In Memoriam

Prof. Louise Annette “Pinkie” B. Escoto (HS’77, BSFish’82, MMPM’93)

July 16, 2021

It is with great and unfettered sadness that we inform the U.P. Visayas community of the passing of our beloved Prof. Annette Escoto, Dean of the College of Management, last night, July 15, 2021. She succumbed to cardio-pulmonary arrest.

A true pillar of the UPV Community, Dean Escoto was colleague and friend to many of us who were blessed to have worked alongside her. She has been the guiding light for many generations of UP CM students. Dean Escoto is survived by her mother, Helen, and her siblings Jose Renan, Sr. Marie Annabelle, Gemma Therese, and Jose Rey.

The University extends its sincerest condolences to the family of Dean Escoto.

Source: UP Visayas FB page

David Wee Lim (1952-2021)

By Al Vitangcol 3rd

David Wee Lim (1952-2021) succumbed to Covid-19 on July 4 after a two-month-long battle with the disease. He was 69 years old. He is survived by his wife, Judy, and only daughter, Jessica.

David was an electrical engineering graduate of the University of the Philippines Diliman and one of the elders of the Epsilon Chi Fraternity. He was a founding director of the Epsilon Chi Foundation, Inc. and the Epsilon Chi Fraternity Alumni, Inc.

David played a major part in the growth of the semiconductor subcontracting industry in the Philippines. He established and managed his own manufacturing company, SPI/Semicon Philippines Inc., which exclusively produces specialized semiconductor components.

“The things you do for yourself are gone when you are gone, but the things you do for others remain as your legacy,” is a quote which aptly describes David. The Epsilon Chi Fraternity is left with fond memories of David. He was a mentor to some, a benefactor to others, and a model Radian to most.

On a personal note, beneath the bravado and loud facade of David, lay his humanity. He was not only a fraternity brother but a close friend to me, whose words of encouragement cannot be unheard. He muttered “I believe in you” and “I trust you” during my troubled times. He ignited the light amid my darkening surroundings during that depressing period.

We advised each other on a myriad of issues – just like real blood brothers. I will surely miss him. “A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother,” (Proverbs 18:24) This was David.

David W. Lim is a Radian – first, last and always. May his soul rest in peace.

Source: https://bit.ly/36wFcsP

Prof. Cynthia T. Hedreyda (1955-2020)

July 8, 2021

The Faculty and Staff of the National Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (NIMBB) of U.P. Diliman are saddened to announce the passing of Prof. Cynthia T. Hedreyda in the afternoon of 6 July 2021. She was 65.

Prof. Hedreyda completed her B.S. Biology and M.S. Genetics degrees from the University of the Philippines Los Banos, and her Ph.D. in Microbiology from the University of Georgia, GA, USA. She joined the NIMBB faculty in 1996 and became the Institute’s director from 2003-2012. She remained a distinguished member of the NIMBB faculty until her retirement in December, 2020. She will be fondly remembered by numerous colleagues and students, especially from the Institute, who have learned from her expertise, leadership, and friendship.

Friends and colleagues of Prof. Cynthia T. Hedreyda may view her cremated remains on July 8-9, 2021 at the Heaven’s Garden Memorial Park in Los Banos, Laguna.

Additional information: Dr. Hedreyda completed her BS Biology and MS Genetics from the University of the Philippines Los Baños and obtained her PhD in Microbiology from the University of Georgia, Athens GA, USA. She was former Director of NIMBB UPD (2003-2012) and was the Head of the Molecular Microbiology Laboratory and faculty member of the Institute from 1996 until her retirement in December 2020.

Dr. Hedreyda was a Fellow of the Philippine Academy of Microbiology and recipient of an Outstanding Microbiologist Award from the Philippine Society for Microbiology, Inc as well as an Achievement Award in Biological Sciences from the National Research Council of the Philippines and a 2019 Filipino Faces of Biotechnology Award from the Department of Agriculture. In addition to teaching and research mentoring in Molecular Microbiology,

Dr. Hedreyda was actively involved in nationwide projects to promote and enhance Biotechnology Education in the Philippines . She Chaired a project aimed at instituting a General Education course in Biotechnology in colleges and universities and spearheaded the annual conduct of NBECT, National Biotechnology Education Conference for Teachers and the National Biotechnology Quiz Contest for High Schools.

PHOTO:
Prof. Cynthia T. Hedreyda, December 2020, during her retirement celebration in Quezon City, Philippines

Source: https://nimbb.science.upd.edu.ph/?p=1475

UP Message of Condolence on the Passing of Former President Benigno Simeon C. Aquino III

University of the Philippines (UP) President Danilo L. Concepcion and the UP community condole with the country on the loss of former Senator and the 15th President of the Republic of the Philippines (2010-2016), Hon. Benigno Simeon Cojuangco Aquino III.

During his term, President Aquino was a strong supporter of the higher education sector, including the University of the Philippines. He also understood the importance of high-value scientific research and innovation in the country and supported the various research initiatives within UP and collaborations between UP and the government sector.

President Aquino was honored with a Doctor of Laws degree, honoris causa, during the University of the Philippines Diliman’s General Commencement Exercises on April 17, 2011. He was cited “for providing leadership in rallying the people to stamp out corruption, campaigning for institutional reforms, and creating an environment for agencies, including the Armed Forces of the Philippines, to act with dispatch on malfeasance in government, promote the rule of law, and respect people’s constitutional rights.”

Source: https://up.edu.ph/up-message-of-condolence-on-the-passing-of-former-president-benigno-simeon-c-aquino-iii/?fbclid=IwAR12hOVJIrrveJsbarJYUIxSWethBowvIG5PR8HccFSTojN8igzgUONYzwc

Jose Castro Pamintuan, respected cardiologist

Dr. Jose Castro Pamintuan of Lewes, a well-respected cardiologist, passed away Monday, June 28, 2021. He spent the month of June at home in the loving company of his wife of 53 years, Dr. Elvira Lacdao Pamintuan, and his five children, Maria Anita, Maria Alyssa, Maria Aimee, Jose Delfin, and Cristina Marie. Dr. Pamintuan was 84.

Dr. Pamintuan was born in Calulut, San Fernando, Pampanga, son of Delfin Pamintuan, a school teacher and farmer, and Maria Castro Pamintuan, a homemaker and farmer. As a top student at San Fernando High School, he earned a seat at the University of the Philippines College of Medicine. In college he joined Phi Kappa Mu and sang tenor in The Four Aces, an a capella group. He received his doctor of medicine degree in 1961.

In 1962, he traveled to the United States to further his training both at Church Home and Hospital, then affiliated with Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, and at Bronx Lebanon Hospital in New York City. Afterward, he completed a postdoctoral fellowship in cardiology at the University of Pennsylvania, where he met his wife, Elvira Lacdao, then a resident in obstetrics and gynecology at Philadelphia General Hospital.

More intensive training in cardiology followed at Temple University Hospital and Hahnemann Hospital, both in Philadelphia. At that time, he co-authored several research papers on the action potential of the human heart and the mechanisms of cardiac arrhythmias which were published in The American Journal of Cardiology. He also wrote a seminal work on hyperlipidemias published in The Lancet, considered by many to be the world’s premier medical journal.

In 1970, he moved to Seaford to lead the Coronary Care Unit and to establish a new Intensive Care Unit at Nanticoke Memorial Hospital. He developed the nurse training programs for both departments, teaching many of the classes himself.

Shortly thereafter, he became president of the medical staff and was the first medical staff president to be named to the board of directors at Nanticoke. He also served on the editorial board of the Medical Society of Delaware and was formerly chairman of the Sussex County Heart Association.

With private practices in both Seaford and Dover, his energy knew no bounds, and his passion for the Philippines was expressed in his work with charitable organizations including Ding Kampangan, an annual medical mission he co-founded with his friend the late Dr. Camilo Gopez, a neurosurgeon of Wilmington, Del. He served as president both of the University of the Philippines Medical Alumni Society in America (UPMASA) (2001-03) and the Delaware Valley UPMASA (1998-2001).

He co-founded and was president of Hope Medical Clinic in Dover, a free clinic for uninsured adults, which he conceived of and established with three fellow Filipino physicians. Veterans of medical missions to the Philippines, the four doctors wished to bring the spirit of these charitable missions back to Delaware to serve the poor and uninsured.

Before retiring in 2011, he worked as a physician in the Delaware state correctional system, caring for men whom society had forgotten. He believed in their right to good medical care and pondered the difficult life circumstances that had brought many of them to prison. He cared for them as he would any patient and was never seen without a history book to accompany him on breaks. During this time, he also cared for developmentally disabled and chronically ill residents at the Stockley Center in Georgetown.

Dr. Pamintuan was an avid fisherman with keen knowledge of Delaware and Maryland waterways, which he navigated with his son Jose at his side on his trusty yacht, Cristina, named after his youngest daughter. Perhaps the marshy waters of Delaware reminded him of the muddy rivers of his youth in the Philippines, which he hoped to return to one day. He loved steamed clams, blue crabs, and his favorite, raw oysters.

He followed sports and was interested in world cultures, especially their politics and regional foods. He loved to sing Filipino kundiman (love songs) and American classics including “Over the Rainbow,” which he sang with his children in five-part harmony. He sought harmony both in song and in life, and was a deep believer in social justice and equity, which he expressed throughout his life as a physician and community leader. In addition, he often caught people off guard with his great and unique sense of humor.

He was predeceased by his parents and eight siblings, whose families he cared for however possible. Over the decades, he sent numerous nieces, nephews, grandnieces, and grandnephews to college, a testament to his belief in the value of education and supporting the next generation.

He is survived by his wife and five children; granddaughters Maria Sofia Pamintuan Fusco and Emma Isabella Pamintuan Fusco; sons-in-law Dino Fusco (married to Maria Anita) and Gijsbert Grotenbreg (married to Cristina Marie); and extended family in the Philippines.

Dr. Pamintuan’s Mass of Christian Burial will be held at 11 a.m., Saturday July 10, at St. Jude the Apostle Catholic Church, 152 Tulip Drive, Lewes. There will be a visitation from 10 to 11 a.m.

All who cannot attend in person are invited to join the services via livestreaming by visiting the following link: youtube.com/channel/UC2vnHlr2UccJsuItv_Xrzhg.

Arrangements are being handled by Parsell Funeral Homes & Crematorium, Atkins-Lodge Chapel, Lewes.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to Hope Medical Clinic at Modern Maturity Center in Dover, and University of the Philippines General Hospital through UPMASA at upmasanational.org.

Visit Dr. Pamintuan’s Life Memorial webpage and sign his virtual guest book at parsellfuneralhomes.com.

Source: shorturl.at/hqxC6

Celebrating the life of Tita Nelia

By Dr. Emil Q. Javier

‘There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why… I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?’

– Robert Kennedy

Last week, I attended the birthday celebration of a truly outstanding Filipino who has given so much of herself for our country, particularly in agriculture and rural development.

I am referring to Nelia Teodoro-Gonzalez, fondly called Tita Nelia by many who was a pioneering agribusiness and social entrepreneur; an outstanding civil servant, exponent of cooperative and small farmer development; a stalwart of the University of the Philippines Alumni Association (UPAA); and an indefatigable fund raiser for worthy social causes. All of these she accomplished while raising six accomplished children and a still growing brood of grandchildren and great grandchildren. She has led a remarkably productive, challenging and multifaceted life. In her 94 years, she managed to cram in the equivalent of several careers. As former President Fidel Ramos pointed out in the preface of a book about her: Nelia T. Gonzalez — An Entrepreneur’s Journey “Writing about Nelia is an arduous task. It would be difficult to assess whether one has already said enough.”

A pioneering agribusiness and social entrepreneur

After earning a degree in plant pathology from the University of the Philippines College of Agriculture (UPCA) in Los Baños in 1944, she briefly served as agronomist at the Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI). She was soon engaged by the late industrialist Salvador Araneta to help in managing the Araneta Institute of Agriculture (now the De Salle Araneta University) and the Republic Flour Mills (RFM).

As General Manager and Vice President of RFM, together with a team including notable engineer Ralph Villanueva, poultry nutritionist Mario Lababan, and veterinarian Meliton Novilla, she chalked up a number of achievements and firsts. The consequences of these initiaves had lasting impacts on the animal industry. Among them were: 1) pioneered in the importation of the first White Leghorn chicks from the US to boost local egg production, 2) established the Araneta Feed Mills and served for several years as President of the Philippines Association of Feed Millers (PAFMI), 3) opened the export trade for wheat by-products (bran and pollard) to Southeast Asia and Japan, 4) established the first biological laboratory producing feed supplements, medicines and vaccines for the local animal industry, 5) managed the first soybean oil extraction plant in the country which gave impetus to the local production of soybean meal as animal feed, 6) pioneered in the production of yeast from molasses, and 7) established the Better Poultry and Livestock Magazine, which for five decades served as primary source of information for aspiring small and medium scale poultry and livestock raisers.

But easily the most notable contribution of Tita Nelia and her team was the introduction of broiler poultry contract growing. RFM was the first integrator, providing day-old chicks, feeds, veterinary supplies and growing technology to contract growers and buying back the birds at competitive prices. The scheme proved to be very successful and the rest of the industry followed suit. To date the broiler industry is one of our most productive and regionally competitive sectors in agriculture.

But much later on she realized that poultry integrators for obvious business reasons gravitated toward the bigger, better-endowed growers. With the Punla sa Tao Foundation (PSTFI) which she headed, Mrs. Gonzalez helped organize the backyard poultry raisers into a cooperative, mobilized support from the Local Government Units (LGUs), linked them with a microfinance entity (Sikap Bidani), and enrolled them with an integrator, Bounty Corporation. All these players were brought together by her PSTFI into a model small farmers contract growing scheme called Manok Mabuhay Program.

Pioneering hybrid corn seed producer

Next to broiler among the high performers in agriculture is the yellow corn feed industry. With the entry of multinationals and the introduction of genetically modified (GM) yellow corn hybrids in the late 1990s, our hectarage and feed corn production grew by leaps and bounds.

Not widely known but acknowledged by Filipino plant breeders was the pioneering venture of Mrs. Gonzalez in the local production of corn and soybean hybrid seeds with the establishment of Phil Hi-Bred, Inc. in the early 1970s. Sourcing the original seed parent materials from Pioneer Hi-Bred Seed Company in Iowa and mobilizing local expertise, she established hybrid seed production operations in South Cotabato, in a 40-hectare farm in Naujan Oriental Mindoro and a 1,000-hectare farm in Bansud, also in Oriental Mindoro.

After a very successful start, she was bought out by her Japanese and Filipino partners and she had to move on.

Outstanding civil servant and exponent of cooperatives and small farmer development

After working for the RFM group, she went into business on her own and ventured into real estate development, commercial fishing and corn hybrid seed production. The two latter experiences proved to be very valuable in the next career move she was thrust into when President Ferdinand Marcos appointed her in 1980 as Assistant Minister of Agriculture upon the recommendation of then Secretary Arturo Tanco Jr.

Thus Mrs. Gonzalez had a ringside seat so to speak in the heydays of the banner programs of agriculture during the Marcos years — Masagana 99; Masaganang Maisan, Pagkain Bayan at Gulayan sa Kalusugan and Bakahang Barangay. As the key aide of DA Agriculture Secretary Tanco she was witness, and played a key supporting role in all of them.

But in addition, Mrs. Gonzalez was given the concurrent assignment as Director of the Bureau of Cooperative Development. As such she was responsible for strengthening the organization of the Samahang Nayons as a first step. But as a practicing businesswoman herself, she knew the Samahang Nayons will not go far without supporting marketing and financing arms. She therefore assiduously supported as well the establishment of Area Marketing Cooperatives and Cooperative Rural Banks.

Worth mentioning because of its continuing relevance was a special project for which Mrs. Gonzalez was directly responsible for — the World Bank KABSAKA project in Iloilo. The then dominant programs, Masagana 99 and Masaganang Maisan, were monocrop farming systems. KABSAKA took a different tack and emphasized relay cropping (multiple cropping) to raise cropping intensity and hence increase the income of farmers substantially. Included in the menu was the introduction of small reservoirs to enable the farmers to control the availability of water in the amounts and times the crops need water.

The KABSAKA multiple cropping approach proved to be very successful. Unfortunately, the Department of Agriculture (DA) seemed to have forgotten and has not followed through.

Stalwart of the UP alumni association

Her commitment to her Alma Mater, the University of the Philippines, is legendary. She is probably one of the alumni who have served the longest with the UP Board of Regents having been appointed (and renewed) for extended periods during the Fidel Ramos and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo administrations.

She was the moving spirit that brought together the different (8) college alumni associations into the UP Los Baños alumni association. In the early 1980s she led the campaign to build the UPLB Alumni Center. She led the campaign to solicit professorial chairs for outstanding faculty. She was instrumental in the construction of the imposing Carillon Tower in the Los Baños campus which Los Baños alumni claim with pride as taller than the original carillon tower in UP Diliman and with more and bigger bells.

She delivered as well for the main campus in UP Diliman. She is credited for leading the initiative to build the Bahay ng Alumni at a cost of P85 million in 1995.

Indefatigable fund raiser for social causes

Apart from her agribusiness involvements, her forays in real estate development and eco-tourism ventures, Mrs. Gonzalez found time to be actively involved with at least 18 organizations and entities. She was a much sought-after officer, director, treasurer and fund raiser of many social, civic, religious, political and educational organizations. Her engagements in social causes and philanthropy are not only very numerous and long-running, they are so varied, reflecting her broad and comprehensive interests and life commitments.Among the organizations/causes she championed are: 1) The Philippine Tuberculosis Society, 2) ERDA Tech Foundation, 3) Foundation for Carmelite Scholastics, 4) Zonta Club of Quezon City, 5) Manila Overseas Press Club, 6) Philippine Constitution Association (PhilConsa), 7) Punla sa Tao Foundation, 8) UP SERDEF (small and medium scale industries), 9) UP Pahinungod (volunteers) Foundation, 10) Sons and Daughters of the Philippine General Hospital, 11) UP Center for Women Studies, 12) Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society Foundation, 13) Coalition for Agriculture Modernization in the Philippines (CAMP), 14) Pambansang Kilusan Para sa Batayang Sektor, 15) National Council of Women, 16) UP System Alumni Association, 17) UP Los Baños Alumni Association and 18) Federation of Business and Professional Women.

A forever grateful alumna

Mrs. Gonzalez’s love for the College of Agriculture and Food Science (CAFS) cannot be quantified. Aside from fund-raising activities, she personally and continuously sponsors various awards for faculty and staff not only to recognize their contributions to the College and to their respected fields but also to motivate them to work harder.

The Nelia T. Gonzalez Award for CAFS Outstanding Researcher and Outstanding Extension Personnel and the Nelia Teodoro-Gonzalez Professorial Chair are indications of her never-ending “pay back” to the College.

Truly a woman of substance

Not all heroes are dead. There are many living with us. Tita Nelia is certainly one of them. To the many generations of alumni from UPLB, to the many institutions and countless beneficiaries of the social causes she championed she is a hero, an icon and an inspiration.

Selfless, indefatigable, enterprising, excellent manager of ideas, resources and people, champion of the poor, incurable optimist and grand matriarch, all rolled into one — truly a woman of substance.

Dr. Emil Q. Javier is a Member of the National Academy of Science and Technology (NAST) and also Chair of the Coalition for Agriculture Modernization in the Philippines (CAMP). For any feedback, email [email protected].

Source: https://bit.ly/2SMdaGk