June 12: Happy (New) Independence Day, Philippines! Here’s “Ang Bagong Balangkas Na Bibliya Para Sa Magsasaka” (“Ang Bagong BBM”) Inspired By Secretary Of Agriculture William Dar. First-Of-Its-Kind In The Digital World!

Here is my Internet advice to our ascendant President Ferdinand “BBM” Marcos Jr to help millions of farmers risehigh above their levels of poverty and stay up there: “Ang Bagong Balangkas na Bibliya para sa Magsasaka” (“The New BBM For Filipino Farmers”). My inspiration: Don’t pour – instead, share knowledge!

(Image sources: “Pouring knowledge” theblack&white, theblackandwhite.net; “sharing knowledge” Helpie WP, helpiewp.com; “BBM” New York Post, nypost.com)

Sharing knowledge– from science to the language of target sharers. Sharing knowledge even, or especially if, it concerns a likely-to-be-impossible dream. Thus, candidate BBM himself boldly promised or loudly aspired for a P20/kg rice during the presidential campaign, and here I am another Ilocano to encourage him!

“The New BBM” is a genius Learning Bank sophisticated down to lift up unsophisticated learners, unlike a Knowledge Bank, which immediately tells you what to do! (Check out “IRRI Rice Knowledge Bank,” knowledgebank.irri.org.)

“The New BBM” helps you find out what you need by presenting, in popular English initially, pertinent scientific knowledge as optionsand/or opportunities. No robot-making! No brainwashing!

(In subsequent versions, “The New BBM” will be translated into culturally-important Filipino languages – such as Bicolano, Bisaya, Igorot, Ilocano, Muslim, Pangasinense, and Tagalog. If unavoidable, scientific terms will be used, patientlyexplained.

“The New BBM” also means “The New Bible for Bolstering Multiculture” – where “multiculture” is agriculture that emphasizes multiple crops – as against monocrops that encourage chemical fertilizers generating greenhouse gases generating Climate Change! That points you to organic methods.

Within “The New BBM” is the modern intellectual package of Filipinos to the universe of Regenerative Agriculture – pro-healthy foods and anti-climate change!

I’m  basing “The New BBM” on a 19-year old proposal by Secretary of Agriculture William Dar that he called Open Academy for Philippine Agriculture (OpAPA). He submitted OpAPA to Philippine agriculture via PhilRice, and PhilRice Director Leo Sebastianrecruited me to help flesh out OpAPA. And I did – I wrote a 198-page digital book I called The Geography Of Knowledge (TGoK), which drew the knowledge roadmap for PH Agriculture understandable by beginner farmers who knew high school English – or their daughter/son studying. (I still have a digital copy of TGoK.)

“The New BBM” is anybody’s intellectual guide – whether you are conversant in farming looking for additional/new knowledge, or a non-farmer who must learn her/his farming.

For instance, you type/spell out (as is)
hybrid rice
then press Search (or Enter). The New BBM will instantly show you icons of different varieties and/or names, planting methods, fertilizer choices, different locations etc. When you click on an icon, you will be shown further choices (icons) – such as if you click the icon for varieties, the new things you see are hybrid varieties (names); when you press the icon for locations, you are transported (by name) to different provinces in the Philippines.

“The New BBM” – an exciting place to explore! “The New BBM” will be an exulting new intellectual universe for me to help generate!@517