University of the Philippines: 111 Years Of Honor & Excellence – What About Relevance?

111 years old? Not UP Diliman, no. In fact, it was the University of the Philippines College of Agriculture, UPCA, my alma mater, that was the very first college unit created for the UP System. On 06 March 1909, the UP Board of Regents created UPCA, now UP Los Baños. In activism during the American war in Vietnam, late 1960s, UP Diliman was first, UP Los Baños next. How do I know? I wrote and the Philippines Free Press published my poem about the My Lai Massacre.

Relevance is something else. To the Facebook sharing of "111 Years Of Honor And Excellence," my comment was: "How about relevance?" To which Serge Francisco replied, "You judge, Frank. You're more in a position to do so considering you are still in the community."

Actually, I have been in and out of the Los Baños Science Community since I came in as First Year student for a BSA major in Ag Education in 1969, or 50 years ago. So I can say I have had some ringside and amphitheater views of what have been happening at UP Los Baños.

Yes, Honor and Excellence cannot be denied.
But nobody in the entire UP System can claim about Relevance.

It's like this. I will talk about research & development, R&D, because that's where I have always been involved since 1975 as a writer, editor, and since 1997 as journal and book desktop publisher (digital).

If you disseminate knowledge, you are relevant. From 1975 to 1981, I was the Chief Information Officer of the Forest Research Institute, FORI. Non-UP. Remember, those were typewriter days. I was founder and Editor in Chief of the 3 FORI publications: monthly newsletter Canopy, quarterly technical journal Sylvatrop, and quarterly popular magazine Habitat. Everything by typewriter, but as a tireless turtle, I never missed a deadline!

In sharp contrast, today, via typewriter or computer, none of the universities of the UP System has proven to be of relevance when it comes to dissemination of knowledge gathered via its many researches. Hardly! Even in the publication of technical journals, which are dedicated only to scientists, the UP System is a laggard! In this Digital Age, why is UP a self-satisfied rabbit in information, communication and extension?

Because UP is spending too much time in activism!

Listen, UP System:Repay the Filipino people by being relevant to their lives. And the best thing you can do – forget your activism for a while – is to bring the fruits of your researches, including bachelor and masteral theses and doctoral dissertations, to the people, in 3 stages:

1st stage – publish more technical journals.
2nd stage – publish many more popular articles.
3rd stage – upload & maintain a knowledge options bank.

I differentiate the popular knowledge bank (KnowBank) from my options for knowledge bank (OK Bank). What is in your KnowBank are instructions, no more, no less – the user strictly follows, no choosing!

Differently, my OK Bank presents options for action – you decide what to do. Yes, I know you are intelligent!@517