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Advancing Sustainable, Appropriate, Knowledge-Aligned, Pinoy Agriculture

Here’s re-inventing the Tagalog expression “Asa aka pa!” from the negative, “Don’t bother, don’t hope!” to the positive, “Hope for more!” As acronym, ASA KA PA!: “Advancing Sustainable, Appropriate, Knowledge-Aligned, Pinoy Agriculture!”

While this blog is not to disparage other religious beliefs, I must confess from the start that I am a Roman Catholic. I just created this blog today, ASA KA PA! and I just found out that on this date, the 24th of February, St Francis “received his vocation” in Portiuncula, Italy – in other words, it dawned on him that his life’s role was as a preacher. (image of St Francis[2] from On This Day) And yes, I was born on another important St Francis date: September 17, which today is celebrated by Catholics as “The Feast of the Stigmata of St Francis of Assisi.” Stigmata: St Francis was the first person recorded “who bore the marks of the crucified Christ (on) his hands, his feet, and (on) his side[1]” (Sacred Heart Catholic Church). 

As a digital preacher for the development of PH Agriculture, the name of my new blog, “ASA KA PA!” has 3 meanings: (1) “More hope for you!” (2) “Hope for more!” and:

Advancing Sustainable, Appropriate,
Knowledge-Aligned,
Pinoy Agriculture!

That is because I am an Agriculturist, a graduate of the University of the Philippines (UP) College of Agriculture, now UP Los Baños, a full-pledged University in itself in the UP System. I graduated in 1965, passed the very first Teacher’s Exam the year before, Professional Level. I have been engaged in what I myself invented: Communication for Development, ComDev, since 1975, when I started working for the Forest Research Institute (FORI), based at UP Los Baños. My FORI years, 1975 to 1981, are descriptive of my ComDev desires for my country – I founded and became the Editor In Chief of 3 FORI publications: the monthly newsletter Canopy, quarterly technical journal Sylvatrop, and quarterly color magazine Habitat. Those 3 publications made FORI well known in the Philippines and abroad.

At FORI, I was only beginning to show what I could do as a communicator for development. In those years, the Typewriter was King – except that I did experience the use of the IBM Selectric typewriter with its interchangeable keys: nice touch! I have always typed my own articles. I also learned photography by asking questions with the FORI photographer, who was under me.

On Innocents Day, 28 December 1985, I saw the need for me to learn word and image processing. I never looked back. I learned more digital skills over the years from 1997 (I’m guessing) when we had the Internet installed at home.

Today, I blog my own, and have something like 41 GB of collected photographs in my hard disk, 99% of them shot with my own hands. My latest camera is a Lumix FZ100 digital zoom, with AI capabilities: Just point and shoot! (See image above.)

Now then, I am re-dedicating my life to the development of Philippine agriculture via communication for development with a new slogan: “ASA KA PA!”@517


[1]https://sacredheartfla.org/about-us/being-franciscan/fraciscan-feast-days/the-feast-of-the-stigmata-of-st-francis-of-assisi/

[2]https://www.onthisday.com/events/february/24

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