BAYANI P. DEQUITO
Bay must have been around 60 when I met him in Lapulapu City in Mactan in the 70s when he was the City Secretary and at the same time what in the organization was called the Green Revolution Field Program Officer. His task was to promote backyard food production.
He was cousin to both Mayor Patalinghug and Atty. Ramon P. Binamira, our boss in the "Ilaw ng Buhay (Light of Life)" program, which integrated social development projects such as nutrition, family planning and environmental management. In our organizational set-up, the field program officer of the most visible program in the area would automatically be the team leader of the integrated program.
In Bay's case, he was appointed team leader because of his clout among local officials on account of his kinship with Mayor Patalinghug and RPB. In the Philippine context, this often works at local level more than citing the name of the First Lady, Mrs. Imelda R. Marcos, the titular head of Project Compassion. He did not belong among the community development pioneers, but he viewed himself as a practical guy who learned his lessons about extension work by using common sense and getting close to the people as possible.
Unilike his millionnaire cousins, he grew up always renting a house in Lapulapu City because he said he could not afford to build his own due to his meager salary as government employee. I knew him in the course of my work with the Green Revolution Center as information officer at the national office at Nayong Pilipino and as Special Assistant to RPB when Ilaw ng Buhay was conceptualized and later pilot-tested in the late 70s. You can say that if Mr. Garcia was the bullshit guy in admin and finance, I was his counterpart in planning and program operations.
I made sure that all field teams follow the Operations Guide and if there were deviations, then we had to sit down and sort out some adjustments so the Guide would be followed. On this matter, we would often cite what popular Crispa basketball coach and incidentally the winningest coach in the country's basketball history,would say to his team, "I do not care if we win or lose as long as you follow the game plan," the good coach would say. "If we win because you deviated, it was no good because we could not evaluate the plan."
I was the one who would look for revisionists, as the political left would say, and then admonish them to follow the Party line.
In Bay Dequito's case, I had a perfect example of revisionist often stubborn but always in a non-adversarial way and so I found it hard to argue with him. He had his own bag of tactics and I did not succeed to make him follow the Operations Guide. Bay showed me, a guy 30 years his junior, that deviations could make us win the game!
In the Guide, the team was supposed to hold formal orientation seminars for local officials. Bay refused to do so. He preferred that his team go to each political leader and agency head and have a one-on-one sessions. He said nobody learned anything in those formal orientation sessions. His Mayor, for instance, disliked formalities and would go around the city hall premises in slippers and dressed only in kamiseta. The Mayor was delighted if some people would mistake him as the janitor.
Now, Bay would ask, how could you deal with a guy like this Mayor? So in talking to him about backyard food production, he would do in a series of mini-conversations with him often in the Mayor's residence or on the ground of the Government building where the Mayor loved to walk around instead of going up to his office.
Then Bay discovered that the Mayor had some issues with Atty. Binamira. They knew each other since childhood and the Mayor looked at RPB as a spoiled brat who was just good in talking. In school. The Mayor remembered that Bay would often protect RPB from bullies, picking up a few fights to defend him. To the Mayor, RPB was just good in talking and could not translate his lectures into something concrete.
Bay sensed this simmering conflict between the two and he made use of it. He challenged the Mayor to convert his one-hectare property on the island as a demonstration area for backyard food production. Bay's line to the Mayor was he would help the Mayor prove he could do more to the program if he could actually plan and grow the crops that RPB and the Green Revolution team were only talking about.
That was how Lapulapu City became famous in having a demonstration garden on what Bay called limestone agriculture. Mayor Patalinghug and Bay succeeded to grown string beans, sequidillas, pechay, malunggay, breadfruit and other Green Revolution crops grow luxuriantly on very thin topsoil on the pice of land that the Mayor owned. That was how Bay Dequito earned his spurs in the Crazy Co. He is known until now for his famous line during the period, "There is no barren soil; only barren minds"
Most of the trees that you find on the island, the giant ipil-ipil trees, breadfruit and others that line major streets were planted during his time. I remember him when I see these trees and often I find myself saying, "Bay, how about rising from the dead, and teach the young generation in your own inimitable way how to take care of these trees and plant real trees and crops and not have these only in Farmville."
My dear Bay, kindly rise up from the dead and deviate from any Operations Guide there and the Lord will understand. We need your more here than in either hell or heaven.
Bay must have been around 60 when I met him in Lapulapu City in Mactan in the 70s when he was the City Secretary and at the same time what in the organization was called the Green Revolution Field Program Officer. His task was to promote backyard food production.
He was cousin to both Mayor Patalinghug and Atty. Ramon P. Binamira, our boss in the "Ilaw ng Buhay (Light of Life)" program, which integrated social development projects such as nutrition, family planning and environmental management. In our organizational set-up, the field program officer of the most visible program in the area would automatically be the team leader of the integrated program.
In Bay's case, he was appointed team leader because of his clout among local officials on account of his kinship with Mayor Patalinghug and RPB. In the Philippine context, this often works at local level more than citing the name of the First Lady, Mrs. Imelda R. Marcos, the titular head of Project Compassion. He did not belong among the community development pioneers, but he viewed himself as a practical guy who learned his lessons about extension work by using common sense and getting close to the people as possible.
Unilike his millionnaire cousins, he grew up always renting a house in Lapulapu City because he said he could not afford to build his own due to his meager salary as government employee. I knew him in the course of my work with the Green Revolution Center as information officer at the national office at Nayong Pilipino and as Special Assistant to RPB when Ilaw ng Buhay was conceptualized and later pilot-tested in the late 70s. You can say that if Mr. Garcia was the bullshit guy in admin and finance, I was his counterpart in planning and program operations.
I made sure that all field teams follow the Operations Guide and if there were deviations, then we had to sit down and sort out some adjustments so the Guide would be followed. On this matter, we would often cite what popular Crispa basketball coach and incidentally the winningest coach in the country's basketball history,would say to his team, "I do not care if we win or lose as long as you follow the game plan," the good coach would say. "If we win because you deviated, it was no good because we could not evaluate the plan."
I was the one who would look for revisionists, as the political left would say, and then admonish them to follow the Party line.
In Bay Dequito's case, I had a perfect example of revisionist often stubborn but always in a non-adversarial way and so I found it hard to argue with him. He had his own bag of tactics and I did not succeed to make him follow the Operations Guide. Bay showed me, a guy 30 years his junior, that deviations could make us win the game!
In the Guide, the team was supposed to hold formal orientation seminars for local officials. Bay refused to do so. He preferred that his team go to each political leader and agency head and have a one-on-one sessions. He said nobody learned anything in those formal orientation sessions. His Mayor, for instance, disliked formalities and would go around the city hall premises in slippers and dressed only in kamiseta. The Mayor was delighted if some people would mistake him as the janitor.
Now, Bay would ask, how could you deal with a guy like this Mayor? So in talking to him about backyard food production, he would do in a series of mini-conversations with him often in the Mayor's residence or on the ground of the Government building where the Mayor loved to walk around instead of going up to his office.
Then Bay discovered that the Mayor had some issues with Atty. Binamira. They knew each other since childhood and the Mayor looked at RPB as a spoiled brat who was just good in talking. In school. The Mayor remembered that Bay would often protect RPB from bullies, picking up a few fights to defend him. To the Mayor, RPB was just good in talking and could not translate his lectures into something concrete.
Bay sensed this simmering conflict between the two and he made use of it. He challenged the Mayor to convert his one-hectare property on the island as a demonstration area for backyard food production. Bay's line to the Mayor was he would help the Mayor prove he could do more to the program if he could actually plan and grow the crops that RPB and the Green Revolution team were only talking about.
That was how Lapulapu City became famous in having a demonstration garden on what Bay called limestone agriculture. Mayor Patalinghug and Bay succeeded to grown string beans, sequidillas, pechay, malunggay, breadfruit and other Green Revolution crops grow luxuriantly on very thin topsoil on the pice of land that the Mayor owned. That was how Bay Dequito earned his spurs in the Crazy Co. He is known until now for his famous line during the period, "There is no barren soil; only barren minds"
Most of the trees that you find on the island, the giant ipil-ipil trees, breadfruit and others that line major streets were planted during his time. I remember him when I see these trees and often I find myself saying, "Bay, how about rising from the dead, and teach the young generation in your own inimitable way how to take care of these trees and plant real trees and crops and not have these only in Farmville."
My dear Bay, kindly rise up from the dead and deviate from any Operations Guide there and the Lord will understand. We need your more here than in either hell or heaven.
What an admirable man. Limestone agriculture is something that ought to be promoted here in Bohol, too.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, Doc Nes, think my cousin Leo Isaac played for Crispa as well before teaming up with Jaworski.