THE beginning is the end, and the cycle starts all over again.
T.S. Eliot elaborates the point best: “We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”
With that, let me proceed with what I should have normally done when the Department of Agriculture (DA) Regional Office in the Cordillera was informed of the designation of its new regional executive director by Secretary Proceso J. Alcala, vice Ms. Marilyn V. Sta. Catalina. This one is quite an exception and I bided my time.
We know that since early last year, Director Sta. Catalina has been consulting her doctors about a disease that remains a mystery to me, personally.
In spite of her frequent medical consultations, Director Sta. Catalina told us she does not know what ails her. Her physical condition did not improve.
Director Sta. Catalina effectively attended to her duties in the region until her travel to Israel in April and upon her return, she spent her days confined in the hospital. She returned to the Cordillera to bid the regional staff farewell in mid-June. Returning to Manila, en route to Bicol, she was instead brought back to the hospital and stayed at the ICU. I was informed of her death last July 19, 2015, by sources at the DA Central Office.
Atty. Cipriano G. Santiago, CESO lll, was Regional Executive Director of Region lV-B (MIMAROPA) when his new designation was served, effective immediately, last June 6, 2015.
He is a Cordilleran who traces his roots to Pidigan, Abra, (mother side) and Narvacan, Ilocos Sur, on his father’s side.
Like the rest of the pioneer staff who formed the Department of Agriculture-Cordillera Administrative Region (DA-CAR), Atty. Santiago started his career in the DA from the ranks as Cooperative Development Officer assigned in Ifugao Province, then under Region 02.
At DA-CAR, Lawyer Santiago rose as Chief Supervising Agriculturist and Regional Executive Director. He was assigned as Regional Executive Director of Region 01 and served there for a couple of years before his transfer to Region lV-B, in 2011.
His designation as Regional Executive Director of DA-RFO-CAR gives him that rare opportunity to complete a return cycle to his origins, and start all over again in a new journey.
Since he last left DA-RFO-CAR, Atty. Santiago returns with the benefit of exposure and experience under the nation’s different physio-socio-cultural environments. He has certainly gained wisdom, new outlooks and lessons in management and leadership in his different assignments.
He has retained his serious and silent demeanor and winning ways. He put a smile on everybody’s face after reviewing a persistent problem that stayed with us for too long and solving it during his first operational meeting with the management staff.
Absent from the Cordillera for close to decade, Atty. Santiago returns to his roots, re-engaging it once more, like it is his first time. And as is the case, every time a new head is appointed to an office, the director and the ranks, would have to start all over again too, in many ways than one. That would be difficult if so much has happened. Not in this case; he will just have to re-adjust his knowledge and experiences to an office and the land that has retained much of its moorings and causes, and where he is still very much a part of it.
Lawyer Santiago was warmly welcomed by the local government unit (LGU) executives of the Cordillera and their agricultural operatives during the conduct of the Philippine Rural Development Program Regional Project Advisory Board (PRDP-RPAP) last August 7, which he chaired.
As Regional Executive of the DA’s Regional Office here, Atty. Santiago is also director of both special projects of the agency, the PRDP and Second Cordillera Highland Agricultural Resources Management Project (CHARMP2).