By Uriel Quilinguing
GETTING an invitation for a luncheon from an ambassador is a distinct honor and a rare opportunity for high-level discussions on current global issues and challenges. So, upon learning from the Philippine Information Agency that the guest would be the newly-designated New Zealand ambassador to the Philippines, Peter Kell, I confirmed my presence.
Two subjects immediately flashed to my mind: the dairy project at the Misamis Oriental State College of Agriculture and Technology (Moscat) in Claveria, Misamis Oriental with the government’s National Dairy Authority, and the then Bukidnon Industrial (Tree) Plantation Project (Bipp) in Malaybalay City, Bukidnon which was later renamed Bukidnon Forest Inc. and managed by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources through the Natural Resources Development Corp..
But the subject of the news conference at Mallberry Business Suites was on post-graduate scholarships which the New Zealand government has been offering for two decades now. Admittedly, that was the first time I heard of such, and no less than from the New Zealand envoy who, though he assumed just a week ago, was already speaking in mixed Tagalog and Bisaya in his welcome remarks.
With about 20 of us in the room, I cannot help but wonder what motivated my colleagues to attend the activity on scholarship opportunities.
Most of us know well news on study grants and skills trainings if accommodated by media outlets, these are to be found in newspapers’ community section or news anchors’ adlibs of radio or television during public affairs programs. As commonly perceived, these have nothing to do with increased readership and listenership, hence these should come out as advertisements.
They also found out the course offerings are not their fields of interests, others are no longer age-eligible.
So, the New Zealand government, under its aid program, has opened its applications for 24 post-graduate scholarship slots, until February 28 this year. But those who can avail must be 39 years old and younger.
Identified priority sectors for these studies include agriculture, renewable energy, disaster risk management, and public sector management which subject areas of peace and conflict and indigenous peoples.
But Bisayan-speaking Dyan Mabunga Rodriguez, a native of Davao, who is the manager of the New Zealand Aid Program, drove home the point that the media practitioners have the power to effectively communicate to their readers and listeners what education can do to transform lives and communities.
Rodriguez somehow erased the idea what the Philippines would be deprived of the best minds since scholars are required to go back to the country and share whatever their knowledge and expertise back home.
The next day, when the newly-minted president of the Tesda Press Corps, Menzie Montes posted an invitation, in a group chat, for free trainings on technical skills many immediately responded, most of them into driving and pastries.
With Ambassador Kell and Rodriguez were Japanese Yukie Fukui, the regional market manager of the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand, Malaysian Desiree Lee, the market manager for Malaysia and Philippines of Education New Zealand who is based in Singapore, and Noelle Velasquez of the Nez Zealand Embassy in the Philippines facilitated the activity.
For me, providing a person opportunities to realize his potentials—through training and education—is sharing a frond of silver fern, which the Mâori natives of New Zealand use to represent enduring power, strength, and attachment to the homeland, the earth.
(Uriel C. Quilinguing is a former president of the Cagayan de Oro Press Club who had been editor in chief of Cagayan de Oro-based newspapers, including this paper. For reactions, email them to uriel.quilinguing@yahoo.com.)
