DA-Philrice draws up corporate plan

SUBIC BAY – The Department of Agriculture-Philippine Rice Research Institute (DA-PhilRice) is now drafting its new corporate plan.

The draft of the corplan was hammered out during the PhilRice corplanning workshop held recently at the Crown Peak here.

The workshop was attended by 63 officials, staff members, and consultants of PhilRice and supported by the DA-Bureau of Agricultural Research (BAR). Keynote speaker was Dr. Eliseo Ponce, BAR director.

A pre-planning workshop had earlier been held at the PhilRice central experiment station in Muñoz, Nueva Ecija.

Both workshops tackled the following issues: Research and Development (R&D); Networking, linkages, and station development; Technology promotion strategies; Budget and resource generation; and Organizational structure and human resource development.

At the workshop’s closing program here, PhilRice Executive Director Leocadio S. Sebastian said: "We general directions of what we want to do in the next five years are now clear. We have also come to realize the difficult task that we have to tackle."

He further stressed: "I advocate that as we perform the tasks we are mandated to do, let us be deliberately conscious of the need to engender in the minds of our people – from the national leaders down to the farmers – the urgency of mustering a strong political will to solve the herculean problems that have been saddling the rice industry for decades."

In his opening remarks as he set the tone of the conference, Dr. Sebastian pointed out that the corporate plan should reflect the PhilRice family’s best ideas on what it would like the institute to be in the future.

"Our corporate plan is not only the reflections of our collective expertise today; rather it should manifest our noble dreams and aspirations for the future," he said.

The crafting of the corplan was one of the important matters that Dr. Sebastian said he would focus on in his first 100 days executive director of PhilRice when he assumed the institute’s top post last Aug. 7.

He succeeded Dr. Santiago R. Obien, who retired from government service last July 28 upon reaching the mandatory retirement age of 65. Dr. Obien had served as PhilRice’s top official since the institute began operating in 1987.

In his acceptance speech, Dr. Sebastian emphasized: "This CorPlan shall erect an innovative framework that will guide us as we address the current and emerging problems in rice R&D. It will crystallize our new approached and strategies in pursuing our goals."

The second task, he said, is to come up with and put to work innovative strategies for technology promotion and development.

"We will conduct a massive dissemination of rice information and technologies through an effective mixture of conventional and alternative methodologies," he stressed.

Third, effective mechanisms that will ensure a healthy working environment and good teamwork among all PhilRice employees will be established.

"With these initial efforts, I believe we are laying down a good foundation to continue working together for the Filipino farmers," Dr. Sebastian concluded. – Rudy Fernandez