 Magandang Araw, mga kababayan. This is TV Ops Science Innovation Series. I'm Giselle Concepcion, a scientist and professor at the Marine Science Institute. I do research on marine drug discovery. I'm the co-host of this program and I'd like to introduce my co-host, Benji Valiejo. Benji? Good day. I'm Benji Valiejo from the Institute of Environmental Science and Meteorology of the College of Science, where I am teaching as an associate professor. And I deal with issues on biodiversity and biogeography. And concurrently, I had the Science Technology and Society program of the University of the Philippines in Dilima. Thanks, Benji. Our exciting topic for today is Benham Rice, renamed Philippine Rice. And for this topic, we have with us as guests very important faculty in the university who I would like to introduce, Radora Asansa. Hello, I'm Radora Asansa from the Marine Science Institute. I'm a marine botanist, so I work on marine plants, which is the base of the food chain in the marine environment. These are the seaweeds and the phytoplankton. Nice to see you all. Thanks, Rod. Then we have Fernando Andosiringan. Good day to all of you. I'm teaching at the Marine Science Institute. I'm a geologist, but my research is what I do at Daggett. Thank you. Now, we have Alisa Pelleo Alampai. Hi. Good day to all of you. I'm also a geologist, but I specialize in the organisms, in particular fossils, which I used to study the oceans also of the past and the present. Thank you. Thank you very much. Our guests, this is going to be a very exciting and informative discussion for our kababayans. So, let's start the ball rolling. Ando, can you tell us how the Benham rice was formed geologically? It's a volcanic feature. And if you imagine Hawaii, Hawaii is a huge volcanic feature, but set that in a deep marine setting where you have a lot of lava coming out of an almost a concentrated area. And that going on for several million years, that led basically to the formation of what we're calling Benham Plateau. On top of that plateau, there are volcanic edifices. The biggest and the feature that comes to the shallowest depth is the Philippine rice. Benham rice. Interesting topic there, the biodiversity of Benham rice. Because when I look back, this is probably the largest coral reef that we did a survey in the whole of the Philippines. So, I'm just going to ask these students, how different is it from the other coral reefs in the Philippines? The shallowest part is 50 meters. The divers would be able to access depths of 20 meters, sometimes they go down to 30 meters. But this is 50 meters. So, for conventional divers, it's limited to the time that they can go down to the bottom. In your question earlier, what is there? Based on the surveys that were done by researchers funded by DOST, a joint group from UP Deliman from the Marine Science Institute, and from UP Los Baños, their description, where they show that there are places where you have 100% coral cover. Now, in shallow coral reefs, we almost no longer see that kind of coral cover. So, that's a big difference. Second, the edges of coral reefs, the life forms are different. Most of the time, the light is limited. They have life forms that cover the coral so that more light can enter the coral. So, different life forms, but genera-wise, they have life forms similar to shallow water. That's the coral. In the island, they also have a lot of documents. If my memory is correct, they have in one dive, they were able to identify 125 species. The lowest or most worried of the island in one dive is around 20. So, Rod, I think there are many divers. Just like what Ando said, there are a lot of studies on coral reefs. Now, let's move on. We need to learn how to study the ocean group using the ROV, Remotely Operated Vehicles. We need to learn how to do that, because one of the differences is that the sewage is less or less. There is no plant group that is similar to shallow water. Maybe there is a plant group that means that the corals are with the corals. The corals also can cover the light that the plants need. But there are definitely plants that are with the corals. They are called phytoplankton, which means that the corals are with the corals. That's why we need to learn what the corals that have other phytoplankton, maybe they have other phytoplankton that can be used in biomedical discoveries and other research that can be done. That means that maybe they have other phytoplankton that includes the corals that are with the corals. Rod, I think there is a report that there are a few fish, but there are a lot of corals. So the explanation is that because the phytoplankton is synthesized, the light can't really go out. So in food chain, the phytoplankton is important for the fish who are eating the smaller fish and then have a bigger fish. Actually, the food chain is also important. Because when the small fish eat the phytoplankton, the small fish eat the big fish. So the food chain is a good thing. It can be used in phytoplankton, small fish, big fish, and so on and so forth. So biodiversity from the smallest kind of organism to the biggest kind of organisms. But phytoplankton is very resistant. So in our studies, there are opportunistic species. Maybe that's why Dr. Asansa also taught that there are other phytoplankton or patizuoplankton that may be unique to that particular area. Because even in the past, phytoplankton, even if the conditions are quite low nutrient conditions or adverse conditions, they really still thrive. Sometimes it's just low diversity, but abundance is not a problem for them. They will really live in areas where they are able to. They're very opportunistic in that sense. And nature is that way. So they thrive. Later on, they become rocks. They become rocks. The phytoplankton, some of them, they make calcite shells or skeletons. And these calcite skeletons are actually also part of our carbon dioxide system. They draw down carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. And then later on, when these phytoplankton die, they end up in the bottom, then it becomes a part of the sediments that we use. And later on, they really become rocks. So that's the process that our world is doing to draw down the excess CO2 in the atmosphere. It's really rich. Benham rice as a study site for geological history. And especially for us in the immediate time, it's really the biodiversity that's also very, very important for us. Because we think historically, the people from Catanduan has always fished in the area. So they've known that area as a very lush, thriving fishing ground. So that's something that we really have to study and treasure also. And I add something. I just went to Isabella last time. And Isabella is quite near to partly, Benham rice in Bandang Ibaba. And then, the people reported before, there are a lot of species of fish that can only be seen in Isabella. So the connectivity of those fish to Benham rice, because that's where they can only be seen. So we should know, maybe we need to protect that area. So there are probably five species or three species that can only be seen in Isabella. So I think we'll get Ando, who is our MSI director, to tell us how he organized the expedition to study the Benham rice. This is our first encounter with it. We approached it and said to MSI, why didn't we do a research program for Benham rice? And from there, I talked to several researchers within MSI. And then MSI, looking at people who can help outside of MSI. And then, a team came up. They submitted a proposal to the NRCP, which is a big budget. This is why it is part of the main Department of Science and Technology. There are four sites that need to be studied. We've had two cruises, one is in 2014, the other is in 2016. During the first cruise in 2014, they thought there were places with only 20 meters of land. But when they got there, 50 meters is the most land. So what they did, they still, with a lot of discussions among the divers for safety considerations, they still decided to go down. They called it a bounce dive. It's low, but it's very low at the bottom. And from those first dives, the description of the people who went there, they were jealous, because of the discovery. Especially when they saw that the coral cover was very high. Maybe for this group, there were a lot of coral reefs here in the Philippines, where they changed, where they saw 100% coral cover. But they didn't only have coral cover here. I just want to add to what Dr. Azan said earlier. There are documents, seaweeds here in this area, and besides the seaweeds, there are also a lot of sponges. And these are what we really need to look at. These are other species of sponges, other species of seaweeds. What are they different from what we know of the coral reefs? And I just have to note that the organized team is multi-institutional. It's not just MSI. There are others from UP-Dileman, UP-LB, and then from Ateneo. Ateneo has Mindanao. There's also UP-Bagyo. It's a collective effort. The depth of that is what I call a twilight zone. And beyond. But the observation is the water was very clear, very high clarity of the water. Now, for scuba divers, all of us have been scuba divers from the past, including me. I think you have to share with our audience what it takes to dive to those depths. Why do I read it every two days? Let's talk about the scuba diving that we are doing, but for scientific investigation. A major consideration is to build up gases in our bodies. We need to give our bodies a rest. In Benham Rise, I'm not included in that cruise, but I do mesophotic coral ecosystems. We have had dives down to depths of 40 meters. Typically, we are only diving for safety considerations until 30 meters. And when we dive mesophotic, sometimes we dive for one day. And that's at 30 meters. But the researchers who dove in the Benham Rise, they went down to 50 meters. And because of the deep sea, you can expect a lot of consequences to the human body. If the sea is also long and if you are on the surface, you'll have to spend a long time to give your body a rest. Benji, what is your experience in diving? I focus on rocks, because you are a biogeographer. Also, Alisa, the rocks that have plankton. I focus on sponge. You need to connect with a sponge. You have a knife and a net bag. Our excitement in the direct visualization of the biodiversity more than compensates for the dives. I'm a sewage expert, so I can dive up to 15 meters or 10 meters. One of the most terrifying dives we made in Japan, because the sewage is so long, it's like a forest. We have dives in Bermuda. It's beautiful. The corals are different, but our biodiversity is higher. The highest of our biodiversity. We are the center of marine biodiversity. Our environment and coral reefs are beautiful. It's beautiful. We are a marine protected area. Don't leave us here alone. We'll be a marine. We'll be here. But you should only dive twice a day. What is the deepest dive? The deepest dive is about 35 meters deep. That's in Bermuda. Bermuda has a similarity to Benham Rise. But of course, Benham Rise is deeper. That's why the problem with human diving is that there are limitations. That's why the videos you can see on the internet, the video on Benham Rise, using the ROV or remotely operated vehicle underwater, we can see the biodiversity more. I noticed that in the video transects of the remote operated vehicle, I noticed that there are islands where I dive in Hawaii. It's also in Benham Rise. There might be connectivity. There might be connectivity. It's closer to Hawaii. That's why it's Pacific. That's why it's right to say that the islands in Isabella have connectivity. That's what they see in the Philippines. But it's related to what we see in the Central Pacific. 13 million hectares of the so-called Philippine rise. That's 13 million hectares. It's bigger than Luzon. Lisa, what do you do when you dive? Actually, when early in my career, I thought I was going to be diving a lot for the rest of my life. But it turns out, when I did my PhD, the area was getting bigger. So I can't do it in a few months. So what happened? I needed either a bank, no funding, or I needed a boat that was equipped to get a boat from the bottom and a boat from the bottom of the sea. So I'm really giving up diving. So I've given up on the diving dream every day. I hope I can dive in the field. Now, I really need a boat. Because the plank I'm learning, the main thing I'm learning is fossil to understand the sea. It's more fun if the place is deep. That's where we can dive in those areas. That's where you can find your boats. The good thing is that there are some of these areas that became rocks that actually are now above ground. So we can actually also study it in mountains around us. So it's also actually everywhere. So that saves us sometimes from funding. If you don't have funding to go out to sea or to dive or to get a bank, we can actually do land fieldwork and study these particular fossils, which actually used to be in the sea. I always remember Alisa when she said even stones move. So it's not just living organisms. So it's just telling us that in marine environments, in oceans, in corals, the interaction between the biota and the abayota is really close. There are a lot of studies that really transcend the biological part that apparently the organisms are also helping make rocks or stones. Yes. So the lithosphere, biosphere interaction and the hydrosphere, of course, are very well linked. That's why it all happened in a very minute scale of our earth. In terms of the rocks and the oceans, we have the interest to collect the bacterial spores that are found in the sand, as well as the sediment and the stones. And you have a lot of such samples in the MSI. So anyway, I think what the group did, a lot of MSI, was to explore our biodiversity in the Philippine rice. We brought instruments to augment the observation and visualization capabilities of our researchers. I saw the photos taken by Gil Hasinto, and I saw a video of Gil in the Benham rice. And then I saw the photo of the GoPro mini-camera. So tell us about that. How did we use that? The GoPro is a very small camera that you can connect to the part of your body. And you can go down to 60 meters with it. We've tried sending a GoPro to a depth of 100 meters. The only rating in the case is 60 meters. We thought GoPro was still alive. Is that the GoPro that you got from the whale shark? Because it was the first one to be taken with MSI. Yeah, well, we have our own ROV at MSI. It can go down to 150 meters. The camera that is attached to the ROV is low resolution. So what we are doing is we are taking the GoPro and we are sending it down to that depth. So the whale shark is in the ROV? There are sharks in the document. But this is not in Benham rice. This is in Tubataha and the Apo Reef. You are 100 meters away from the sharks. The nice thing with the GoPro is that it's relatively cheap. For something like 20,000 pesos, you can have an imaging system that can give you an excellent image underwater. In the past, to have an underwater camera, you will need something like at least 100,000 pesos. But now with 20,000, go ahead. But the ROV allows you to see what's happening underneath. So while the ROV is moving, you see the images underneath. And so you can drive it. You can send it where it can go. The GoPro, on the other hand, you attach weights to it, you send it down. Where it's going to go down, it's already there. That's very limited. That's why it's nice to have our next studies in Benham Rice and other parts of the Philippines. It's nice to have our own ROV that have capacity to go down to depths, hopefully even beyond 150 meters. There's capacity to take samples as well. There are ROV models that have attachments where you can take samples from underneath. And in what Benham Rice did, we can say that it's just a dot and a whole field of possible things to discover. We really don't know much about that place. That's why we should continue our studies in that place. And not only in the aspect of biodiversity, although the biodiversity itself, a lot of things should be done. Mamrod mentioned connectivity with the mainland. Certainly, you will have to look at that. Not only in Isda, but are the corals also connected to mainland? Will Benham Rice be connected to our resources in the mainland area? Application Bali mentioned drug discoveries. Certainly, I think there are many things that can be explored in that area. From a geological perspective, we should look at one aspect of hazards. If you look at the maps that are available to us in Benham Rice, Benham Rice is surrounded by a slump. And it's a huge feature. It's almost half of what Benham Rice used to be. It's like half of what it used to be. It's like half of what it used to be. And if that happened in the past, it can generate a huge tsunami. I mentioned earlier that Benham Rice is a volcanic feature and it's not a single edifice, volcanic, in the Benham Rice area, Benham Plateau area. There are many of them. If you look at the maps that were produced by Namriya, there are similar features in other places. From that perspective, the geological hazards related to the Benham Rice area need to be explored. Yes. We also have to put in mind that it's seismically active. The place is really moving. Seismically active. Seismically active. Because that place is the Philippine sea plate after all and the Pacific plate. It's active in the areas of our world. We expect that Benham Rice, along with this system, is really moving. It's a constant movement that we know is happening around us. It's a good segue to a reason why we think the Philippine rice is very valuable. So there are claims that it is rich in natural gas and oil and also minerals, including heavy metals and also maybe iron that is required to make steel. So as geologists, what do you have to say about that? That it's volcanic. So natural gas or oil? Mind you, our MSI director came from the National Institute of Geological Sciences. He's also a geologist. So you can make a list for you to have oil underneath. You need a sick package of sediments. You don't have that in the Benham Rice area. But what you have in the Benham Rice area are the metallic resources. So the potential is very large. In places that are a bit wide and flat, these are potential places where we can explore for what we call manganese nodules. Although its name is manganese, not just manganese. And this is where you can see very slow sediment input. And this is also where we call mid-oceanic ridges. There are places in the Benham Rice area where topography is very irregular. And they are aligned, like they have a line. Those are the mid-oceanic ridges. That's where we can see metallic resource, the sulfites. And in modern-day vents associated with mid-oceanic ridges, not only copper, but also metal. So the potential is very large. And based on the study of other systems, there are a lot of rare earth elements. And this can be found in the Benham Rice area if we need to study these. Let's look at the systematic exploration of the Philippine rice. I keep saying now Philippine rice, I don't know how many of you know why it is called Benham Rice. Who is Benham? Oceanographer though. We know history. Oceanographer is a science. Benji is a history of science. It's written on the internet. British Oceanographer was the first to map. I forgot his first name. Benham was the first to make a symmetric map. When the British invasion took place, it was in the early 20th century. Let's take a look. Anyway, going back to this systematic exploration. Usually, there are two ways of doing it. First is a survey or a reconnoiter. Now you have your instruments to try to see what's out there. I also know for a fact that in the MSI and the Patys of the Six, we have a project for bio-imaging of corals. We will use that. We will use drones. Eventually, it will be more versatile. What we call unmanned vehicles are OVs. After the survey, can we take samples? The question is, did we take samples last time? Did we leave transects there? There are samples selected there. This is a study in Los Baños, in the group of Hilda and Acorda. Sir, can I hear you? Yes. I think that there should be a multidisciplinary approach and the horizon, the perspective should be wider in the... I don't think about that anymore. The role of Benham Rise is not to look at a kind of goods and a kind of service that he can give. Everything in the environment has different services and goods that he can give. So there can be metals, there can be biodiversity and so on and so forth. The different agencies of the government, such as the Bureau of Fisheries, DTI, there are a lot of them. So at the level of the president, there should be a lot of studies, research and so on. A plan for the Benham Rise, because they might not be enough, because they want to take this, and so on and so forth. We should consider that the coral reef area is a very important ecosystem. By 2050, there may be a lot of coral reef areas. This is a very important ecosystem that is not only for us, but also for humanity. I mean, it's not only for us, but also for the whole humanity. So our view should be more broad and wider. I will support what Mamrod said, that science-based decision-making and policies that we will do, especially for the Benham Rise and the surrounding areas. We cannot be mayopic in terms of how we look at it. Science-based evidence should also be learned in our translation, because that's the problem with our scientists. We understand our data, our compartmentalized data, but it's hard for us to integrate, and at the same time, the next problem is how to communicate it to our policy makers, to the leaders of the country. There should be some of us who should be able to do that, and at the same time, look at it in a very large-scale perspective. It's not just the sea, but the land that connects to the sea. Because our studies from the watershed all the way to the reef, although this reef is a little wider. So we can only protect it if we learn about it, and if we study it very well. And not just us, the scientists who can understand, but the policy makers also have to understand what is at stake. So Alisa Rod and Benj, I think the Philippine Rise right now, the exploration of that triggered the national scientist Luli Cruz of MSI. Then we got support from the NRCP under the DOSD, but the boat came from the DLBFAR, Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources. They're partners there. The two of them. There are really cooperation between our national departments or agencies, but Rod, I think you should try to convince the DOSD to look at the bigger picture. We know that the DOSD secretary plans to have a presentation of the Philippine Rise to the Cabinet to President Duterte and has actually tapped the MSI to take the lead. So what are we going to say? In the Cabinet. Okay. This is what Ando Yata spoke about in the Senate. In the Senate. He proposed the NISD of Round Table Discussion. What is the NISD? The NISD is the National Academy of Science and Technology. This is the highest advisory body to the President and the Cabinet and the Legislative on Science and Technology. So three of us are from the NISD, we are academicians, me, Gisele and Ando. So there will be, I will propose a Round Table Discussion, a policy discussion on the Philippine Rise. Multi-agency, multi-interest, multi-stakeholders. And then after that, we can give our discussion points, our advices to the President and the Legislative and so on. So experts of all the agencies that should be called, they should be called there. So of course, MSI will play a role there. There will be a strategic plan, I hope. Of course, the Cabinet will think about it. We will give it to the President and the Cabinet. And I think we have to do this as fast as possible. I think that's so important. So we have to do this I think by August. Yes. Because we know that there's a lot of interest in the Philippine Rise. And well, that's because by the Convention on Law of the Sea, the Philippine Rise in actuality is part of our sovereign rights. Because it covers an area that is beyond the 12 nautical miles, which is the limit or boundary for sovereignty of, you know, parts of the sea. So the principle there, the extended continental shelf beyond the 12 nautical miles is still part of human times, you know, what you call this area of research and exploration and navigation. So I'm just quoting what Supreme Court Justice Tony Carpios said about sovereignty versus sovereign rights. Well, we know that there's a lot of interest from other countries. So I think Philippines should make that major investment because our biodiversity is really richest in the world. That Pacific seaboard is hardly explored. So it's important that we move fast. We can invest in a space program above our, you know, terrestrial domains. What about investing in the oceanographic or the ocean domains surrounding the Philippines as part of our sovereign rights? I think the national government should realize that we have more ocean surface, more ocean floor surface than land surface. And we have barely explored, studied the ocean. So there is much more to discover in the ocean. It will be a big investment. Yeah. Currently, if the question is, well, what can we do now? With what we now have, what can we do now? A big asset that we've recently acquired is having the research vessel BRP Gregorio. Velasquez. BRP Velasquez. It can go out and we've used that in the past, capable for doing scientific research in deep sea environment. It needs the crew to train in doing scientific research. The ship needs to equip and maintain instruments. Having that platform would be very important. And then we need to put people on board and give these people the instrumentation that is needed to do the field surveys, the instrumentation to do the analysis in the laboratory and then provide information for capacity building. If we look at how many we can top to train the Philippines not only many, but also a big lack. That's why one of the important things to do is building our knowledge creation. What we call the super structure. We also need to form and link up strategically with partners. Yes, I agree. Because we have to study things now. We need help. We can't do what we want to do. That's why we need to talk to other countries and groups that can help us. That's what we call international communications. And this is what UPD is doing now. We are sure that we will be advertised. SUCs and ATIs all over the country. It's very, very promising what will happen in our country but we don't have time. This topic is very exciting. Last words from the guest. That's what he said to us. Rob. Thank you so much for inviting me. I remember in 2005 Dr. Santos was a geologist. He was a geologist who joined our Benham Rice. He told me I have to be absent at the CEB. I have to do something for the country. He started this. We have to continue this. We have to sustain our efforts to sustainably make use of the Benham Rice. Thank you so much. Alisa. I have a message for the children out there. I hope you pursue degrees in science because we need more scientists in the country. After all, we are surrounded by nature so we also have a lot of land and we need to eat and thank you so much. Ando. Go into ocean sciences. Bench. Benham Rice is important. I hope there are many children who don't have a career in ocean sciences. And if you want you can join the Philippine Navy. Because they take away maritime areas. For me, the bottom line is the blue economy. One of our advocacy. The Filipinas have water in their land. Why are we focusing on agriculture? We should also look at the blue economy and the aquaculture and resources from the sea. Bottom line is I think we have to feed and provide for the nutrition of Filipino people communities in the remote areas. To the extent that Benham Rice can contribute to that let's go for it. Thank you so much, ladies and gentlemen. This is Science Innovation Series and our topic today is Benham Rice or Philippine Rice. Thank you so much, Benji, Rod, Ando, and Alisa.