Happy Leap Day! Yes, We Can & Must Cultivate Kindness – Frank A Hilario


29 February 2020. “Leap Of Kindness Day,” says the above message from Rockport Fulton[1]. Me, yes I’m doing something kind for my country the Philippines starting today. I’m making a Leap of Faith and starting a digital popular magazine. 

This is not my first time to start and edit a publication – I founded and edited the 3 publications of the Forest Research Institute 1975-1981: monthly newsletter Canopy, quarterly technical journal Sylvatrop, and quarterly popular color magazine Habitat. During The Age Of Dinosaurs (Typewriters).

Already, I am an old hand with digital works. I began self-learning digital writing, editing and desktop publishing on Innocents Day, 1985. In 2007, as Editor In Chief I made world-class or ISI the 25-year old Philippine Journal of Crop Science owned by the Crop Science Society of the Philippines based at UP Los Baños.

I have desktop-published many books; the one I love best is the coffee-table book of ACPC: The Filipino Farmer Is Bankable, 150 pages. I wrote the text; 50% of the photographs are mine.

Today, the magazine I’m thinking of, Ammom, Philippines, is dedicated to the Inclusive & Sustainable Development of my country, via Agriculture, following the precepts of Secretary of Agriculture William Dar/Manong Willie in his “New Thinking for Agriculture” with its embedded “The Eight Paradigms” from which we are to derive our initiatives in programs and projects for the good of the Filipino people, especially the poor farmers and fishers.

“Inclusive Development” means the poor farmers and fishers are recipients of the values along the value chain, minus usurers and merchants. “Sustainable Development” means that the results of technologies and systems employed by society show technical feasibility, economical viability, environmental soundness, and social acceptability[2].

Why a magazine? Here is a list:

1. Opportunity for thousands more readers.
2. We can publish original, thought-provoking ideas.
3. Readers can go back to an article and be convinced.
4. Cultural values can be explored more.
5. Continuity.
6. Art is best appreciated, because you can easily go back to the paper or page.
7. For cultivating habits, including checking facts.
8. For promoting campaigns of any kind.
9. For celebrations, including the scientific and intellectual.
10. For interviews – and therefore cultivating loyal readers.
11. For nurturing cultural values.
12. Magazines “provide the reader with in-depth and concise information, in a portable and readable form” – Donna Halper, Professor of political communication, media historian, author, former reporter[3].

And Susanna Schrobsdorff, an executive editor for TIME, mentions the “symbolic role of the magazine’s cover[4],” the Person of the Year, in Influence. Copying, I will have in Ammom Pilipinas my own Citizen Of The Year, COTY, in Kindness. I got the idea from the Facebook sharing of my son Jomar just as I finalize this; his source is blogger Ursula, who says, “Kind people are the smartest of all.[5]” She says Richard Davidson “explains that kindness requires an ability to think not just of yourself, but of others as well.” That’s smart!@517





[1] http://members.rockport-fulton.org/events/details/leap-of-kindness-day-46957
[2] http://www.fao.org/3/ai388e/AI388E05.htm
[3] https://www.quora.com/Why-is-a-magazine-very-important
[4] https://www.gwhatchet.com/2019/10/23/time-magazine-executive-editor-talks-publications-role-in-politics-culture/
[5] https://www.creativehealthyfamily.com/goodness-takes-intelligence-why-kind-people-are-the-smartest-of-all/

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