The genius of Leonardo L. Co: The people's scientist and professor

Since Leonard L. Co died last Nov. 15 as a result of gunshot wounds from a supposed crossfire between the Philippine Army and an unnamed armed group, numerous eulogies, tributes and accolades had been expressed largely by the common people but by scientists as well who are familiar with his work – people whose lives Leonard’s knowledge had touched. He was a world-class plant taxonomist bar none. He was an irreparable loss to the country and to his discipline. Many have mourned and grieved his sudden demise. His death was also equated to the loss of a national treasure. There even have been calls for him to be given a posthumous PhD degree (honoris causa). The two houses of Congress have passed resolutions calling for an impartial investigation on his death and acknowledging the loss to the country his death has caused.

But who is Leonard L. Co? Does he deserve all of these praises? If yes, how come it is emerging only now? And what can the mainstream scientific community do about this? It is easy to be swayed by the outpouring of emotions generated by his untimely death and the sense of loss, so it is best to know the man behind the name before we get carried away.

At the time of his death, he was a museum researcher at the Institute of Biology, College of Science, University of the Philippines Diliman (UPD). He was in Kananga, Leyte as a biodiversity expert sent by the Energy Development Corp., (EDC) for its tree legacy program BINHI looking for mother trees. Two of his team members were also killed.

A quick scan of his brief resumé reveals his publications: 13 peer-reviewed articles of which he was senior author in three; six books of which he was the senior author in four. His first publication was in 1977 (remember, he entered UPD in 1972). His last one was in 2009, less than a year before his death. One of several ongoing writing projects he was doing included “The Enumeration of Philippine Flowering Plants” which he intended as an update on the seminal book on Philippine Plants written by El­mer Merrill who made the initial listing of Philippine Plants when the US Occupation of the country began at the turn of the 20th century. Early estimates indicate that this will take at least five years to complete with a full staff complement working fulltime! He was really a man in a hurry. Friends and colleagues have committed to complete this work, considered as one of Leonard’s unfinished masterpieces.

No one in the mainstream scientific community would have considered Leonard one of them, since he did not get his Bachelor of Science Degree in Botany from the UPD until the summer of 2008. Hence he could not even be hired to teach until then. But this did not stop him from teaching. He always shared whatever he knew. He could be the most temperamental person in the room exploding in anger every now and then when people failed to do what they were supposed to do, but when a student approached him regarding a taxonomic issue, he would be ready to provide the answer and guidance. That explains the outpouring of grief and love from people who had experienced dealing with him. His name will not be seen as the adviser of any PhD or Master of Science degree graduate, yet I personally know of at least two recent PhD graduates that he had mentored (and one more nearing completion) since he could not be appointed a member of graduate committees. He might not have had the formal appointment as a professor but people considered him one because of their recognition of his scholarly outputs.

People would consider him brilliant but they had reservations to consider him as a scientist since he had no degree then, yet this did not stop him from doing research, as his publication outputs attest to. One of the ways we often did to tease him and test him was to ask him a particular taxonomic problem and ask him the reference to this question. He would reply and provide the page number of the reference where the answer could be found. His swordplay with the living greats in plant taxonomy is legendary wherein he was able to argue with these icons and they could only nod in agreement and accept his analysis. I personally saw international delegates bringing him specimens for identification or confirmation. He was highly regarded by the international community. They expressed that Leonard’s death is a great loss to the world of plant taxonomy.

One of Leonard’s frustrations was his awareness of mediocre people who could not hold a candle to his broad encyclopedic knowledge and vast field experience except that these people had a “PhD” after their names and he did not even have a BS degree. Because of this, he would often be bypassed because of his then academic deficiency. Society has not figured out a way to tap geniuses like Leonard.

His last publication in 2006, wherein he was the senior author, was the book “Forest Trees of Palanan, Philippines: A Study in Population Ecology.” This was as part of the book series of the Center for Tropical Forest Science of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institution (CTFS-STRI). He was very proud of this achievement, as it was the first of its kind in the Philippines; it was the sixth in the book series that CTFS-STRI had put out and it was supported by the academe, government, non-government organization conservation groups and the private sector (see Figure 1).

It is but fitting to end this with Leonard in his own words, with the dedication he wrote in the book he gave me during the launching of his last book:

“Perry,

The legacy that you have bequeathed to CI-P and its partners is never forgotten. It is being continued and raised to a higher level by a new breed of committed young field biologists – many of whom are proud authors of this work.

The birth of this book is thus a fitting celebration of that legacy: the spirit of partnership and collaboration; of mentoring; of passion for excellence and abhorrence of mediocrity; and most especially of dreaming, innovating and fighting tooth and nail for the cause of biodiversity conservation!”

Signed,

Leonard + five other junior co-authors”

Nobody was more qualified to say those words about excellence and mediocrity. He lived those words until he was gunned down doing the work he loved, identifying tree species in the middle of a remnant forest he was trying to restore. How ironic.

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Dr. Perry S. Ong is a professor of Wildlife Biology and the director at the Institute of Biology, University of the Philippines Diliman (IB-UPD). He is into biodiversity conservation research and is currently focusing on DNA-barcoding of Philippine biodiversity as well as the ecology of urban biodiversity. Together with the other staff members of IB-UPD, he is undertaking research on the biodiversity of five geothermal production fields of the Energy Development Corp. (EDC) in Mt. Kanlaon in Negros Occidental, Valencia City in Negros Oriental, Kananga in Leyte, Mt. Apo in Kidapawan City, North Cotabato in Mindanao and Bacon-Manito (BacMan) in Sorgogon. E-mail him at [email protected].