William Dollente Dar – Hail To The Chief! The Man With A Thousand Shifts

It's 13:12 in Manila as I write this line at the very beginning; while we are waiting for the final news as to whether or not William Dar has been actually appointed by President Rodrigo Roa Duterte as the new Secretary of Agriculture. 

And yes, he was Secretary of Agriculture in the time of President Joseph "Erap" Estrada, when he team-captained the growth of agriculture in the highest growth rate in the country, "a stunning 9.6%, the highest growth rate in the post-Edsa 1 period," said Benjamin E Diokno, former Budget Secretary ("Agriculture Has Been Left Behind," `10 June 2015, BusinessWorld, bworldonline.com).

So what else do I expect PRRD to do, given the problems of PH agriculture today?!

Among other positions of high responsibility, Mr Dar was Director General of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, ICRISAT based in India for 15 long years, from 2000 to 2014. I have just finished searching for my 7 books published by ICRISAT looking for a different photograph and I have chosen that one, above, to represent "The Man With A Thousand Shifts" – which is actually the title of my essay on 21 September 2009 published in my blog iCRiSAT Watch(icrisatwatch.blogspot.com).

If you don't know him, or even if you think you know him, i'm telling you he has made at least 10 paradigm shifts in his professional work, from growing boys as boys (after his BSA major in Education at Benguet State University, BSU in Baguio), to growing boys into men (as members of a team with him as Captain of Team ICRISAT) – where he succeeded beyond expectations, bringing ICRISAT from last to first among the 15 international centers of the CGIAR Group, which includes prestigious IRRI.

Now, therefore, Hail to the Chief!

In the poem Lady Of The Lake, here are the verses, as written by Sir Walter Scott (Wikipedia, en.wikipedia.org):

Hail to the chief, who in triumph advances,
Honour'd and blest be the evergreen pine!
Long may the tree in his banner that glances,
Flourish the shelter and grace of our line.
Heaven send it happy dew,
Earth lend it sap anew,
Gaily to bourgeon and broadly to grow;
While every highland glen
Sends our shout back again
(Hail to the chief!)

So I must say British Sir Walter Scott predicted Filipino William Dar as Secretary of Agriculture at the time of the Climate Change crisis. Let me explain from the quotes.

"Hail to the chief … blessed be the evergreen pine!" The identity of the Chief is clear – he is from the city of pine trees, of course Baguio City.

And here are the lines that say "Climate Change" in case you haven't noticed:

Heaven send it happy dew,
Earth lend it sap anew,

The first line has to do with happy times in the field, the second line with the dry soil that needs water, dramatized by the occurrence of drought because of El Niño, which is brought about by Climate Change.

So, Hail to the Chief!@517