By Danilo P. Padua, PhD
The Cordillera region is a proud host of the first national organic agriculture scientific conference in the Philippines. This was undertaken by the Organic Agriculture Society of the Philippines headed by Dr. Rogelio Colting, In cooperation with BSU.
Dr. Colting was also the immediate past BSU president. In 2004, he made possible the declaration of the school as the only organic-based university in the country. So far, it is still the only one so declared.
The scientific conference has started to give OA, its science face. It brought together a motley audience of scientists, educators, farmers, private practitioners, entrepreneurs, and other interested parties.
It is here where I met a farmer of a different and interesting mold. He is not ordinary but he does not like to see himself as special, only as somebody who would like to show a very good example for others to follow. What he knows, he is more than willing to teach to others who are interested. His story is one of discipline, one-mindedness, trust and faith, action and clear vision.
This interesting individual was already a national Gawad-Saka awardee for large animals in 2002, among his many awards, barely 5 years after he plunged into honest-to-goodness farming. Or, after forcing himself to retire as well-compensated Executive Director of a big foundation at the age of 54.
His story is quite absorbing and at the same time intriguing. Something that anybody could really learn from, if one cares to listen. His name: Roger Saniel of Zamboanga del Sur, now 71 years old. He actually completed a BS in Education degree. And why is he in the midst of an OA scientific conference?
After graduating at the age of 19, he was immediately hired as a teacher. Because of his meritorious performance at every work given him, his promotion was fast, becoming a head teacher at 25 years old, then a principal shortly after.
He is proud to tell that he rose from the ranks without the help of any patron. He just had a complete trust in his abilities and made sure that he did more than anyone else without consciously trying to outdo others. That is to say, he produced outcomes that others do not normally do. In his words, he was also always ready to volunteer for jobs even without additional compensation, invariably doing them with aplomb.
Aside from being a former regional director of the Population Commission, Mr. Saniel had headed at least three Foundations which he himself was asked to establish. These worked mainly for the people—-building houses, training them for livelihood, establishing clinics throughout the Philippines, helping build an important international rehabilitation center for addicts and even prostitutes, and many others. His impressive performance in one entity was the reason why he was hired for the next job. He made all agencies/entities, government or private, in much improved healthy condition when he left them. How he was involved in them were also worth retelling individually. But we will not delve into them.
His works had afforded him an opportunity to once address the Diet (Japan’s legislative assembly) and an audience (not only once but twice) with the then Pope John Paul II. His Japan sojourn resulted to so many donations from the various Japanese sectors for the Philippines. Baguio city also benefited from such donations.
The above are just some of the accomplishments of Mr. Saniel, enough to show us of his effectivity as an executive. After tackling all those opportunities laid before him, he felt there was big vacuum in his mind. He duly retired. He wanted to develop his own farm. He started with 6 hectares in his home province which he planted with the best fruit varieties that he bought in Davao. He started his love affair with organic(when it was not yet in vogue), sustainable and natural farming when saw mounds of decayed plant wastes. Around them were healthy, robustly growing plants. He then used the naturally composted materials for his fruit trees. He started harvesting fruits from the said trees after 5 years of planting. Until now, he never used any synthetic fertilizers and the harvested fruits are healthy, clean and sweet, commanding higher price in the market.
He then added pigs, goats, chickens, sheeps, cattle and ducks. All of them given natural feeds available in his farm since the beginning. His farm became an integrated one. After just 6 years of farming, he was already giving away, chickens, sheeps, goats to elementary pupils, poor farmers, nuns, and others, free o of charge. He said that the “secret of living is by giving”.
At the moment, he has 25 hectares of coconut, 1-5 hectares each of lanzones, rambutan, duriain, pommel, cacao, jackfruit and others. In addition, he has more than 5 hectares of rubber and 10 hectares for rice-duck-fish culture. His farm became the model for the present TESDA program on training students in agriculture. I will hasten to add that his farm expanded due to his earlier successes as a self-taught agriculturist.
His experience prodded Mr. Saniel to invite and train barangay officials and farmers for free. He noted with sadness though, that out of around 10, 000 officials and farmers that he trained, less than 500 applied his training. This prompted him to establish a school for young students. He calls this, Saniel Integrated Farm Technological Business School. Only about 300 students are enrolled at a time. They complete their course for 1-2 months. Many of the students are sons and daughters of MILF/MNLF fighters. All of them are scholars, supported mainly by TESDA.
One of the realities that Mr. Saniel emphasized is the absence of career roadmap of students. According to him, students are prevailed upon by their parents on what to enroll as dictated by their financial capability. This is one of the main reasons, says he, why students are on standby after graduation. They needed to be guided accordingly. His school is trying to help solve this unacceptable scenario. His school-on-the-air program which has already graduated more than 5,000 students is also helping along this line.
To encourage people to go into farming, he calls himself in his speeches as the farmer-millionaire. I feel embarrassed, as a trained agricultural scientist, alongside him.
Two weeks ago, Mr. Saniel was designated by Sec. Baldos of DOLE as Career Guidance Ambassador.**
