Last April I was given the privilege of speaking before the 2012 graduating class of the UPLB College of DevCom. For most of my speech, I talked about my real world experience at ATI, with e-extension. Just how many of them would join us in extension work? I wouldn't know, but here were my talk-points, abridged.

• Thank you Dr. Jamias, or may I say Serlie my friend. In more than a few instances, she was my savior way back in courses like AgEd and SocSci. Without her notes, I would have missed graduation in 1983.
• Naimbag nga bigat ti kadakayo amin; maayung buntag sa tanan; mayap a abak kekongan; good morning to you all. Yes I've been around. With ATI's 17 Centers strategically located in each region of the Philippines, you can say I've seen the country and the mass of its people (pun intended)...but it's good to be back where everything started for me.
• I was also a student assistant in college and my domain then was the darkroom. My day was not complete without the smell of dektol and acetic acid. And before the age of megapixels and DPI, boy pick-up would have said: Darkroom ka ba?...Bakit?...Kasi nade-develop na ako sa 'yo.
• I take this time to thank the management for giving me this opportunity to give back to my Alma Mater by way of sharing my thoughts and experiences as a DevCom alumnus -- which is all about opportunities, challenges and what we have learned along the way.
• Opportunities don't just knock. Sometimes they scream at you; sometimes they just lay still. But it is always up to you to recognize one, to respond to one. When I was tapped by ATI to assist them with a new program I was then engaged in an FAO-funded project in Mindanao. I responded positively to the offer, I thought it was an opportunity for me to prove something, to do something I was constrained from pursuing before. There was the opportunity to introduce, to innovate, and once again, "think out of the box." This led to our implementation of e-learning for agriculture and fisheries, eventually establishing e-extension. By last count, we have over 10,000 users...
• And after you've answered the opportunity, take up the challenge. Challenges make you creative.
• There's always something to learn.
• I believe that DevCom produces one of the finest breeds for workforce that's adaptive given any situation. Two more cases in point include my wife Marie and daughter Brinks. Marie now runs PCAARRD's goat projects; Brinks is with junior management in a heavy machineries firm.
• Grab the opportunity, face the challenge, learn along the way.
• Finally, When things go wrong, as sometimes they will, I like to borrow a favorite line of Marie, my wife: find the hidden mickey, obviously referring to the mickey mouse ears in Disney... There's always a good reason for it to happen. You can either waste your time sulking over; or you can find out what went wrong. Find the hidden mickey and move-on. Moving on brings you back to your journey. Don't get stuck.
• It's another beautiful day for acknowledging another batch, those who made it in 2012, and for recognizing those went beyond that and just made better, the honor graduates. Congratulations to you and your parents. Cherish your degree.
• "This one's for you and for me, living out our dreams, we're all right where we should be" - Bruno Mars