ikeseneres

 MOVING AHEAD WITH PROJECT INNOCENTS The Innocence Project Philippines Network (IPPN) was organized by Dr. Maria Corazon De Ungria and her husband, Atty. Jose M. Jose, for the purposes of 1. Providing free coordinated assistance to persons who were wrongly convicted, 2. Advocating for better laws, rules, education, investigative procedures and evidence handling, 3. Enhancing the capabilities of judges, prosecutors, lawyers, forensic investigators and students, and 4. Establishing an independent and accurate DNA or wrongful conviction database. They work with volunteer lawyers which include Atty. Paul Heherson Balite. I have contacted Dr. De Ungria, Atty. Jose, and Atty. Balite. I have invited them to join the chat group FREE THE INNOCENTS PH that I have created in Facebook Messenger. According to Dr. De Ungria, they have been running short-term internships for those who want to learn more about their advocacies and purposes. They will also be conducting online meetings wherein the...

INTERNATIONAL FOOD ABUNDANCE RESEARCH AND MARKETING SCHOOL Is anyone aware of a school that combines agriculture, fisheries, forestry, business administration, economics, engineering, information technology and other disciplines together towards the common goal of food sufficiency and food security? To put it in another way, is there a school that aims to solve the problem of extreme hunger and food scarcity? In other words, a school that would champion the cause of food abundance? As a case in point, the University of the Philippines (UP)System has all of the above mentioned schools and colleges that are scattered in several campuses, but there is no single location or facility where these could all converge for research, product development, training, packaging, marketing, networking and other related activities.  As I understand it, there could be a piece of land inside UP Diliman that could be used as the site for this school, which we could tentatively call the International F...

 TELEMEDICINE AT THE GRASSROOTS LEVEL Marinduque Governor Presby Velasco has a wonderful plan to make telemedicine available to all the 218 Barangay Health Units (BHUs) in his island province, and I am very happy to help him with the project as his Information and Communications Technology (ICT) consultant.  Although the technology for telemedicine is already available in the market, it appears that no province has yet implemented a province wide telemedicine project that could connect patients from the grassroots level to the doctors at the municipal halls and the provincial capitol. By doing that, Governor Velasco will be able to achieve the goal of providing universal access to healthcare to everyone in his province. Although the project might appear to be complex, it is actually designed with a simple plan that would make it easy to implement. The one part of the plan is to install internet connectivity in each of the BHUs, using satellite or fiber, depending on what is av...

 THE TAMING OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE The United States Congress is already conducting hearings about how to develop and harness artificial intelligence (AI) towards the goal of using it as a tool for business, science, governance, agriculture and defense, among other productive purposes. Meanwhile, it has not entered the agenda of either of the two houses of our own Congress. I have used the word "taming" as a title of this essay, because that is exactly how I look at AI, that it is like a wild animal that has to be "tamed", otherwise it could go on a rampage that could cause damage or even death to humans. As a wild animal, it also has to be domesticated, otherwise it could just become feral, with no economic value or contribution to society. Microsoft Copilot defines AI as the "ability of digital computers or computer-controlled robots to perform tasks commonly associated with intelligent beings". According to Copilot, among these tasks are reasoning, ...

 PLANTING THE WRONG TREES About ten years ago, the National Tobacco Administration (NTA) convinced many farmers in the La Trinidad and Benguet areas to plant tobacco. NTA even invested in a large warehouse and office in La Union for storage and logistics purposes. Eventually, it was discovered that the lands were not suitable for tobacco. Because of that, the farmers went bankrupt, and the warehouse became a white elephant. About six years ago, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) implemented a National Greening Program (NGP) with the goal of planting millions of trees in selected mountainous areas. Sad to say, the program failed, and the DENR lost millions of government funds. Some say that corruption was the cause of the failure, but other than that, I say that the cause could be planting the wrong species in the wrong places. Even up to now, the DENR appears to be planting the Bakhawan variety of mangroves everywhere, thinking perhaps that this variety coul...

CATHOLIC LIFE ASSISTANCE AND SUPPORT PROGRAM In order for a seed to grow into a seed and eventually into a seedling, it has to be watered and nourished before it becomes a mature plant or a tree. I think that that analogy could also be used to describe the journey of becoming a Christian. Planting a seed into the soil is very much like planting the word of God into a person. That person could be converted or baptized, but it would be difficult for him or her to grow into a real Christian, not unless his faith in God is watered and nourished. Statistics show that more Filipino Catholics could be classified as "nominal", while the rest could be classified as "active" or "practicing. In other words, those who are classified as "nominal" are only Catholics in name only, but not in actual practice. It is also possible that many Filipino Catholics merely go through the functions of participating in some religious rituals, without really "practicing...

PHILIPPINE INDEPENDENT PARTIES AND ORGANIZATIONS LEAGUE  I noticed that there are many independent political parties and organizations that are outside the mainstream of the political arena. Because of that, their voices are hardly heard in the mainstream news media, probably because they do not possess the critical mass that could attract the attention of the news reporters and the editors. But what if they could consolidate all their voices into one bigger voice? Would that not make a difference? As much as possible, I have been avoiding political topics in my essays. Recently however, I have noticed that the bigger mainstream parties have been focusing more on their political agendas, and they have not been paying too much attention to their scientific and economic agendas. And even if they are doing that to some extent, it appears to be shallow and lacking. When I say economic agendas, I also mean the environmental, social and governance (ESG) components. ESG is a buzz word in ...