At least in our part of the country, folklore has it that August is a month when people are advised to be particularly cautious. It's the month, it is said, when animals are particularly vicious and accidents happen.

Three great days in Bacolod. Taking part in a once-in-a-sweet-while workshop on organic agriculture in beguiling, bountiful Bacolod gave me three good reasons to go gaga over organic.

First reason. It’s health-promoting. Sans synthetic fertilizers, pesticides and genetic reengineering, organically grown foods are more nutritious and safe. It’s been said that people get sick because they have a genetic predisposition to a particular illness, or their lifestyle kind of did it for them. A big part of one’s lifestyle is the way one eats, or does not eat.

That was a phrase that struck me eons ago. Whoever put it up in the school’s bulletin board should probably have put it in Pilipino or English, so I would have really understood what it was trying to say, so I would have really asked myself and pondered upon and meditated on my, er, direction.

Nevertheless it is a phrase that keeps popping up in my mind rather frequently lately. Other people must be asking themselves the same question. It is good to ask oneself once in a while where one is going – a kind of self-reassessment.

As aptly told by Ms. Meitats in Demystifying Sagada!, the e-Learning Office coordinators’ first get-together earlier this year was in the highlands of the Cordilleras. The activity reviewed the barely two-year old e-Learning program’s considerable successes and necessarily some lessons learned, and thus properly plan for the trajectory of its future activities.

Electronic learning stands in direct contrast to study mission of the observation tour variety. The former allows you to amass knowledge and skills at just a click of the mouse on your computer. The latter brings you physically to the knowledge source so you could observe, investigate, take photos, and interact with the subject matter under your scrutiny. However, both distance learning and observation tours could be very edifying and fruitful experiences.

We might say that the 9th National Convention of the Devolved Agriculturists of the Philippines, Inc. (DAPI) held May 13 to 15, 2009 at Villa Caceres Hotel in Naga City was punctuated by announcements… some were good, some very good, and a few not so good.

Before the Opening Program, the Master of Ceremonies, the Ms. Zeny Marcos of Region 12, announced the happy news that a mobile phone left by a delegate from Region 1 inside a tricycle was returned by the honest tricycle driver. That brought out applause from the participants.