President Marcos has a major issue with this swamp grass widely cultivated as a source of food in the Philippines and in Asia—and so did his father before him when the latter started his term as president 57 years ago

The Covid lockdowns or community quarantine made me experience several shades of ennui, that sense of a lack of purpose and meaning on account of the limitation on movement and stimulation. I was experiencing physical and mental stagnation! So, when I was offered to do some documentation of textiles and other historic artifacts, I readily jumped at the chance. I was tasked to recover all materials found in my uncle’s old San Juan home, anything relating to my uncle and my aunt, such as photos, books, clothing, and other memorabilia.

For six months I recovered, sorted, cataloged, and prepared photographs for digitization. In a discussion on how best to handle and store photos with my former Media Arts professor Patrick Parugganan, I told him of my experience digging my way through things just to recover the materials. “All your years studying archaeology looking for a find and there it is right in your backyard.”

Housekeeping, whether at home or in a place called Malacañang, always involves house cleaning. The series of scandals involving the Agriculture sector has indeed been gaining traction, more so since President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos (PBBM) has taken it upon itself not only to head the nation but also the agriculture department.  Two months into his presidency we see Marcos dealing with questionable deals, such as hoarding and illegal importation of various agricultural products like sugar, onion, rice, and other staples in the Filipino household.

In the six months I spent recovering hundreds of books from the home of the current president’s father, the late President Ferdinand E. Marcos (FM) in San Juan, I came across a book entitled, To Move A Nation to Progress: Achievements of President Ferdinand E. Marcos. In it I read how the FM entered office with an “aggravated” agricultural sector. Ah, history repeats itself.

When PBBM’s father took office in 1965, the country had been importing rice since 1869. He did not want to believe that the country could not produce its own rice so he implemented reforms and programs (incentives, loans, farmer education, the construction of farm to market roads, and other related infrastructure projects) to help farmers increase production so that it became profitable for farmers to plant rice. Based on the number of barong Tagalogs he had with palay-themed embroidery on them, one can tell this was a priority of his when he first came into office.

Since FM’s death in 1989 and even after (since all his personal effects from Hawaii were brought home and stored in his house), his clothes had been left practically untouched. I had to pack each and every piece and relocate them to another part of the house for safekeeping. Among these personal effects were his beautifully embroidered barong Tagalogs. When I remarked on the variety, beauty, and uniqueness of the burda to FM’s daughter Senator Imee R. Marcos, she explained that for every event, her dad would have matching themed burda on his barong. So, if the event or meeting was rice related, his barong would have palay burda. And the late president had a lot of barongs with palay burda!

Senator Imee R. Marcos explained that for every event, her dad would have matching themed burda on his barong. If the event or meeting was rice related, his barong would have palay burda. The late president had a lot of barongs with palay burda!

Rice has been in the Philippines for close to 4,000 years. The oldest sample of rice recovered in the Philippines came from Andarayan in Cagayan Valley. The sample (consisting of the rice husk and stem) was tested and found to be 3,400 years old. Most likely, rice was introduced from mainland Asia since the oldest archaeological find of rice is 10,000 years old, found along the Yangtze River in China.

A collection of the Botany and National Herbarium Division (BNHD) at the National Museum of the Philippines (NMP) currently has over 280,000 specimens of plants (moss, algae, fungi, ferns, gymnosperms, and flowering plants). According to BDHD officer-in-charge Jhaydee Ann Pascual, before World War II there were close to a million specimens but they were destroyed during the bombing of Manila between 1939 and 1945. As Manila was flattened, the herbarium with most of its collection was lost. After the war, the herbarium was rebuilt from collections in Europe and the US. When botanical collections are built, specimens are prepared in duplicates, one to display and the other to keep in other herbaria for safekeeping so despite wars, fires, earthquakes, or any man-caused or natural calamity, chances of another sample surviving is possible.

The main goal of the BNHD is to establish a reference collection of all plant diversity found in the country. The knowledge acquired from the study of the specimens can help us understand climate change and the impact of humans on the environment, an integral part in ensuring the survival not only of our habitat but the entire human race as well.

 “At present, 35 percent of the 280,000 specimens have been inputted into the collection database, with 5,000 specimens digitized,” adds Pascual. “Digitization of specimens is still on-going. Some collections are preserved in bottles with alcohol and are part of their “spirit collection” while most are preserved and mounted on herbarium sheets.

With sugar dominating newspaper headlines in recent weeks, I asked Pascual about the sugarcane specimens. She said they have 16 herbarium specimens of sugarcane in the general collection, 15 of which were collected in the Philippines—Saccharum officinarum, locally known as tubo. Pascual pointed out that sugar was already introduced to the Philippines before the arrival of the Spanish. But it was under Spain that the sugar industry was fully established in the Philippines between 1565 and 1800s.

I sit in the middle of my uncle’s study amid piles of sorted and unsorted photos and have accepted he is watching. I am going to run with it. I am getting used to sometimes talking out loud to him when I feel or sense he is near. Now, I can somehow tell when he is annoyed, pleased, frustrated, or when he wants to be left alone. I can even imagine his disbelief upon realizing they only sent me, a niece looking for something different outside what the Covid-19 lockdown had to offer, to tackle the gargantuan task of setting in order long forgotten bits and pieces of his life and many accomplishments. I can imagine him saying incredulously “They sent you? They could have sent someone from the National Museum at the very least!” I let the implications sink in. My eyes grow narrow and I blurt out defiantly, “Yes. They. Sent. Me!”

NMP opens its doors to the public for volunteers to help in the preparation of specimens for conservation. If interested, you may send your intent to the [email protected].