fare. Twenty-four hours later, on Thursday at 12:15 am, I boarded a similar bus trip from Baguio back to Quezon City.

The bus arrived at the Victory station in Baguio at 5 am. I was fetched by Renato Navata, regional director of DAR-CAR, the Department of Agrarian Reform in the Cordillera Administrative Region. He had invited me to speak at a “write shop” for a program on developing community-based leaders in agrarian reform communities (ARC) and indigenous peoples’ communities.

I was a young SVD priest when I first met “Boy” Navata. I think he had just left his seminary studies, and was a volunteer worker with the Federation of Free Farmers (FFF); we did some work together. We lost touch during the years of martial law, but I heard that he was also active in the resistance movement.

I don’t know how he got into DAR, but it makes sense, since agrarian reform was his original passion. He narrates with a wry smile: “When we have a meeting of DAR regional directors and I strike a conversation with Benjie de Vera (another former rebel), my fellow directors would tease us as a caucus of the New People’s Army.”

It has been a while since I visited the Cordilleras, and I was happy to accept his invitation. I also learned quite a bit at the write shop.

The DAR-CAR workshop is in line with the resolution of the Regional Development Council of CAR to launch a fresh initiative toward autonomy for the Cordilleras. This is based on a provision in the 1987 Constitution for autonomy both for Muslim Mindanao and the Cordillera. But two previous plebiscites to pass an Organic Act were rejected.

“Your third attempt reminds me of Frank Sinatra,” I told the participants. Their quizzical expressions turned to smiles when I explained that I was thinking of his comeback song “Let Me Try Again.”

One lesson the RDC drew from the previous failures is that the campaign for autonomy should not focus immediately on politics, but on development. Another lesson, based on the people’s suspicion of politicians who previously pushed for autonomy, is the need to develop new community-based leaders who would be more credible. Hence the workshop on a program to develop these grassroots leaders.

After I finished my MA in Philosophy, I spent a year in Abra, one of the six provinces of CAR, as a “regent” at the St. Joseph Seminary in Bangued. Two of the young Tingguian high school seminary students, Cirilo Ortega and Bruno Ortega, later became guerrilla-priests, joining Conrado Balweg, also a Tingguian, and Nilo Valerio, an Ilocano, in the New People’s Army.

Boy Navata and I spent time reminiscing about the four comrades. Bruno died as a guerrilla fighter, but from sickness, rather than combat. Nilo was killed by the military; when they found out that he was a priest, they cut of his head and buried his body in separate places. Up to now, his wife Daisy and their children have not been able to give him a proper burial. Cirilo survived martial law and eventually returned to priestly service. Conrado broke away from the NPA, founded the Cordillera People’s Liberation Front (CPLA), and forged a peace agreement with the government, with the demand that an autonomous regional government should be established. He later died a tragic death, killed by the NPA. More recently, his wife Azon died of heart attack.

Their names and faces were on my mind as I listened to the assessment of the development assets and strategic potential of the Cordillera. “It has two outstanding characteristics,” according to the DAR-CAR. “it is the watershed cradle of the North, and it is predominantly populated by indigenous peoples.”

Although the Cordillera is classified as one of the three poorest regions, it is the region that hosts the headwaters of 12 major rivers that are crucial for irrigated agriculture in the Ilocos Region, the Cagayan Valley Region, and parts of Central Luzon. The same headwaters are also important for the hydroelectric power that feeds the Luzon grid.

One of the 4-point advocacy agenda of the DAR-CAR is RUPES - “rewarding upland people for the environmental services” that they provide. Through their indigenous knowledge systems and practices, they preserve the watersheds which are critical for the agri-ecological systems. These watersheds are also carbon sinks.

Unlike other regions where indigenous peoples are minorities, over 90% of the population in the Cordillera belong to 19 major indigenous tribes. But although there are 65 ARCs or agrarian reform communities in the region, only 5 out of the 110 potential CADTs or Certificates of Ancestral Domain Title have been granted. Hence the importance of implementing the two asset reform laws - CARP or the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program, and IPRA, or the Indigenous People’s Rights Act.

The action program that we discussed focused on the development of grassroots community leaders and advocates among the ARBS or agrarian reform beneficiaries, and the Indigenous peoples’ communities. We also looked into the need to mobilize allies and advocates among the established institutions - academe, local governments, churches, business. I suggested that they tap the potential of Cordillera inhabitants who have migrated abroad.

Before midnight, Boy Navata brought me to the bus station and gave me a bag of Cordillera vegetables plus a few bottles of local wine. I drifted off to sleep, thinking of the four young SVD priests, all students of mine, who devoted their lives to defend the rights of the communities they served in the Cordillera.

I thought of their witness and sacrifice, and those of many other Cordillera leaders, like Macli-ing Dulag and Pedro Dungoc. I hope that the program to develop new grassroots leaders will insure that their dreams will continue to be pursued even if it takes the biblical “40 years” of struggle.

Forty Years of Struggle

In the Bible the number 40 means a very long time. When we read that “it rained 40 days and 40 nights,” that is not to be understood literally; simply that it rained for a long. long time.

This morning, I thought of the biblical meaning of 40 when I met Atty. Camilo Sabio at the Pius XII Catholic Center. We were there for what has been billed as the Agrarian Reform Summit of Stakeholders, which is also the third Bishops-Legislators Caucus on the issue of extending CARP and reforming it.

I met Mil Sabio around 40 years ago, when he was a lawyer with the Federation of Free Farmers. I had been introduced to agrarian reform as the main social justice issue in the Philippines by Jerry Montemayor, whose son Leonie was also at the summit. There were also veteran FFF farmer-leaders and organizers, including Boy Tan from Bukidnon. As we reminisced about our years together in the struggle, I realized that it has been 40 years ago!

It has been a very long struggle. And it will continue to be a very long struggle.

Of course the struggle for social justice in the rural areas has gone on much longer than 40 years. The 40 is a personal reference, since 1968 was when I got ordained as an SVD priest, after which I asked my superiors to assign me as a chaplain of the FFF.

The Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program or CARP was passed into law in 1988, part of the fruits of EDSA 1986. As Atty. Christian Monsod explained, it was a law that reflected the compromises of those who held power after the restoration of formal democracy. CARP is revolutionary in its intentions, since it wanted to redistribute agricultural land from the landlords ( big and small ) to the small farmers. But it chose to do this through the processes of the restored democratic order, with its checks and balances, and its domination by the elite.

Twenty years later, we can assess CARP as either “half full or half empty,” in the words of Archbishop Tony Ledesma, the lead convenor of the National Rural Congress II which is being convened by the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines. There are around one million ARBs or agrarian reform beneficiaries. But there are still two million hectares of public and private land waiting to be redistributed under CARP.

The LAD ( land acquisition and distribution ) component of CARP fell very short of its original 10-year target deadline. We lobbied and campaigned in 1998 to extend funding for CARP, and it got a 10-year extension, which expires this year on Friday the 13th of June.

Today’s summit and yesterday’s pre-summit are part of the campaign to seek another extension of CARP. More precisely, of its LAD component, as Congressman Edcel Lagman clarified. He championed the 1998 extension, and has played an important role in the current campaign.

There’s some good news. The House committee on agrarian reform passed a consolidated bill by majority vote; it now awaits debate in plenary. There is also steady but slower movement in the Senate.

Even better news is that many bishops have taken up the cause of agrarian reform. It is fair to say that the militant grassroots campaign of farmers organizations and their NGO partners would not have gotten this far if the bishops hadn’t thrown their open and official support.

That’s what I said in the brief “synthesis” I was asked to give at the summit. I reminded everyone that there is no real summit without a base and slopes; that’s the flaw of other “summits” convened by government , which starts at the top. This summit is different, since it acknowledges and builds on the work of the grassroots and the “middle forces.” But without the participation of those on top - leaders in power institutions, our cause cannot successfully compete for what may be one of the scarcest resources, which is public attention.

The legislators at the summit cautioned the bishops and the farmers about the resistance that the proposed extension will face in the plenary. They urged the bishops to talk to the representatives in their dioceses, and mobilize their constituencies. Part of the interesting discussion at the summit was how to define what is “just compensation” for the land owners, especially since some courts interpret this as based on market price. The current law cites too many factors to consider, which gives courts too much leeway. There seems to be a need to pass a law that defines this more precisely and fairly, and the bishops took up the challenge to provide the moral basis for this.

The summit participants are seasoned enough to acknowledge the role of real politik even if our only intention is to extend the present law. But we also want to reform the law, and this is not just to improve it, but also a real politik move to separate the “soft opposition” from the hardliners. Even those who support the extension of CARP acknowledge that there are those who don’t want a mere extension of the law, but are willing to go along if there are reforms that accompany the extension.

There is a long list of reforms that we want. The challenge is how to push for as much as we want, while accepting that not everything we want is possible under the current balance of forces. I tried to capture this idea as ang pinakamagandang pwede - a third way between those who are willing to settle for mere extension and those who would not accept anything less than all the reforms we want.