Emmanuel Piñol, Department of Agriculture secretary, led the swearing-in ceremony of the newly-appointed Board of Trustees (BOT) and three deputy executive directors (DED) of Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice), August 31, Quezon City.
Engr. Romeo Vasquez, 56, from Isabela, now sits as the representative of the agribusiness sector in the BOT. Vasquez, a farmer since 1995, received the TOFARM Agricultural Entrepreneur Gold Award in 2013 and the DA’s Regional Gawad Saka Award for Outstanding Agri-Entrepreneur in 2014.
Owner of seed production, rice milling, and rice trading enterprises, he is a BS Agricultural Engineer graduate from Central Luzon State University.
Vasquez aspires to help his fellow farmers become millionaires and be resilient through farm mechanization and use of quality seeds.
Meanwhile, Dr. Flordeliza Bordey, Dr. Karen Eloisa Barroga, and Mr. Abner Montecalvo also took their oath as new DEDs for Research, Development, and Administrative Services and Finance, respectively.
Bordey holds a PhD in Agricultural Economics from the University of Illinois. She is a well-published author of topics on food policy, trade liberalization, production economics, and impact assessment. Among the books she co-authored include the Competitiveness of Philippine Rice in Asia; Rice Self-Sufficiency under the Lens of Provincial Analysis: A New Way of Looking at the National Rice Security; and the Comparative Efficiency of Rice Farming in Asia and the Philippines. She also led the project, Benchmarking the Philippine Rice Economy Relative to Major Rice-Producing Countries in Asia, funded by the DA-FSSP.
Barroga led the Improving Technology Promotion and Delivery through Capability Enhancement of Next-Gen Rice Extension Professionals and other Intermediaries (IpaD) project. She obtained her PhD degree at the University of Western Australia and had been working in the PhilRice development sector for more than 30 years now. She is also the incumbent President of the Philippine Extension and Advisory Services Network (PhilEASNet), Inc., a national organization of extension professionals advocating for the advancement of extension theory and practice through creating avenues for the development of its experts.
Montecalvo formerly served as the branch director of PhilRice Agusan and has been the recipient of the Institute’s Outstanding Official Award in 2002, 2013, and 2016. He earned his master’s degree in Applied Business Economics at the University of Asia and the Pacific, and had been working in various managerial positions at PhilRice for more than 20 years.
