“What Did You Do In The War, DevCom?”

“What Did You Do In The War, Daddy?” was the open letter I wrote some 57 years ago, addressed to the alumni of my alma mater, the UP College of Agriculture (UPCA, now UP Los Baños), belittling their “loyal” (if you will pardon the expression) observation every year. In that letter, I said the faculty & students of the 1918 UPCA who volunteered to fight in Europe where World War 1 was happening, thousands of kilometers away – were showing loyalty to the Americans who founded UPCA, not to the Filipinos. Ouch!

What did I get writing that open letter? A termination of my appointment as Substitute Lab Instructor in Horticulture! “Goodbye, UPLB!”

I was unhappy, but my being declared persona non grata to UPLB turned out to be the best for me! I had a wonderful chance to propagate my newfound field, “Organic Agrculture.” I had learned that from the book “Plowman’s Folly” by American gentleman farmer Edward H Faulkner, his book published in 1943.

At the Xavier University College of Agriculture (XUCA), happily approved by Fr William Masterson, Dean of XUCA, I produced separate syllabi in the 4 areas of Horticulture: Landscape Horticulture, Oliriculture (vegetabkes) Ornamentals, and Pomology (fruit trees), Based on my horticulture syllabi, with my organic lectures, I produced a winner of the world-class Right Livehood Award in 2003 in the person of Nicanor “Nicky” Perlas. (Since then, every time he sees me, he says, “Thank you for Organic.” How sweet is that?! I feel like I am also a winner of the Right Livelihood Award!)

Because of “What Did You Do In The War, Daddy?”, the observation of Loyalty Day changed from loyalty to the Americans to loyalty to the Filipinos, especially to the farmers, as it should be.

Today, yesteryears actually, the war is on homegrounds, War Against Poverty, especially the poverty of millions of Filipino farmers. We have so far failed them!
(Image fromdailysignal.com)

What I have not seen, what I don’t see is communication from the DevCom people dedicated to getting the poor farmers out of Poverty and getting them into Prosperity. That is a tall order, but that is what development communication is all about!

Time to learn more. Here is what we can learn from MassCom.com (studymasscom.com): 5 different approaches to development communication, and these are:
(1) participatory communication,
(2) advocacy and awareness campaigns,
(3) behavior change communication,
(4) media for development, and
(5) capacity building and skill development.

DevCom people, where are you in there, in any of the 5? I google everyday, and I don’t see encouraging signs from anyone of you! DevCom must be practiced, not simply claimed in one’s biodata.

In 1960, the first communication course in UPCA was offered; in 1974, it offered academic programs in Development Communication (Wikipedia, en.wikipedia.org). Today, 64 years later, I ask:

What did you do in the war against Farmer Poverty, DevCom?

Here’s hoping you will produce a million of winners among the poor millions of Filipino farmers, and someone will greet you to your face, “Thank you for DevCom”!@517