Animal Cloning

The use of reproductive biotechnology may be the most sophisticated research and development (R&D) work that the Philippines is into now in the agriculture sector.
The development of somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), popularly known as cloning, in carabao has been pursued by the Philippine Carabao Center (PCC) since mid-2000.
Its purpose may not really be for the immediate reproduction of superior carabao breeds that can right away efface a $500 million dairy yearly import.
But who knows? It can just turn out to be a field the country may have a global niche in since no carabao has yet been cloned elsewhere. None yet, even in China where one cloned carabao was reported to have been born, but never survived, according to PCC experts.
The famous Dolly, a sheep, was the first successful cloned mammal as announced by the journal Nature in February 1997. After this, other mammals have been cloned including the mouse, cattle, goat, pig, deer, rabbit, cat, mule, and horse.
Cloning, an act of producing a copy or identical copies of a biological material, may refer to any of these three types: cloning of a gene or segments of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA); reproductive cloning or copying of whole animals like Dolly; and therapeutic cloning.
The last is about the production of embryonic stem cells (ESC) that can create tissues that can replace injured or diseased tissues.
In cloning, somatic cell from an animal is taken, in the case of the cloning of the carabao here, a cell from an animal’s ear skin. The DNA from this donor animal’s cell, using its nucleus, is then transferred into an egg cell or oocyte whose nucleus has been removed so that the egg cell will obtain the DNA from the donor animal.
The egg then develops into an embryo and is later implanted in a womb of a surrogate mother.
After a few attempts on carabao cloning, scientists at PCC are looking into ways of solving abortion of the fetus after around three months in the womb (a fetus lasts 11 months in the womb before birth).
They’re looking at epigenetic factors that cause abortion. They may try to resolve abortion by making sure that the actual stage of the DNA material in the egg of the donor animal is synchronized with the reproductive cycle stage of the surrogate mother.
The idea of cloning is to multiply the effort to propagate superior animal breeds at an accelerated time.
Cloning is not really an old technology as some may think. Animal cloning itself using SCNT has been here for around 30 years. But cloning in plants has been here for decades with grafted fruits like bananas. Or else, through conventional breeding from seed, banana breeding can take 30 years.
Cloning may be the most interesting of all reproductive bio-techniques, and even controversial with moral implications of cloning human.
But scientists at PCC employ other technologies in reproduction whose uses have been more extensive and commercially applicable.
Ovum pick-up (OPU)/ in vitro maturation (IVM)/in vitro-fertilization (IVF). To breed animals with high milk production, researchers need sperm and egg cells from both superior animals. They usually get the egg cells of slaughtered carabaos in India. But this does not guarantee obtaining the best breed, thus the need to obtain it from a known live superior animal through OPU. An OPU enables researchers to get immature egg cells from a superior animal through aspiration with the aid of ultrasound.
But the oocytes have to mature within 24 hours through IVM which is done in the laboratory as the in vitro name implies. The IVF process follows where egg and sperm cells are fertilized and subsequently frozen for future transfer to the womb of a surrogate dam.
Embryo transfer (ET). With fertilization done in the laboratory, the embryo is now transferred inside, or in vivo, of a womb of a surrogate dam. Under this technique, PCC already has 12 to 15 successful birth through embryo transfer according to Dr. Annabelle S. Sarabia of PCC. But these successful cases are mainly used for technology development, rather than for immediate dairying.
Cryopreservation. This is the preservation under below zero degree Celsius freezing temperature of tissues, cells, embryo, semen of animals not only of carabao but also of cattle, goat, sheep, and other livestock animals (since PCC was appointed by Agriculture Secretary Arthur C. Yap as animal biotechnology center in the Philippines). The cryo bank at PCC-Nueva Ecija headquarters now has 76,249 entries including purebreds and crossbreds of carabao and cattle and riverine buffaloes. Of this total entries, 2,168 are native species and 881 of the carabaos already have Expected Breeding Values (EBV) primarily indicating milk production record.
It will enable scientists to draw out these samples for future reproduction specially when they are later found or predicted to have desirable traits.
It will boost the development of the country’s animal recording system even if this system is just new to the Philippines while other countries like the United States have long maintained their cattle herd books for centuries.
Futuristic Gene pharming/transgenesis/xenotransplantation. While R&D on these technologies are not yet present in the Philippines, PCC looks forward to future R&D on these. Gene pharming aims to produce pharmaceutical products (vaccine, medicine) through the production of recombinant pharmaceutical proteins in the mammary gland of animals that have been genetically engineered.
That goes with the use of genetic engineering (GE) or transgenesis which enables transfer of desirable trait-carrying DNA between different breed or species. The use of GE on pigs has once been employed by scientists to determine if a certain gene has the capability to increase cholesterol level in human, whether or not he is a heavy-eater of cholesterol-carrying foods.
Moreover, xenotransplantation has been an object of R&D for scientists abroad for its potential in the use of animal organs, such as a pig’s heart, to be transplanted to human which will make organs’ supply limitless. end---------

Tech

TechFarming R&D

by Miko Jazmine J. Mojica

The Department of Agriculture’s Bureau of Agricultural Research (DA-BAR), in partnership with the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA), has trained a total of 76 project proponents on BAR-funded projects for the preparation of the projects’ financial viabilities. The four-day training course on the profitability of new production and processing technologies were conducted twice last year in November while the third leg was conducted in January this year for the project proponents of BAR-funded projects through the National Technology Commercialization Program (NTCP) initiated by Agriculture Secretary Arthur C. Yap. DA-BAR’s Technology Commercialization Unit (TCU) asked its project proponents to participate in the training in an effort to come up with a uniform and comprehensible format on the reporting of profitability analyses of projects for all its funded-projects. DA-BAR believes two significant outcomes are likely in presenting an accurate estimate of the profitability of projects being supported by the government: scarce resources are spent wisely and projects with the highest benefits and real economic potential are explored and prioritized. After the training, TCU, through the assistance of its technical staff on agribusiness, started to compel its project proponents to submit their respective profitability analyses presenting two sides of analysis: one from the perspective of the proponent who invested in the project, and the second from the perspective of the potential investor who is interested in investing in the business. On related developments, DA-BAR has also formally reiterated to its project proponents in its TechCom Program to tap farmer organizations or cooperatives to ensure that technologies and research results are properly disseminated to the right communities and thus create a significant impact on farm productivity and profitability. DA-BAR’s TCU always looks for this component whenever it conducts monitoring and evaluation the projects’ progress. Furthermore, in line with DA-BAR’s partnership with some local government units (LGUs) in the development of agriculture and fisheries enterprises have started to bear fruit as two BAR-funded projects through NTCP with counterpart fund from LGU was completed by its LGU proponents in Ormoc and Biliran provinces. The two LGUs likewise tapped farmer-beneficiaries to establish technology demonstrations on the production and commercialization of high-value vegetable crops in their respective provinces. Out of the counterpart funding, the Ormoc Federation of Vegetable Producers was able to establish a “bagsakan”/trading center for their vegetable produce. On the other hand, the Biliran LGU used the fund from DA-BAR to establish a provincial scion grove and nursery for the production of quality planting materials. end
--------
Farming I.T.A new stage of inter-connectivity is enabling farmers linked with the Community Participatory Action Research (CPAR) to make wiser decisions in farming from information processed by a locally-developed software.
Higher yield in rice and corn and greater productivity from other crops, livestock, and fisheries are being experienced by farmers under the CPAR program of the Department of Agriculture-Bureau of Agricultural Research (DA-BAR) as they are now guided by a system for data interpretation.
The system called ePinoy Farm Resource Management System (EFRMS), a platform for farm management developed by Filipino firm Optiserve Technologies Inc. (OTI), not only records yields of farmers in rice, for instance.
It also helps farmers interpret data and obtain a more accurate idea why he or other farmers are getting a higher yield based on abidance with step-by-step “milestones” or prescribed technology process given by DA’s technology experts.
Cheryl Marie Natividad, OTI president, said the EFRMS is a technology in agriculture that has become a breakthrough in helping farmers better manage their farms. Farmers are now advancing into processing or business integration, not merely engaged in raw food production, through this information help.
“DA found out that there should be a concept of graduating a farmer from one stage to another so that at the end of the day, farmers become more productive. You teach them the value of managing for efficiency. You provide them information at every stage of the process if you want them to move into agribusiness,” said Natividad.
The EFRMS involves DA’s provision for farmers’ use of computers located at BAR’s 16 regional centers for research and development (R&D) called Integrated Agricultural Research Centers (IARCS) found all over the country.
Farmers have to be part of an organized group to be able to join the program. Once they are part of an organized group, they can receive an access card, similar to an internet dial-up card, from the government through which they can access DA’s data base that are available too through the internet.
“We only give access cards to organized group of farmers because we have observed that programs become sustainable when it involves an organized group,” said BAR Director Nicomedes P. Eleazar.
Natividad said OTI has first designed EFRMS for the Coconut Industry Investment Fund Oil Milling Group (CIIF-OMG) for coconut farmers’ direct copra marketing program.
The objective of the program was to monitor coconut oil prices traded at the Chicago Board of Trade at Rotterdam trading center in Netherlands and convert this traded price into the local copra price and currency. This way, farmers have an up-to-date reference on how much coconut oil importers are buying their goods.
“This eliminates traders (middlemen) who can manipulate prices if farmers don’t have access to price in the international market. It strengthens the capability of organized groups at grassroots level,” said Natividad.
In rice, the EFRMS enables farmers to evaluate the importance of certain factors like soil analysis, soil condition, irrigation, and weather pattern in order to raise their yield.
“You have to correlate data. You’re putting a system relevant to them as you’re helping them improve their way of doing things in the past,” she said.
Eventually, the aim of EFRMS is also to encourage farmers to engage in an integrated farming system where they will not only have rice or only corn in their farm. But they should also engage in livestock or fisheries in order to have many income streams. They can intercrop coconut with other plants like corn or cocoa.
“We want them to engage in diversified farming because the reason why farmers are poor is because they only grow a single crop. Farmers should not be dependent only on a single crop,” said Eleazar
Farmers also migrate to becoming processors of raw agricultural products or providers of post harvest facilities like dryers and storage areas.
BAR is only spending around P4 million for this nationwide technology distribution system. But it is making substantial returns as evidenced by feedback from Region 1 farmers where the project has been piloted. The program’s promotion of diversified farming—the integration in rice farms of livestock or aquaculture farming or interplanting of coconut with other crops—has generated added value to poor farmers’ income. end-----------------

Technology

TechnologyAI expert

He may not have made it to certain tests as a requirement to a permanent government positions. But Noli Lorenzo,49, is a true expert of a technology, artificial insemination (AI), nobody-else can claim better. Noli exceeds the national average AI success rate (40%) with his 60% AI births of carabaos totaling to 300 out of 500 services in 2008. “It’s really my passion to do AI and carabao dairying since I was a small child. Our income from carabao’s milk was what gave me my daily allowance for schooling,” he said. Now that many livestock workers are needed in big cattle and milk-exporting countries like New Zealand, Noli has a personal mission to rather help Filipino farmers. Putting one’s heart into AI and having a desire to help people are what makes one successful in it.
“One should really be interested in it and not just in the certificate (of training required ) to be able to go to New Zealand.” Noli finished Animal Science at the Central Luzon State University. He had his first AI training in 1989 having started working at the Philippine Carabao Center in 1988 when it was yet the Philippine Carabao Research and Development Center. But since 2001, when he got out of PCC and went later on his way to become a private village-based AI technician (VAT), a different fulfillment caught him with his AI practice. That along with a better livelihood source. “I compare my private work with my work with government, and I don’t have regrets. Here one gets dirty, but my income is higher,” he said. Charge per AI service is P500. He has already been able to send his two children to college, one finishing Agriculture, the other, B.S. Biology. When he was yet a newcomer in AI, Noli got his share of rejections. But as Ann Landers puts it, “People of integrity expects to be believed (and) know time will prove them right,” he persisted in proving AI can work. “When I was just starting as a private technician, nobody believed me that a piece of stainless steel-made stick can make a carabao pregnant. So I demonstrated it could work by doing it on my brother’s animal so I could convince them.” As an AI straw device with a 0.5 cc semen has a million of sperm cells, getting an animal pregnant is really no longer impossible without a bull. And he is carrying a load of those semen daily not only for carabao AI, but for cattle AI too with his supply of 100 straws each for each kind. The cattle semen he gets from the Gen. Tinio Animal Stock Farm of the Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI). AI, where a sperm from a more superior breed is placed in a female reproductive tract for making the native pregnant with a more productive breed, has been considered a successful technology for years.
AI gives farmers the advantage of having their native animals crossed with purebred Indian Murrah or Bulgarian buffalo. A crossbred offspring of that union can give milk of five liters and up per day compared to a pure native’s two liters. A factor to a successful AI is one’s ability to determine fertility in the animal. Of course, nothing beats a bull’s ability to detect fertility of a female carabao. But somehow since Noli has been very familiar with carabaos, he can determine if these are really in heat or ready for pregnancy through an abnormal touch in or through a mucous discharge from the ovary. “When that is the case, an animal can become pregnant 100 percent,” he relates confidently. An animal can also show fertility through the sounds and actions it makes. However, a lot of times, a false alarm from the owner would leave Noli wasting transportation time and money. But that is also where he comes to educate farmers. A female carabao can only be fertile over a 24-hour period during an 18 to 21-day heat cycle. Sometimes he would be called at night just before this fertility period ends. Those inconveniences he endures for the sake of helping poor farmers. If after a third try, an animal does not get pregnant with AI, he recommends further diagnosis of the animal. He also acts in a way as a veterinarian to farmers by educating them on keeping the animals healthy such as through de-worming and feeding. This way, the carabao gets to become pregnant easier.
Noli also conducts AI together with a system of injecting a synchronization hormone on the dam. This puts the animal in a pregnancy mode three days after injection, although conception rate here is leaner. Now, he is already known to be that AI expert all over Tarlac, not only in Victoria where he resides. He is even called up to Nueva Ecija, although he would at times give way to another technician nearby in order to share livelihood with others. The only problem now is he sometimes encounters farmers who wouldn’t pay even after the animal has already given birth. As impoverished farmers have no recourse but to sell their carabaos when a financial need arises, Noli considers it his mission to reorient farmers on the profitability of dairying in carabaos over just using it as a draft (for plowing fields). He demonstrates that along with tending fields, as he now grows rice on two hectares and sugarcane on one-half hectare, a farmer can have a more comfortable life through dairying. Rural farmers have never extensively made dairying a source of livelihood which is what is being encouraged by dairy agencies like PCC and the National Dairy Authority. “I want farmers to know that milking can give a higher income.” He now has six carabaos with which to hopefully demonstrate both AI and dairying, although only one is a female. And while this one female has already given birth to a female calf, that offspring he gave away to the farmhand who’s taking care of his animals which is an admirable practice in the rural area. He also wants to educate farmers on the profitability and wholesomeness of milking carabaos even after the animal already has its own calf to feed. That is possible specially with a technology on feeding pregnant heifers with mineral supplements.
To promote dairying, he is helping a cooperative of sugarcane farmers on its livelhood potential. A total of 30 out of 60 members of this cooperative already own carabaos. With people like Noli, the rural areas find a gem when others who have skills like him would choose rather to find greener pastures in New Zealand or elsewhere. end----------

Infrastructure/Logistics RORO Links the Philippine islands

by Riza Olchondra

Despite the Philippines’ richness in natural resources and agricultural products, a lack of infrastructure to bridge the archipelago’s many islands has resulted in uneven distribution of wealth. This results in the ironic situation where both farmers and consumers go hungry. In Manila, for example, shortages in one product is not surprising anymore, while farmers in places like Mindanao often sell nearly at cost in nearby markets because they lose more to spoilage during shipping or don’t have enough stock for a whole container load. Good thing, then, that Roll On Roll Off (RORO) Project, an infrastructure that is expected to link the different islands of the country. The Philippine Ports Authority ( PPA) and the Maritime Industry Authority (MIA) are overseeing the project’s operations. Seeing the ports and systems in place, private company Aboitiz Transport System (ATS) has pioneered a total supply chain service. Under its RORO program farmers can ship their goods, in bulk and retail-size quantities.FRUITS OF VISION ATS’s 2G0, a supporter of the government’s Nautical Highway project through its RORO service, has also lent its expertise to the Department of Agriculture’s (DA) programs. ATS has introduced the service to Mindanao fruit growers, among others. RORO is a service that allows the loading and unloading of self-driven vehicles onto the vessel which results in increased efficiency and speed-to-market. “We have simplified the process of distribution. With RORO, fruit shippers can reduce their post-harvest losses because we have cut the number of steps it takes to get their produce to the market,” Jerome Santos, sales manager for 2GO Solutions said. “RORO is key to 2GO’s long-term goal of lowering our country’s total supply chain cost” company Chief Operating Officer Mike Camahort said. 2GO’s RORO was launched in 2004 and has significantly grown since then. “The reception in the market for this service has been good as it simplifies the way of doing business,” Camahort added.HUNGER ADDRESSED 2GO also worked with the DA when it launched its Less than a Container Load (LCL) service via the department’s Barangay Food Terminal (BFT) and Bagsakan sa Palengke initiative. 2GO’s LCL service allows farmers to ship small volumes of perishable products as often as needed. “Through the LCL, 2GO can transport vegetables, poultry, meat, fruits and ice cream with a low minimum requirement of 0.5 cubic meters. It’s very suitable for small and medium businesses,” 2GO president Sabin Aboitiz said. The company said that even big businesses can benefit from the LCL service. Through the LCL, farmers can consolidate demand requirements and load them onto the 2GO cold-reefer trucks to be distributed to all areas via ATS’ RORO service. Through this partnership between 2GO and the DA, farmers are able to send their goods without the need for middlemen which greatly lowers their costs. Farmers are given a competitive edge in the Luzon market thus empowering them to sell not only at the farm level but at the wholesale level as well. Meanwhile, Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap stressed the importance of 2GO’s role in the department’s programs to connect farms to markets. “2GO is very critical because we definitely need a logistics handler to move commodoties. If you don’t partner with the handler, they can give unreasonable rates. 2GO has given us a very competitive offer for the Mindanao growers and we are able to negotiate directly with them” Yap said. 2GO’s supply chain service, launched in January 2007, completed 2GO’s line of services which starts from the release of goods from the manufacturer/producer to the delivery of products to customers and their various selling channels as well. The Cold Chain LCL marked the entry of 2GO’s supply chain into the movement of perishable commodities. Cold chain, a temperature-controlled supply chain, is an uninterrupted series of storage and distribution activities under a given temperature range. Cold chains are common in the food and pharmaceutical industries and also some chemical shipments. 2GO is offering this service as a new option for customers to send smaller volumes of cargo that require cold storage. Customers will no longer need to worry about filling up a truck or container first because by sending smaller volumes of their cold chain cargo, they can ship more frequently. 2GO piloted its Cold Chain service in October 2007. Since then, the service has grown continually and now helps expand the distribution reach of players like Mekeni and Creamline, among others. “Aside from serving corporate customers, we dream of putting the farmers and fishermen in touch with retailers in the markets. We want to make fresh produce and seafoods more affordable for consumers and more profitable for farmers and fishermen,” adds Michelle Aboitiz. Enabling the Cold Chain services are the CRYO companies - Reefer Van Specialist Inc. (RVSI) and Reefer Trucks Specialist Inc. (RTSI) - which the Aboitiz Transport group came to wholly-own last June 2007. CRYO has been in the business of refrigerated transport since 1982 and has been a trusted partner of the Aboitiz group for years, making the acquisition strategic. “CRYO has over a hundred reefer containers and 50 reefer trucks which will be used for 2GO’s Cold Chain LCL. This enables 2GO to offer farmers, fishermen, food manufacturers and processors, and SME’s (small and medium enterprises) a more cost-efficient way of shipping their temperature-controlled cargo,” says 2GO Cold Chain VP-COO Michelle Aboitiz. CRYO national operations manager Manny Arcilla said the LCL started in Boracay, Cebu, and Davao and will continue in Cagayan, Manila and other ports “to encourage clients to experience the solutions provided by 2GO.” end----------

Peace & Order My brother's disappearance & poverty

by Virginia Ann T. Burgos

It is obvious how peace and order takes an important role in economic growth. How true that improvement in people’s livelihood contributes to peace and order. And poverty causes its deterioration. Whenever bombings, kidnappings, and disappearances of foreign or known personalities happen, investment and tourism rating of the country drops in direct proportion. Virginia Ann T. Burgos’s account here gives a more personal view of the groaning of a family suffering a disappearance.
“How many times must this family pay the price of freedom?” For the longest time, this question has been recurring in my mind. It was during the Marcos dictatorship that my father, the late Jose G. Burgos Jr., put up We Forum and Malaya. It was through it, as they say, he achieved immortality. Being the youngest in our family, I never witnessed the glorious days of We Forum, unlike my four elder siblings. But my family and other people who worked with him attest to his having fought for the truth with great passion. He lived his principles without compromise or fear. Most people would say that my father’s contribution in restoring press freedom to the country is his legacy. There is more to what they say. My father lived his beliefs of serving other people which has animated our own way of serving others.
Jonas, my Kuya Jay, tried various paths for this service even before he took up Agriculture in Benguet State University where he graduated with a Best Thesis award. He chose Agriculture as inspired by our father’s love for nature and farming. Only in high school then, he first became a photojournalist for We Forum/Malaya. My three elder siblings worked too with our parents in these publications. Those were difficult and dangerous times when people were afraid to work for Malaya. My sister and brothers, aged six to 11, had to help in whatever capacity they could—from folding newspapers in the printing press to selling the paper in the streets or delivering them to news dealers. Our mother, Edita Burgos, was the general manager, while our two eldest siblings, Ate Peach and Kuya Son worked as reporters. Kuya Jay, being the youngest among the three, volunteered as the photographer. The burial of Ninoy Aquino was their most memorable coverage. They had to stand on 10-wheeler trucks for the coverage. Kuya Jay had the best photographs of his life at the burial. My family’s support for each other and our concept of freedom bound us in this publication. In our family, one way of showing respect for each one’s mind is through a family council. I was still very young when Kuya Jay requested for a family council when he decided to work fulltime with peasant groups so he could help them improve their quality of life through agriculture. I didn’t understand why he embraced that path when he could be earning a lot for multinational companies as an agricultural researcher. He could have left for the US, but he was too fanatic as a patriot to leave the country. My mom did not completely agree with Jonas’s decision. She asked my dad why he didn’t dissuade Kuya Jay on his choice. But despite my father’s fears, he was proud of Jonas for the courage and resolve to pursue what he believes in. My mom later gave her blessings to Jonas through a letter saying: “The mother in me feels this complete helplessness…one I have never felt before…I feel that if a time comes when somehow there would be a need for a helping hand, I would not be near enough to let that hand be mine…I told you I could not give you my blessings because it would be like condoning a way of life that is not consistent with our faith. But I cannot allow you to leave with a heavy heart. So take my blessings with you. May the angels keep you safe wherever you are. May the good Lord bless you and keep you always. Remember, I love you very much”. Our father’s imprisonment during Martial Law was meant to keep him silent. I felt that same thing was happening to us all over again. The highest officials and their minions wanted Jonas and the others who were exposing the abuses and sins of omission and commission by the administration to be silenced. I remember our mother’s story of my Kuya Jay giving away our dad’s new pair of slippers to a taho vendor when he was just a kid. Jonas felt sorry for the old man who wore big-holed slippers while earning a living hawking goods along E. Rodriguez. At a very young age, my kuya already reached out to those in need. If there is one thing that our parents never had difficulty in imparting to him, that was the passion to serve people. But on that instance of helping the taho vendor, someone commented that Jonas was already acting like an activist when he was just a kid. Our society perceives a person as an activist when he helps poor people who have nothing to give back in return. For more than 10 years, my brother worked with the Alyansa ng Magbubukid sa Bulacan, a chapter of the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (Peasant Movement of the Philippines). He conducted agri-technology trainings for farmers and taught them of their rights as peasant workers. He enjoyed a simple kind of life. He did not earn much, but he loved his job and knew what he’s fighting for. This is the most obvious reason why he’s in a limbo called enforced disappearance. My brother was abducted in broad daylight on April 28, 2007 while having lunch at Hapag Kainan at the Ever Gotesco Mall food court in Commonwealth, Quezon City. We’re lucky that our friends from the media have been supporting us in the search for Jonas. The first press conference we held on April 30, 2007 reporting Jonas’s disappearance opened the doors for his case to be one of the most high-profile cases of enforced disappearance in the country. There are no words that can exactly describe the kind of despair and helplessness that I felt. How could such a selfless person be subjected to this kind of cruelty, and how can people just label someone “enemy of the state” without really knowing the truth? A security guard, Larry, testified in court that four men and a woman dragged Jonas inhumanely out of the mall as if they were lifting a struggling pig. They dumped him into a maroon Toyota Revo with plate number TAB 194. Larry tried to interfere, but the men holding Jonas said they were police officers. He could do nothing but jot down the vehicle’s plate number in his log book. Elsa Agasang, a waitress on duty at Hapag Kainan, told the witness stand my brother was having lunch alone. The men chatted with Jonas briefly then suddenly dragged him out of the restaurant’s premises. According to her, Jonas looked straight into her eyes, silently pleading for help. But she was stunned and failed to move an inch or cry for help. Hearing those testimonies, I can’t help but wonder why not one good Samaritan among the hundreds of people in the mall came up to help my brother. That was a Saturday afternoon. The mall was full of shoppers. One voice of protest could have prevented his abduction. My consolation was the Lord is still very merciful to give us two brave souls who fearlessly testified in court. Why do we say that it is the government, the military, that is responsible for the disappearance of my brother? First, anyone in his proper mind would not have the guts to abduct someone in a crowded mall during lunch hours. Who would be able to pass security officers in the mall with guns tucked in their waist if not people with authority to bring arms? Second, Supt. Estomo of the Philippine National Police (PNP) testified in court that the plate number TAB 194 was registered for a red Isuzu jeep, originally owned by Mauro Mudlong who was arrested in July 2006 for illegal logging. Mudlong’s arrest was a joint operation of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and the Armed Forces of the Philippines’ (AFP) 56th Infantry Battalion. Mudlong’s jeep was then impounded at the 56th Infantry Battalion’s camp in Norzagaray, Bulacan. The car plate and the Isuzu jeep were in the custody of the military at the time of the abduction. Would anyone believe that Mudlong’s frustration over the confiscation of his vehicle trigger him to take the risk of sneaking into the military camp just to steal the jeep’s plate and attach it to another vehicle to abduct someone? I ask this because this is the conclusion of Estomo, i.e., that the car plate was stolen by Mudlong and attached it to another vehicle and abducted Jonas to ‘make the military look bad.’ My mom and my brother JL along with some families of the disappeared visited the 56th Infantry Battalion’s camp and realized that it would be impossible for an intruder to just enter the camp without being noticed. The camp is located at the top of a hill, and anyone who is at least a few kilometers approaching the camp is visible from it. The group who joined the search took pictures of Mudlong’s jeep and noticed that the vehicle had been cannibalized, no longer with its engine. It was parked just a few steps away from the camp’s headquarters. Why would anyone dare to steal the jeep’s plate? We claim to be living in a democratic country. Yet data show that human rights violations occur and is in fact being perpetrated by state forces. The 2008 yearend report of KARAPATAN (Alliance for the Advancement of People’s Rights) shows that there has been a large number, 201, of enforced disappearance since the present government assumed in 2001. It is sad to know that this number must be substantially bigger with undocumented cases. It is a shame that despite the Philippines presiding as the head for a Human Rights group at the United Nations (UN), the number of enforced disappearances continue to balloon. Instead of pursuing genuine reforms to alleviate the economic crisis, the government persists in projecting positive economic statistics which clearly does not reflect the extreme poverty that the majority of people suffer. Prof. Philip Alston, UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, directly attributes extrajudicial killings to AFP and its counter-insurgency program. “The necessary measures should be taken to ensure that the principle of command responsibility, as it is understood in international law, is a basis for criminal liability within the domestic legal order,” Alston said. After his 10-day visit to the country in February 2007, Alston concluded in his report that the military was in “a state of denial” concerning its involvement in extrajudicial killings. His August 2007 report to the UN showed that there is a pattern of demonizing the victims of killings and disappearances and then passing the blame to the New People’s Army (NPA). The government launched Oplan Bantay Laya (OBL) or Oplan “Freedom Watch” in 2002 as its five-year national counter-insurgency blueprint. OBL took off from previous administrations’ AFP counter-insurgency programs and is patterned after Operation Phoenix which the U.S. used in Vietnam. What OBL accomplished are extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances of hundreds of men and women from among political activists, workers, journalists, peasants, church people, lawyers and various sectors of our society. OBL not only targets the Communist Party of the Philippines, NPA, National Democratic Front of the Philippines (CPP-NPA-NDFP), but also those identified with the legal Left, dubbed by the AFP as “sectoral front organizations”. To further strengthen OBL, the government implemented the Anti-Terrorism Law (ATL) or as they call it, Human Security Act (HSA). Despite widespread protest against its implementation, the law took effect on July 15, 2007. Under the ATL, those adjudged guilty will be subjected to a 40-year life sentence without the benefit of a parole. Also, common crimes already covered by the Revised Penal Code are considered “terrorism” under the ATL. It defined a terrorist act as seeking “to sow and create conditions of widespread and extraordinary fear and panic among the populace in order to coerce the government to give in to an unlawful demand.” The vague definition may be expanded to other acts that can cover just anybody questioning or criticizing a policy, program, or action of the government. ATL gives the state the right to conduct surveillance against so-called “terrorist” organizations, suspected “terrorists”, and those suspected of providing aid or support to suspected “terrorists.” It also allows warrant-less arrests and detention for three days without charges. And it can be extended indefinitely in case of “actual or imminent terrorist attack.” We can only imagine what can happen during those three godless days. Under this law, police or military officers are allowed to look into the bank accounts and financial records of “suspected terrorists”. Such accounts may also be frozen or sequestered. Suspects may be subjected to a “house arrest” even without sufficient evidence. Their right to travel may be restricted. Suspects may also be banned from using telephone, internet, computer, or any means of communication. Although we in the family are not being branded as terrorists, we feel the full extent of the pain and purge of the people behind the abduction. As if kidnapping Jonas is not enough, all of us were put under surveillance and harassment. This has resulted in everyone in the family losing his fulltime job. I myself was asked by my mom to resign from my work in Makati. Having one missing son was already too much for her to bear. The government’s denial on its involvement in human rights violations is its way of projecting political and economic stability, despite the considerable number of human rights violations (HRVs) in the country. Any student of history and politics knows that most countries with high rates of HRVs belong to less economically progressive countries. Poverty has caused many people to armed uprising and guerilla warfare. Feudal governments continue to violate rights of its citizens, who, in turn, rebel against authority. It is a vicious cycle that eats this whole country alive. Ideology is not the main dish anymore, but the promise of breaking free from the bondage of poverty and the indignity that comes with it. Cases like Jonas’ disappearance are a proof of the government’s inability to appease its people who are a picture of discontent in its inutile programs and repressive policies. I believe that the reason why this country is still languishing in the pits of poverty is because this ugly mark of instability haunts any investor who dares put his money in this country. And as long as there persist cases of abuse, people like Jonas will come out to help make this country become better. I am sad that my brother, up to this very moment, is still missing. I am consoled that at least, he is not a mere number in the unending statistics of abuse. Jonas, in his disappearance, has shed light to the plight of the faceless, nameless people who suffer under an abusive regime. In its own grotesque way, it’s a blessing that he is the son of our father, lending the Burgos name to continue fighting for the oppressed rights of the people. end-------------

Lifestyle: Alvin B. Marcelo Telemedicine Trailblazer

Doing a work on telemedicine is a dream-come-true for someone like Dr. Alvin B. Marcelo who wished, first of all, to become a computer science whiz.
But due to a rare opportunity, he fell into the better lot of taking up Medicine under the shortened seven-year Intarmed program of the University of the Philippines-Philippine General Hospital (UP-PGH).
The Intarmed is an elite program for Medicine students who pass rigorous entrance tests.
“My first choice was really Computer Science. But I got accepted in the Intarmed where few people get accepted. You’re a fool if you don’t enroll in it.”
Having completed a surgeon’s residency, he worked as a surgeon at PGH. But never forgot his dream at all.
A post-doctoral fellowship at the National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, Maryland paved the way to realizing a practice in medical informatics where computer mixes with medicine.
That became a milestone, not only for Alvin himself, but for Philippine health and medicine.
“I have already reduced surgery work. Definitely (I enjoy this more). I’m just one of the thousand surgeons. In e-health and telemedicine, I’m the pioneer. Of course it’s enjoyable to conduct an operation. It’s very dramatic. But in surgery, you do it one at a time. In telemedicine, you’re able to amplify yourself to more people.
“The impact is less dramatic than surgery. But the footprint is larger. Surgeons could probably operate two, three, five cases a day. We can see 20 cases in one day (in telemedicine). We can get to 100 to thousands per day if we open it to the public.”
He is an advocate of free/open source software (FOSS) which he believes is a way to democratize use of technology.
“I have been promoting FOSS since I started dabbling with Linux in 1994. I had found the freedom offered by FOSS as exactly the liberation that we would wish to endow every citizen of this planet.”
As National Telehealth Center director of UP-PGH, Alvin gets to touch base with many technology professionals.
“There are a lot of people contacting me. Many of them there have devices already. I try to meet with them to see if the device is applicable.”

“Government should be extending services to the underserved, more than to those well-off. But what happens is those who have the money get the services first. Those that have the ability are the ones given the opportunity. Those who don’t have a voice can’t find any help anywhere. They’re voiceless, uneducated. That’s why they will never get to that level where they would ask for their rights.”
Alvin grew up, spending grade school and high school, in a supposedly school for the rich, Ateneo de Manila. He admits to benefiting from the privilege of learning about service for the underprivileged in two institutions.
“It’s a good combination. Ateneo gives you the principle, but you don’t understand it. UP shows you where you actually apply the principle.”
And when it was time to make a hard decision, he chose what could have required a sacrifice for what he felt would benefit more of his countrymen. He was already helping to start out Ateneo’s medical school which is in a tie-up with Medical City when he had to make this choice.
“I chose UP. This is not about compensation. It’s about a principle. Telemedicine has the opportunity to solve needs of very poor people. And the government is in the position, not the type of government we have, but the abstract government which is the organization of the people called government, which should be addressing the problems of the disadvantaged people.
“Private sector will never do it, unless there’s money behind it, if it’s going to put it in the black. Government thinks otherwise. If any of my citizen is in the red, I have to come up with a system and with solutions to get it into the black. But you couldn’t really care whether its profiting or not.” end------------

HealthUP-PGH's Telemedicine

Information Technology (IT) is a great equalizer. How true that statement is turning out to be in the local health sector. It is what the University of the Philippines-Philippine General Hospital (UP-PGH) looks forward to through the National Telehealth Center’s (NTC) telemedicine program. The NTC shines with the potential to raise the Philippines’ capability to elevate health service in the boondocks to a high-technology level, particularly on the medical advice aspect, through IT. At present, UP-PGH-NTC is already integrating into its curriculum the telemedicine program as a move to train future doctors on the use of the technology. It may take five more years, though, to make it part of the standard curriculum. But even this effort may already take the country into a higher step. “Even in America, their electronic health record is not embedded in the curriculum, so we will be ahead of them,” said Dr. Alvin B. Marcelo, NTC director. More important, a telemedicine program can make available health service to isolated, remote areas that do not have any other access to a doctor. “Having a doctor by telemedicine in an area without a doctor is better than having no doctor at all,” he said. Telemedicine is of a greater need in the country than elsewhere because of its archipelagic nature. “We need e-health more than developed countries. By default, our landscape is already disintegrated. I just came from Sri Lanka. They have a very nice health system. When you look at the map, they’re just one island. You just have to take a bus to go anywhere. Here, you have to wait for a banca, for a good weather,” he said. NTC piloted its telemedicine program three years ago. It reaches out to 54 sites that meet three basic requirements-- presence of a text service or SMS (short message service), presence of at least one doctor, and the lack of the rural doctor’s competence to give a medical advice on the case. The need for a doctor’s service in poverty-stricken rural areas is so abject. There are only about 50 doctors operating in these areas, one doctor for each. Among these sites are Sulu, Batanes, Zamboanga, Tuguegarao, and Ifugao, specifically where the Department of Health (DOH) has assigned doctors under the “Doctors to the Barrios” (DTB) program. These places used to be doctor-less, until natives requested government for one. Unfortunately, there is no agency now that has a complete listing of other unreported doctor-less areas in the Philippines. DOH just learns there are areas like these when a request is made. People may have perceptions that telemedicine involves the sending of Xray, CT (computer tomography) scan, or ECG (electronic cardiogram) images via internet broadband. True, that technology exists. And that’s actually the easy part of telemedicine. But the hard part is what is NTC’s priority. It is in areas where broadband is not available, where there is only SMS, and where the need for medical advice among poor people is at the utrmost. “Places where you have broadband are places where you have doctors. So there’s no great need for telemedicine. Those that need it are the islands and the boondocks where they don’t have (specialists) cardiologists, pulmonologists,” he said. NTC should not really compete with doctors in broadband areas where there are competent specialists, or these doctors could be deprived of opportunities and choose rather “to leave the country,” according to Marcelo. The mandate of NTC, as much as of UP-PGH, is to serve the underserved, the poorest of the country’s poor. Or those that have money, but have already exhausted their resources in private hospitals in search of a faster and better service, only to get their money drained in the end, leaving them to turn to a government hospital. It is for the good of the patients too that NTC does not compete directly with local doctors in broadband areas. This way, when emergency occurs, they can turn to these doctors “who can touch them.” “We don’t want to bypass local doctors. They’re there, they’re good . They can touch the patient, we cannot. They can provide better health care than us. We don’t do telemedicine there, or we’ll even screw up what’s already a screwed up health system.” In telemedicine, a DTB doctor calls for help via SMS to doctors based at the UP-PGH linked through NTC. He sends to NTC a request for a specialist’s advice or an advice on a medical case he does not have expertise in. He sends this request in a specific format—one that contains an objective, a subjective, an assessment, a plan. A complete referral under the medicine profession requires these. “That’s why doctors to the barrios are not deployed without training. They can’t just text ‘A 27-year old female with fever. What will I do?’” The NTC then refers the DTB to a specialist at UP-PGH such as to Dr. Collante on an ear complaint or Marcelo himself on surgery. NTC then sends back the medical advice to the barrio-based doctor. Training of doctors in telemedicine is very important and is one area NTC is carefully putting its efforts into. It plans to integrate this training program in a medical education’s curriculum and also plans to get other schools to use this curriculum under a franchising system. At the scale it has been operating in isolated areas, NTC has observed brisk growth in the need for telemedicine. From only eight referrals from DTB doctors in 2006, this rose to 600 in 2007. With an expansion, this can grow exponentially. The real limitation is in the number of doctors in the barrios.

Such limitation of doctors in remote areas make NTC’s present staff of two doctors and two nurses over-manned. “What we want to do is to increase the number of doctors until we saturate our existing resources, and then we’ll get another block of two nurses and two doctors.” An increase in number of referrals may happen once the program is opened up to more doctors in the country and in more areas. Its application on chronic diseases or preventive health—for diabetes or hypertension—may readily cause an increase in the referrals. If the program ever expands to 2,700 municipalities in the country, it will have 27,000 cases in a year at a rate of 10 referrals per day. For its benefit to reach to more remote islands, support from local government units (LGUs) is a must. But to encourage the support of LGUs and other sectors, drawing up a master plan is also a necessity. The Department of Science and Technology (DOST) already has an IT plan which is one component of an e-health master plan. But a master plan will maximize its application. The Philippines can link with other countries that have their own e-health master plan possibly through a workshop such as one to be held in Luxembourg in April this year. “I can write the master plan myself, but unless you’re in a position to do that, unless there’s an imprimatur, and unless Smart, Globe, the local government, PGH, Medical City will agree on their role in it, it’s nothing,” Marcelo said. Thus, there goes the need for the government itself to do the roadmap. To put up infrastructure for SMS in farflung areas, telecommunication companies (telcos) need assurance that their service will be needed. “If there’s no master plan, efforts will be scattered, telcos will not invest,” he said. Given an opportunity, SMS service from telemedicine can bring huge value to telcos. The Philippines can actually take it from countries like Maldives or Belize that already have their master plans on e-health and collaborate with the International Telecommunications Union on a draft. It can also look at models in successful telemedicine program in countries that have small population such as in Singapore, where all residents have an ID, and in Hongkong. Aside from the investments of telcos on SMS infrastructure, a telemedicine program won’t really require huge costs. On the part of DTBs, the only investment may be on cellphones. A digital camera is an extra useful tool. The presence of a computer in a DTB doctor’s hand is already a bonus. A possible cost on the part of the government is in salaries of doctors, perhaps P50 per hour per doctor, if more DTB doctors will be deployed. Telemedicine for the country’s hinterlands is really simple. But the critical issue here is the authenticity of the transactions and of those involved. Even in face-to-face consultations, misrepresentations are already happening-- non-doctors faking their identities, Marcelo stressed. Ethics and security are an essential part of a successful program. Here is where legislation should come in for which NTC is working with the congressional Commission on Science, Technology, and Engineering (COMSTE). A telemedicine law should define a legitimate telemedicine transaction, how it can be reimbursed by the Philippine Health Insurance system (Philhealth), qualified operators of a telemedicine service, and its monitoring and audit aspects. “We want to make sure it’s quality. How do you know one’s a doctor? It should be heavily regulated because there’s a potential for abuse on many sides. A doctor may say this is a government case, but he may actually be charging the patient.” Philhealth may provide a way for this security system. Transaction payments may be coursed through it. So, all LGUs should ensure their citizens are Philhealth members. “For the very poor communities, LGUs can pay for their premium. It can devise a way to get the unemployed like tricycle drivers and taho vendors to become members in a kind of social health insurance where the ‘strong helps the weak’,” said Marcelo. NTC may at first restrict private hospitals from joining its program. But in the future, settling security issues may provide ways of interconnecting services of PGH, Medical City and other hospitals to it. In a final evaluation, e-health can only work in an integrated service. The presence of NTC’s telemedicine project cannot work without the availability of medicine that can come through government’s assistance. “It’s difficult to attribute a cure only on telemedicine. It has been successful in certain areas because they have medicine. It’s a complex play of different components,” he said. At present, most of the call for telemedicine comes from the highlands of Ifugao or from conflict-ridden areas in Mindanao. In Mindanao, the solution may be to train more Mindanao natives on telemedicine, so their need for a medical workforce can better be met even if many Manila-based doctors are not willing to be assigned there. Telemedicine is hoped to be a solution to the dismal absence of adequate medical service in the countryside. Through an integration with other health services, it should give way to a more equitable access to health for many deprived people. end---------------