About FSMRC

Our mission is to strengthen the environmental resilience of marginalized communities through agriculture and science education

Introduction

Francis S. Morales, better known as Tatay Francis to many of his younger co-workers, died at age 63 while very active in the establishment of a national network of disaster survivors. His legacy as an advocate of people’s rights, sustainable agriculture, the environment, and disaster response lives on through organizations he was once a big part of. He left this world as the Executive Director of BALSA Mindanao, an organization helping communities rise up from disasters. Before that, he was the spokesperson of the environmental advocacy group Panalipdan! Southern Mindanao from its founding in 2008 until 2012 and the advocacy officer of MASIPAG Mindanao regional office until 2006. Tatay Francis’ contribution to national development started way back before the Martial Law period during which he decided to leave priesthood and, instead, practiced his christian beliefs by actively promoting the defense of people’s rights. With such work experience spanning more than four decades, it is but fitting to establish an institute in his honor.

The Institute

Francis S. Morales Resource Center (FSMRC) aims to be an institute that touches on three concerns: environment, food security, and scientific and mass culture. By providing the educational and training needs of marginalized communities at the forefront of struggles concerning the environment, FSMRC shall help:

1. build their capacities in understanding their environmental problems;
2. enhance their resilience to disasters;
3. strengthen their food security and self-sufficiency.

It shall be governed and guided by leaders from marginalized communities, academic professionals, and ecumenical organizations who volunteer their time, experience, and knowledge for the pursuit of the Institute’s mission.

Environmental and Science Education

Marginalized communities have been so partly because they don’t have access to education. Many Filipino farmers, for instance, have never entered Grade 1. Illiteracy is considered one of the major obstacles to public participation of these communities. However, their direct interaction with their environment can be a powerful background from which their understanding of more complex ecological concepts can take off. FSMRC shall help them understand environmental problems by developing materials that require only basic literacy and are based on direct experiences of the people with their environment.

Agricultural Education

Food is central to ecological survival. For marginalized communities, lackof food is thus their primary problem. Food acquired through cash-oriented livelihood projects has proven to be insecure especially in times of disaster, both man-made and natural. Many communities in the Typhoon Pablo-affected areas have thus realized the need to go back to farming through the initiative of farmers associations and BALSA Mindanao. The FSMRC can help in this endeavor by providing the agricultural education necessary for sustaining such projects. It shall continue in developing training programs which will increase the level of agricultural education of farmers. It shall do so by organizing and mobilizing agriculturists and scientists to serve marginalized farming communities.

Policy Research & Advocacy

Aside from promoting environmental and agricultural education, FSMRC shall also engage local, national, and international policymaking bodies on issues that affect the environmental resilience of marginalized communities. Such issues range from climate change adaptation, disaster risk reduction, to land reform and national industrialization. By doing relevant policy research & advocacy, the underlying causes of the persistent marginalization of many sectors in the country can be rooted out and removed once and for all. FSMRC believes that only by doing so can environmental resilience of these sectors be pushed to significantly higher levels.