Making Acquaintances in the South: SDRC Visits Region 10

“You haven’t been to Camiguin – unless you come again.”

This local play on words capped the warm welcome extended by Dr. Lourdes Balaba, OIC of the Office of the Dean of the Fatima College of Camiguin, to the director and staff of the Social Development Research Center during their visit to the Mambajao campus on August 1. The event marked a jubilant return to the Center’s on-site nationwide capacity building training program for state universities and colleges, which was initiated in 2018 but was halted by the pandemic in 2020.

In reviving the in-person training program, a presentation on “The Art and Science of Journal Article Publication” was conducted by SDRC research associate and Department of Behavioral Sciences and Sociology associate professorial lecturer Dr. Zaldy Collado. It was an opportunity for him to share samples of correspondence from his own attempts at submitting to academic journals, as he spoke before an audience of graduate students at the school’s Catherine McAuley Centre. He mapped out a simple but concise six-step plan to increase the aspiring scholars’ chances of journal publication, and later fielded questions about submission requirements and on recommendations for where students could send their articles.

In the afternoon, the team proceeded to the Camiguin Polytechnic State College, also in Mambajao, where the presentation was delivered before members of the school’s faculty. Vice President for Academic Affairs Dr. Nena Siaboc noted the importance of publications as a sign of achievement and as a way of accelerating faculty ranking. Upon concluding the lecture, Dr. Collado addressed the audience’s queries on whether DLSU journals accepted submissions from external researchers, and encouraged junior faculty to collaborate with mentors in order to gain publishing experience.

To supplement their training activities, the SDRC team toured heritage sites and nature reserves in Camiguin, the country’s second smallest province, before moving on to Bukidnon. There they held a social engagement activity with the Talaandig community in Lantapan. During the visit, elder women tribal leaders, called “bae,” spoke about the Talaandigs’ cultural beliefs and practices. Representing the group, Bae Lisa Saway emphasized that it would be “a crime not to pass on our traditions to the next generation.” The elders performed a ritual of welcome and acceptance of the team, and blessed the members as they continued their journey. The visit was highlighted by dance performances of children, young women and elder women mimicking the planting cycle and the movements of animals in their surroundings. Before departing from Lantapan, the team stopped by the gallery of artist Salima Saway, who demonstrated the use of soil in her paintings depicting figures and incidents in the Talaandigs’ past.