Cryptobiology: It's beyond this world to comprehend, where superstition and science meet, and debate continues without end.

Cryptobiology

It's beyond this world to comprehend,

where superstition and science meet,

and debate continues without end.

1 - Cryptobiology* in Driftwood Art

Birds - Descendants of the Archaeopteryx. 

Dr Abe V Rotor

Philippine eagle (Pithecophaga jefferyi), nature's art in driftwood -

a lucky find among uprooted and burned madre de caacao trees, 

waste of swidden or kaingin farming in woodlands. 

Into the sky this giant among Aves,

rises with all its strength sublime,

enthroned in wood gone to waste. 

Look, it's our own eagle in its prime!

In the likeness of an eagle or hawk, I mounted these pieces 

of driftwood against a background depicting its natural habitat. 

Darwinian evolution, Part 2, or is it? 

It's beyond this world to comprehend,

where superstition and science meet,

and debate continues without end. 

It resembles the Philippine hawk or lawin flying majestically in the sky.  I found this rare piece of wood cum bark of an old talisay (Terminalia catappa) uprooted by a typhoon on our homelot in San Vicente,  Ilocos Sur, circa 2012 

A legendary bird for children,

singular pride of our nation;

 but we'll be losing this long time friend, 

now at the brink of extinction.

Archeopteryx reconstructed from fossil

2 - Cryptids in our Midst

Dr Abe V Rotor

  

 

Top photos: Half-serpent, half-avian with distinct eyes, beak and crown (palong Tag); yelping puppy in a greeting pose.  Lower photos: Long legged reptile emerging from a broken jar seems to be telling story fit for a horror movie. 

This figure of an aquatic creature apparently swimming, was discovered in an estuary. Old folks claim the creature once lived where sea and river meet, a unique habitat of many strange creatures, animals and plants as well.  Mural background adds to the queer ambiance of the figure. 

Horned duck with wings half-spread ready for takeoff, gives a fantasy image of a strange creature, which kids relate with cartoon characters and unique specimens like the Pterodactyl, an extinct genus of pterosaurs.

    

Augury is the practice from ancient Roman religion of interpreting omens from the observed behavior of birds. A white dove means “peace”. A black dove means “war”.  It could also pertain to matters of the heart, relationships, luck, misfortune, death, Remember the emissary bird in the biblical Noah's Ark? Have you seen a black dove in our real world?

*Cryptobiology is the study of cryptids, creatures around which myths exist but whose current existence has never been verified. Some famous cryptids include bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, and the chupacabra. Cryptids are elusive creatures that dance on the fringes of human perception, whose existence has not been proven by science, but has been reported by many eye-witnesses. Modern science has proved the existence to creatures that existed only in imagination and fantasy.

Trees are Benevolent Hosts

 Trees are Benevolent Hosts

 The tree laughs, talks, with all the joys of childhood. "A tree is a joy forever." - avr

Dr Abe V Rotor

LIVING with NATURE CENTER

San Vicente, Ilocos Sur

"Trees exhale for us so that we can inhale them to stay alive. Can we ever forget that? Let us love trees with every breath we take until we perish."― Munia Khan

1. The tree laughs, talks, with all the joys of childhood. "A tree is a joy forever." Tandang Sora QC

"Trees are as close to immortality as the rest of us ever come." ― Karen Joy Fowler

2. Playing hide-and-seek in a bamboo grove. The spirit of the place gives quaintness to living.Taal, Batangas

"Between every two pines is a doorway to a new world."― John Muir

3. A fallen mango tree makes a romantic ambiance. (Atimonan, Quezon)

"You know me, I think there ought to be a big old tree right there. And let's give him a friend. Everybody needs a friend."― Bob Ross

4. Phylodendron gains foothold on Dita tree (Alstonia scholaris) as it reaches for the sun several meters high. UST Botanical Garden

"Love the trees until their leaves fall off, then encourage them to try again next year."― Chad Sugg

5. Balete (Ficus benjamina) strangles its host to  certain death, hence gaining a notorious name of Strangler's Fig. Mt Makiling, Laguna

"The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit."― Nelson Henderson

6. Fruticose lichen clings on bark of tree. Lichens are communities of algae and fungi. They aid in food production and recycling of organic matter, as well as help conserve water. Caliraya Lake, Laguna

"When you plant a tree you plant a legacy."— Pepper Provenzano

7. Drynaria fern as ephipyte helps conserve water, attract wildlife that protects trees from pests anddiseases.  It is not unusual that a branch gives way to the weight of the tenant fern. Tagudin, Ilocos Sur

"Love is like a tree, it grows of its own accord, it puts down deep roots into our whole being."― Victor Hugo

8. Roots are exposed by slow erosion reveal tenacity of this tree. The tree allows growth of plants and animals like millipede and land snails, as well as micrororganims, many are symbionts to the tree. Mt Makiling Botanical Garden, UPLB 

"Someone's sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago."— Warren Buffet

9. Interlacing roots, principle of inarching, riprap slopes and banks, provide abode to many organisms. Mt. Makiling, Laguna.

"The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn."― Ralph Waldo Emerson

10. Algae and mosses live on the spongy bark of acacia, providing nutrients to the tree, and creating a favorable microclimate. UP Diliman, QC

"A tree is beautiful, but what's more, it has a right to life; like water, the sun, and the stars, it is essential. Life on earth is inconceivable without trees."— Anton Chekhov

11. Crustose lichen coats trunk of young tree. Lichens are important to the tree; they also indicate pristine condition of the environment. Caliraya Lake, Laguna

"In a forest of a hundred thousand trees, no two leaves are alike. And no two journeys along the same path are alike."— Paolo Coelho

12. Even after death the tree remains a host to red mushroom, termites, other saprophytes and decomposers, giving off its entire energy to serve the living world. 

"The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn."— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Let's Build a "Children of Nature" Culture

 Let's Build a "Children of Nature" Culture

Our children and their children shall find themselves  living in a world of archives - memories, reproductions, replicas – of a real world lost before their own time - if we do not act now to preserve our planet.

Dr Abe V Rotor

Living with Nature School on Blog [avrotor.blogspot.com]

1. Our children need to know the true meaning of biodiversity. Four attributes - richness in kind, population, interrelationship, sustainability.

Biodiversity per se does not guarantee sustainability unless integrated with functioning systems of nature.

2. Our children’s development must be holistic In all four stages: genetic, childhood, lifestyle – and fetal (in the womb)

Sing, talk to your baby while in the womb.

Children of Nature in acrylic by the author 

3. Our children are at the front line and center of people’s revolution spreading worldwide.

Arab Spring is sweeping North Africa and the Middle East, so with the escalating unrest questioning the present world order. All over US the young are angry at economic inequity.

4. Our children become new heroes – heroes for the environment, martyrs for Mother Earth. Heaven is in a regained Paradise on earth.

The coming of a universal faith, irrespective of denomination. To be saved is not by faith and promise. Heaven starts here on earth.

The fine "Edge of Awareness" should start with Nature 

5. Let’s prepare our children to face the consequences of loss of privacy and secrecy, from personal to institutional transparency.

“You can no longer hide. There is no place you can remain with anonymity.” Wikileak unveiled classified information about the Iraq and Afghanistan war. Bank secrecy laws and safeguards are changing. Citizens have the right to know many hidden financial transactions.

6. Our children’s involvement in social media makes them actors and not mere spectators. They become involved, concerned with issues, local and far reaching.

There is need to strengthen Development Communication (DevComm) over conventional entertainment and reactionary media.

7. Our children will inherit our aging infrastructure. Aging Infrastructure pulls down the economy, increases risk to disaster, creates ghost cities and making life miserable.

A new field of biodiversity has been born in deserted towns, on the 38th Parallel between South and North Korea, in land mines areas, ghost towns, among deserted high rise buildings, in high radiation areas like in Chernobyl (Russia) and Fukushima (Japan).

8. Our children are deprived of natural beauty and bounty with shrinking wildlife, conversion of farms and pastures to settlements, and destruction of ecosystems.

“Canned Nature” (delata) have become pseudo Nature Centers. Gubat sa Siyudad, Fantasyland, Ocean Park, Disneyland

9. Our children, and succeeding generations are becoming more and more vulnerable to various infirmities – genetic, physiological, psychological, pathological.

Computer Syndrome is now pandemic, and its toll is increasing worldwide. South Korea is the worst hit.

10. Our children’s learning through codification defeats logical thinking and creativity. Thus affect their reasoning power, judgment and decision, originality of thought and ideas. 

More and more children are computer-dependent. They find simple equations and definitions difficult without electronic gadget.

11. Our children face the age of singularity whereby human and artificial intelligence are integrated. Robotics robs human of his rights and freedom – new realm of curtailment and suppression. (2045 – The Year Man Becomes Immortal – Time Magazine)

This is falsehood!

12. Our children finds a world of archives - memories, reproductions, replicas – of a real world lost before their own time.

We are making fossils, biographies, dirges and lament, as if without sense of guilt.

13. Our children will realize that optimism will remain the mainstay of human evolution, rising above difficulties and trials. Hope is ingrained in the human brain that makes vision rosier than reality.

Anxiety, depression will continue to haunt, in fact accompany progress, but these all the more push optimism up and ahead.

14. Our children are overburdened by education. They need freedom to learn in their own sweet time and enjoy the bliss and adventure of childhood and adolescence.

E-learning is taking over much of the role of schools and universities. Open Universities, Distance Learning will dwarf classroom instruction. Beginning of a new University of Plato’s dream.

15. Our children will witness in their time the beginning of a post-capitalism order, environmental revolution, rise of growth centers and shift in economic dominance and order, more green technologies, and space exploration.

This is Renaissance in in the new age.

16. Our children will continue looking for the missing links of science, history, religion, astronomy etc, among them the source of life itself and its link with the physical world.

Linking of disciplines, narrowing down the gaps of specializations, making of a new Man and culture.

Humanoids in our midst, Sky Ranch, Tagaytay

17. Our children become more and more transient in domicile where work may require, and for personal reasons, and when given choice and opportunity in a global perspective, intermarriages notwithstanding.

“Citizen of the world” is a person without a specific country. He is therefore, rootless.

Humans since creation are rooted politically, culturally – and principally biologically.

18. Our children will have a family size of ideally 2 or 3 children, enabling them to achieve their goals and dreams in life. They will strengthen the middle class the prime mover of society.

A natural way of family planning and population planning, trend of industrialized countries.

19. Our children will clean the land, water and air we the generation before littered. They will heal the earth we defaced, damaged. With generation gap closed, the task will be shared by all.
Art workshop on Nature, Living with Nature Center, San Vicente Ilocos Sur  

We must be good housekeepers of Mother Earth now.

20. Our children will be part of devolution of power, decentralization of authority, a new breed of more dedicated leaders.

Children hold the key to change. It’s the Little Prince that changed and saved the pilot in an ill-fated plane crash in Sahara.

21. Our children face acculturation and inter racial marriages. Melange of races is on the rise – Eurasian, Afro-American, Afro-Asian, etc – a homogenization process that reduces as a consequence natural gene pools.

Culturally and scientifically, this is dangerous. Homogenization leads to extinction of races and ultimately the species.

22. Our children will live simpler lives, going back to basics, preferring natural over artificial goods and services. In the long run they will be less wasteful that us.

There is always a hidden desire to escape when things get rough. This is instinct for survival either by detour or turning back.

23. Our children face the coming of the Horsemen of Apocalypse – consequence of human folly and frailty (nuclear, pollution, poverty). More than we grownups, they are more resilient to adapt to the test.

History tells us that this is true.

24. The end of dictatorship is near as evidenced by the downfall of Saddam Hussein, Mubarak, Qaddafi, and soon Assad of troubled Syria.  Leadership will come from younger people who uphold values that bring the world to peace.

Leaders of South Korea, Turkey, China, etc. are the new breed of leaders that points out to such expectation. 

25. Postmodernism may do more harm than good for our children in a runaway technology and culture. They cannot and will not be able to keep with the pace and direction of change.

This is not true. “I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.” (From Invictus by William Ernest Henley)  And this is what we want our children to uphold – but only when they become CHILDREN OF NATURE.

Lesson on former Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid (People's School-on-Air) Dr Abe Rotor and Ms Melly C Tenorio 738 DZRB AM Band, 8 to 9 evening class Monday to Friday. ~

Don't Kill the Palm Trees this Palm Sunday! Plant Trees Instead

Don't Kill the Palm Trees this Palm Sunday!

Plant Trees Instead.

Dr Abe V Rotor

Please don't destroy Nature on Palm Sunday (Domingo de Ramos). Don't kill the palm trees and other threatened and endangered species (cycads, buri, anahaw, nipa, and the like). Help arrest climate change, soil erosion, deforestation, wildfire, onslaught of tsunami, and many other ecological disasters. Trees contribute to good health and happy living, 

 

Students from the University of Northern Philippines and San Vicente Integrated School lead in planting anahaw (Livistona rotundifolia) at the Living with Nature Center, San Vicente, Ilocos Sur. Middle right photo: Coed Angie Tobias of Abra State University attends to palm seedlings ready for transplanting. Lower photos: Heritage Anahaw palm trees are part of the Center's Arboretum (Miniature Forest)

Typical Scenes of Palm Sunday Celebration 

 

Notice that most of the palaspas held by the faithful are young leaves or bud leaves of coconut and buri.

 

Palaspas in different designs made of young leaves of coconut, and the endangered buri (Corypha elata) and anahaw (Livistona rotondifolia) species, are sold in the open on Palm Sunday. A large percentage of palaspas ends in waste which otherwise could be made into gainful products.

How can we help save the palm trees?

1. Don't patronize palaspas made of young or bud leaves (white to yellow green to pale green, supple and easy to wilt).

2. Get only those with deep green color - they are of mature leaves. There is not much harm to tree, if the number of leaves harvested is regulated. Heavily pruned trees recover slow and their fruiting is drastically affected.

3. Never buy palaspas made from whole leaves of oliva and other Cycad species - they are highly endangered. Actually they are living fossils, older than the dinosaur.

4. Reject also buri, it is the raw material of home industries making mats, buntal hat, bags, decors, broom, and many others. You will be depriving  hundreds of families of their livelihood.

5. Anahaw, nipa (Nypha frutescens), bunga (Areca catechu), sugar palm (Arenga pinnata) likewise provide the industries of many more families. They are the sources of alcohol, wine, vinegar, brushes, fabric and cordage, medicine and drugs, fuel and activated charcoal, and many others. You can be of great help to these industries and thousands of people depending on them.

6. Why carry a whole bunch of palaspas when a handy size or even "feather-size" for that matter is a sufficient manifestation of sincere devotion?

7. One palaspas for a family is enough, not one for each member. Save the trees, save money and effort, and avoid thrash. Have you noticed how unsold palaspas are thrown away or burned?

8. Use substitute materials, like ornamental palms - palmera, red palm, bunga de Jolo, MacArthur palm, and several species of Pinanga and Orania. The reason palm is used on Palm Sunday is because in the place of Christ in His time, few plants survive the harsh desert condition - date palm and olive among them which grow in oases, pockets of spring in the desert.

9. Your effort in this campaign can be translated in practical economics and ecological significance. The coconut is the source of many products from walis tingting (broom made of midribs), to virgin coconut oil. There are one-hundred-and-one coconut products. Its ecological significance is tremendous. It's one crop you don't take care at all. It ripraps the shorelines from tidal wave and rising sea level. Physiologically the coconut plant can filter off toxic metals, pesticide residues, hydrocarbon compounds, and other toxic substances. No crop is more versatile worldwide - and the Philippines is endowed with this gift of nature.

10. Talk to your priest or minister, take this matter up with your church organizations. Be assertive, this is vital to our environmental and socio economic problems. Support this campaign collectively, as a community effort. Course it through the heirarchy of the church, if necessary. Make press releases and broadcast on TV and radio.
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Palm trees are the front liners on shorelines and estuaries against tidal wave and tsunami as observed with coconut trees riprapping the land from sea, nipa grove blanketing deltas and mudflat arresting soil from being washed away to the sea. They provide a nursery and sanctuary to both terrestrial and marine organisms.
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How much do we lose from a single coconut tree sacrificed on one occasion?

A fruiting coconut normally lives for twenty years, others twice as long. Nuts are harvested every two months with 10 nuts to as many as 30. Young nuts (buko) are sold P30 each); commercial mature nuts for copra (to be made into vegetable oil) sell for the same price, ex-farm.

Here is an actual case: Buko at P30, and 100 nuts harvested a year is worth P3,000. Double the yield or the price means P6,000 a year. That's P60,000 for ten years for a single tree. Double that if the tree lives for another ten years.

NOTE: Please adjust currency rate to present Philippine Pesos to the US$.  Add inflation rate,  Data presented is based on 2010 figures.

    
For mature nuts (picked up on the farm), the farmer gets half the value, but he simply waits for the nuts to mature. Meantime, he plants between the nuts cash crops and high value crops (coffee, cacao, papaya, root crops, vegetables lanzones) and gets additional, if not more income. This is only possible in a coconut grove.
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A coconut plantation is the only man-made agricultural ecosystem with a very high biodiversity that can be sustained generation after generation. (AVR)
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It is safe to estimate that on just one occasion when thousands and thousands of coconut trees in the tropics are sacrificed, the potential loss runs to hundreds of millions of dollars. It means poverty and death, erosion and landslide, loss of shorelines and farmlands, deprivation of people from the opportunities to enjoy the good life.

Let's join the campaign: Let's save the palm trees on Palm Sunday (and thereafter, for that matter).

 

LEFT PHOTO: A stand of buri palm.  A buri palm lives up to a century. Before it dies, it profusely produces an inflorescence that turns out thousands of nuts. The nuts are transported by water and animals to new places where they germinate and grow. It takes at least five years to gain a niche in the new place. 

RIGHT PHOTO: Cycad or Oliva, is older than the extinct dinosaurs, hence it is called living fossil. During the Triassic and Jurassic periods, the time of their greatest population density and diversity, cycads made up 20% of the world's flora. Photo taken by the author in Lagro, QC. 

Article from Paper read during the Capiz Archdiocesan Gathering of the Clergy by the author as Conference Speaker August 4, 2011.
Reference: Living with Nature Book Series, AV Rotor 

April 2025 National Literary Month Feature: Dr Florentino H Hornedo - The Renaissance Man (1938-2015)

Dr Florentino H Hornedo

- The Renaissance Man (1938-2015)

A Tribute to a great professor, scholar, author, humanist and artist.

Dr. Hornedo authored 13 books in Philosophy, Education, Culture and History. He was editor of Ad Veritatem, a Journal of Research at the UST Graduate School, and Ivatan Studies Journal, a Graduate School Research Journal at the Saint Dominic College of Batanes. He has garnered several awards, among them the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature, National Catholic Authors Award, Pilak Award for Service to Culture, the Arts and Community, of the Cultural Center of the Philippines, Annual Book Awards of Ateneo de Manila University, Batanes Provincial Achievement Recognition for Cultural and Social Research, Recognition Award for Social Research, from the UST College of Education Alumni Association, and Most Outstanding Thomasian Alumni Awardee in the Arts abd Humanities 2006.

Dr Abe V Rotor 

Living with Nature School on Blog

Dr Hornedo (second from left) with the author (extreme right) visit the painting exhibit of Joey Velasco (deceased) at the UST College of Fine Arts. At exteme left is Dr Dan Lerma, another award-winning artist.   

           

 

Florentino Hornedo - The Renaissance Man

              A. A. G. Divinagracia and L.T. Panti Montage Vol. 10 • December 2006

HIS MIEN and mustache make him appear like a creature from a fabled golden age. Despite the wrinkles and the graying hair, his look remains agile and authoritative.

Meet the scholar and writer, Dr. Florentino Hornedo. In a venerable institution of masterful minds and mentors, he seems a cut above the rest for his solid credentials as pedagogue, pundit and pen-pusher.

A Biology major at first, Hornedo found the laboratory fees too prohibitive for his family's rather modest means, so he shifted to the College of Education, finishing B.S. in Secondary Education, major in English, minor in Spanish.

The shift prefigured his career as teacher, language expert, scholar (his historical researches often involved poring over ancient tomes in Spanish or the Latin languages), and writer.

Along the way, Hornedo has also become an expert in political science, philosophy and anthropology.

Florentino Hornedo is indubitably a Renaissance man.
It is not surprising then that he has authored books covering nearly disparate topics–from letters to education, from politics to ethics. The diversity could be gleaned from some of the titles of the books: Laji Anu Maddaw Ka Mu Lipus: An Ivatan Folk Lyric Tradition (1997); The Power To Be: A Phenomenology Of Freedom (2000), Culture and Community in the Philippine Fiesta and Other Celebrations (2000), Taming the Wind: The Ethno-Cultural History on the Ivatan of the Batanes Isles (2000), Pagpapakatao and Other Essays in Contemporary Philosophy and Literature (2002), The Favor of Gods: Essays in Filipino Religious Thought and Behavior (2001). All of the books are published by the UST Publishing House. For his writing, Hornedo has received the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature, National Catholic Authors Award, and Pilak Award for Service to Culture, the Arts and Community of the Cultural Center of the Philippines.

"I always read and research," Hornedo told the Varsitarian. "Since I cannot afford to know everything, I may as well learn things little by little."

Humble beginnings
Born in Sabtang, Batanes in 1938, Hornedo said he has always been inspired by Ivatan oral traditions.
 
"The feeling of being an heir to the traditions of my people has all the more enticed me to pursue a career in writing," he said. "I believe that Ivatan culture has a lot to offer in the enrichment of Philippine literature."

As a young child, he wrote essays in school which impressed his teachers. But he said he never took writing seriously until he entered UST in 1957.

Dr Hornedo visits a school library in his home province, Batanes.
 
As an Education freshman, Hornedo said he was asked by Dr. Josephine Bass-Serrano, the publication adviser of the Education Journal and a much-respected professor of English, to join the staff.

"I took the examination for the (Education) journal, hoping that I would not pass. But the contrary proved my intuition wrong because I even made it with flying colors," Hornedo said.

Inspired by the example of such sterling Thomasian writers as Paz Latorena, Jose Villa Panganiban, Cecilio Apostol, and Jesus Balmori, Hornedo then seized the opportunity to harness skills in writing and communication.

He became the editor in chief of the journal during his senior year.

"At that time, Thomasian writers were ruling journalism and other forms of writing," Hornedo said. "It made me realize that language and leadership could go together because one needs language to express his profound understanding of things and be on top."

After graduation, Hornedo taught at the Saint Louis University Boys' High School in Baguio City. At the graduate school of St. Louis, he finished his Masteral degrees in English and Philosophy in 1966 and 1972, respectively.

UST's edge
When Hornedo decided to take up doctoral studies, he went back to UST. Although Ateneo and UP could have been better choices because of their accessibility, he chose UST because of its well-anchored tradition.

"I chose UST over the other universities because others tend to be monolithic, being Marxist all the way," Hornedo said. "Thomasian writings, on the other hand, are more of a tradition but also a reaction to the changing times."

Hornedo further explained UP was too hooked up on Marxism. Meanwhile, Ateneo, he said, was "too elitist" at first, but out of "guilt" feeling, later turned uncritical to radical politics.

In contrast, UST has always struck the middle ground, with the old guard zealously watching over tradition and serving as a check to the experimentations and excesses of the new.

Perhaps also because UST attracted students from the middle class, the University has a better grip of social reality compared with other universities in the thrall of Marxism and modern social ideas, Hornedo explained.

He said UST's well-balanced social sensibility could be gleaned from the writings of its writers and humanists, which invariably have a strong flavor of "social and moral justice" in them.

Hornedo finished Ph.D. in Literature in 1977 and a post-doctorate in History and Political Science in 1988, both at the UST Graduate School.

Views of Ivatan: typical houses built with stone and coral with an Ivatan boat.  Second row: ruin of an ancient fort; a festival  in native costumes.  

But even before he finished his doctorate, he was already a faculty member of the Ateneo de Manila, where he, together with Bienvenido Lumbrera and Rolando Tinio, formed a fearsome troika of Dominican-trained Thomasian professors who would hold sway over a generation of Ateneans under the very noses of the Jesuits.

Trailblazer
In 1979, as chair of the Cultural Society of the Philippines, Hornedo, together with his co-Ateneo professors Lumbera and Nicanor Tiongson, visited China on the invitation of Beijing authorities to see for themselves and the world the cultural progress that had been achieved there after the Mao Tse Tung years and the disastrous Cultural Revolution.

"Initially, we visited China to study the Peking Opera of Chinese theater. On the other hand, we also went there to see how China was progressing from its initial opening to the world and subsequent adoption of new policies in politics, economics and culture," Hornedo said.

"Basically, the Chinese government wanted to make the world know that China was no longer the world of Mao and now a friend of the world."

At a time when China was seeking to enhance the intellectual wealth of its people, its government then sought help from foreign experts, who are then given teachings terms to establish an academic program and to train local experts.

Upon trailblazing the first Philippine Studies program in China, Hornedo then busied himself with training a new breed of broadcast journalist who could speak in foreign languages for the China Broadcast International.

Hornedo has also been invited to lecture in more than 30 conferences abroad. These include the conferences on the Preservation and Promotion of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (Tokyo,1998), Preservation and Promotion of Traditional/Folk Performing Arts (Bangkok,1999), Building a Network for Preservation and Promotion of Traditional/Folk Performing Arts (Tokyo,2000) and Promotion of Safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage (Osaka,2004).

He has also served various posts in the Philippine government, such as being a commissioner of the Komisyon ng Wika and vice-chairman of the Committee for the National Sciences of the Philippine Unesco (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) Commission. He is also a member of the Batanes Development Foundation and has lectured at the National Defense College.

Social consciousness
Hornedo said he does not write just for the sake of writing.

"A writer should not be a slave to his own writing," he said. "Identifying the core problems of human nature is one way of improving one's craft because it brings the writer closer to reality.

"Reality, in a sense, helps empower social consciousness."
Amid the tendency of many writers to gaze at their navels, Hornedo prefers to swim against the tide.

"Literature people nowadays are in an unhappy position of talking to themselves because the audience, mostly the lower class, does not have a profound understanding of their works," he said.

He said many writers often deal with the lives of the elite.

"Literature is for people, not only for the elite," he said. "With those plots, how can you expect the masses to appreciate your work?"

Citing the difference between a good story teller and a "piece of paper wrapped in gray letters," Hornedo cited the times when poems were performed rather than recited.

"We have lost a lot in Philippine literature because everything is reduced to the written word," he said. "Teachers today were made readers than performers, thus alienating the very essence of literature from their students."

But when he is not too preoccupied with all this writings and researches, Hornedo suddenly becomes a painter. He paints a lot, believing that the visual arts are a tool for expressing what people feel.

In fact, the late Pacita Abad, her provincemate who had become an acclaimed painter here and abroad, often referred to Hornedo as her mentor.

"Pacita Abad would come and watch me paint and how I play with colors," Hornedo recalled. "Later on, she would introduce me as her teacher in painting. But actually I never taught her; she only watched me; I did not take up formal painting classes."

Hornedo said that as a young man he would dabble in oil painting in his godfather's house.

"I was so engrossed in painting at that time that during one occasion I tried to use enamel paint for my artworks," Hornedo disclosed.

During his childhood, Hornedo also engaged in clay-modelling, given the proximity of the source of natural clay from their village. When someone gave him a nice Swiss knife, he instantly fell in love with sculpture.

"I may not have any professional background in those forms of art, but I love doing them and as a professor of aesthetics, I think I also had something to say about art as a whole," Hornedo said.

The breakthrough in Hornedo's career as a visual artist came in 1961 when he was tasked by the English department of the College of Education to organize an exhibit in celebration of the University's 350th year anniversary. Hornedo came up with a unique display of paintings featuring the grammatical mistakes often committed by students his age.

Educator at heart
A wordsmith par-excellence, Hornedo simply cannot help but recount the ways by which his mentors enabled him to be an intellectual heavyweight in various fields of study.
Misty Island of Batanes, northernmost part of the Philippines, birthplace and resting ground of  Dr Hornedo.  

"My teachers has a special interest in challenging me. They know how to handle our pride. Looking back they did not make things difficult to defeat you but difficult enough to challenge you. It's either you give up or accept the challenge and you get the best of things," Hornedo said.

"In our Spanish class, we couldn't answer our teacher in English, so we had to answer in Spanish no matter how broken our Spanish. At the end of the day, we were surprised to learn that we had the highest grades in our class."

Teachers, Hornedo said, "would not care whether you love them or not. They simply felt that their job as teachers was to shape you up, to make you somebody in the future. That is why they are using two things; a very inspiring thing like grades and a very oppressive one like discipline."

Indebted to his mentors, Hornedo said he believes that the minor bashing he received from his teacher built his confidence.

"In a particular gathering, I met my mentor, who once told me that I would never be teaching in a city with the kind of provincial English that I had," Hornedo said.

"Fortunately I have never taught anywhere else but in cities."

A. A. G. Divinagracia and L.T. Panti
Montage Vol. 10 • December 2006

Source: Internet

Dr AV Rotor - Author's Note:  I studied philosophy under Dr Hornedo in the UST Graduate School, and later as a faculty member, worked under him as associate editor of ad veritatem, UST's graduate research journal. It was under Dr Hornedo's stewardship that ad veritatem attained the distinction of an international journal which it enjoyed for more than two decades. Dr Hornedo and I originally planned to write a textbook on Humanities for college under C and E Publishing.  In the last hour he begged to become just a contributor considering his busy schedule as UNESCO Commissioner, and his health problem.  Some months later Dr Hornedo passed away. The book as planned is dedicated to his memory. ~