SEEING artworks in museums and galleries is often perceived as an activity only for the elite when in fact anyone can go and visit them.

This was what the Neo-Angono Artists Collective (NAAC) hoped to address when they opened the fifth Public Art Festival.

“Kino-consider lang na art ang isang bagay kapag nasa loob ng museum [A piece of work is considered art only when it is inside a museum]. The Neo-Angono artists found the need to explore art outside the gallery. So, we are utilizing public spaces like Angono River, public market, and the freedom park,” said Richard Gappi, festival coordinator and past president of NAAC.

Last year’s festival, which carried the theme “Bringing Arts and Culture to Public Space and Closer to the People,” hopes to address this misconception about art.

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HOW did Vietnam turn into the second largest rice-exporting country from being the world’s top importer of rice?

Through the Contract 100 policy and Land Law, farmers were liberated from a collective and one-price policy, according to Dr. Vo-Tong Xuan, the first Dioscoro Lopez Umali (DLU) awardee for agricultural development.

“They have higher yield and have incentives to grow more rice and to sell at a higher price,” Xuan added.

Xuan played a key role in Vietnam’s transformation, as he convinced both local and central government to adopt new agricultural policies.

But before Xuan achieved a critical mass of participants in the national effort in agricultural and rural development (ARD), he went through several stages. But first he advised that one should have the “heart and head” for ARD and nation-building.

“I reckoned it would take first our own people to help themselves before other people would come to help us,” said Xuan.

Xuan said governments should not only be competent technically but also possess a strong political will to come up with incentive policies for farmers and agribusinesses.

However, challenges to the rice-exporting countries like Vietnam remain, he said.

“It is easy to boost rice production but very difficult to increase farm income. We need further political will to take rice farmers out of the poverty trap,” said Xuan.

Currently, Xuan is advocating a movement to raise farmers’ income through the “value chain” approach. He is planning to form a farmer’s cooperative to create a permanent link to marketing enterprises.

As a DLU Awardee, Xuan who is an Agricultural Chemistry alumnus of the University of the Philippines Los Baños, received a plaque and a cash prize of $10,000.

The Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA), National Academy of Science and Technology (NAST), and the DLU Foundation give the DLU award every year to individuals who shows excellence, leadership and service in the field of agricultural development, environment, natural resource management, technology development, food security, poverty reduction, economics, business policy and governance.

For every plate of steamed rice on the table, cups of sweat were poured to plant, care for, harvest and process these golden grains. The true heroes who put rice on our tables can be found in Nueva Ecija, the rice capital of the Philippines. INQUIRER.net multimedia reporter Anna Valmero asks farmers in the rice fields of Sta. Rosa about their concerns and humble wishes. Video taken by INQUIRER.net production specialists Janie Christine Octia and Rastle Lozano with Lawrence Casiraya and Leo Magno. Royalty-free music courtesy of Kevin MacLeod.

HOW did the economic crunch affect Filipinos’celebration of the coming of the new year? INQUIRER.net VDO went to different places to ask what adjustments Filipinos made to maintain a festive mood while tightening their belts. As expected, fireworks were still aplenty, and injuries were still reported. Video and photos taken by Janie Christine Octia, Izah Morales, Anna Valmero, Marjorie Gorospe, Lawrence Casiraya, Erwin Oliva and Leo Magno.

Also, hundreds fill up the plaza of Eastwood City in Libis with their eyes on the clock tower for the countdown to 2009. Meanwhile, the sleepy town of Mangaldan in Pangasinan wakes up when a Judas Belt firecracker combination worth P20,000 was set off, lasting for a little more than a minute. In Imus, Cavite, residents welcome the new year and turn the streets into a virtual war zone. Video taken by Leo Magno, Erwin Oliva and Alex Villafania of INQUIRER.net VDO.