MANILA, Philippines - As a young boy, Angel Alcala had the vast and unspoiled waters of Negros Occidental in his backyard.
“I was always out in the sea. That was my playground,” he tells STARweek.
He swam, and he swam deep. His father, a fish farmer, just let him be. The fist time he saw the life underwater, he was in awe. The kaleidoscope of colors – blue, red, yellow, white, green – there was a little of everything underwater, he recalls. Fishes of all shapes and sizes took his breath away.
“I was filled with wonder. We were swimming in the sea and I saw various colors of coral reef and the fishes,” recalls Alcala, who grew up in Caliling, a coastal village in the province.
He swam as often as he could. He swam with friends, playmates, siblings, or just by himself.
Alcalca is the eldest of ten children, born to Porfirio and Crescenciana. They lived in a hut with a thatch roof and bamboo floor slats. Growing up in this coastal environment and helping his father take care of fishponds developed in him a deep love for the sea and all life in it.
It’s no surprise then that Alcala became a marine biologist and is now an authority on community ecology, biogeography and the life and systems of amphibians and reptiles, backed by more than 30 years of experience in tropical marine resource conservation.
A Ramon Magsaysay Awardee for Public Service, Alcala served as secretary of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources from 1992 to 1995 and chairman of the Commission on Higher Education from 1995 to 1999.
He has authored over 160 scientific papers as well as books on marine life and developed the first community-based program that created artificial coral reefs.
This program became the model for similar fisheries development programs in the Apo, Sumilon, Carbin and Pamilacan marine reserves around the country.
He obtained his Bachelor’s degree in Biology, graduating magna cum laude from the Silliman University in Dumaguete. He then went to Stanford University to complete his Master’s Degree nine years later.
More than the accolades, Alcala is proud of his pioneering establishment of no-take marine protected areas (MPAs) in the 1970s, which became a national policy and which helped the Philippines increase and preserve marine diversity, including fisheries.
“Since 1974, we have been doing all the education, advocacy and actual work on setting up MPAs and we are the experts in Southeast Asia,” Alcala says.
That year, Alcala established the first working MPA in the country off southern Cebu, which is the Sumilon Marine Reserve.
In 1982, he established the Apo Marine Reserve off southern Negros and a dozen similar reserves in the southern Philippines, particularly in the Bohol Sea.
The Apo Marine Reserve became a template of community-based marine resource conservation in the world and is showcased at the famous Shedd Aquarium in Chicago.
On June 6, 2014, then president Benigno Aquino III proclaimed Alcala a National Scientist of the Philippines in recognition of his research on ecology and diversity of Philippine amphibians and reptiles, marine biodiversity and marine-protected areas.
At present, he is the director of the Silliman University-Angelo King Center for Research and Environmental and the Commission on Higher Education Zonal Research Center.
His life story is in the pages of a recently launched book, “A Love Affair with Nature,” authored by Bettina Rodriguez Olmedo and Amadis Ma. Guerrero.
These days, he continues to go around the country promoting the establishment of no-take MPAs.
At 88, there’s no stopping Alcala from continuing with his work which, at the end of the day, is all about caring for the environment. He travels to different parts of the country as he provides consultancy work.
More importantly, he does not hesitate to share his knowledge when it comes to environmental protection.
And when work is done, he sits on the beach and gazes out to sea, still with that same childlike awe and wonder he had as a young boy in Negros.
It is, indeed, a never-ending love affair with Mother Nature.