Born on
Jan. 4, 1941, Burgos started his journalism
career as a police reporter with the Manila
Times, Daily Mirror and Taliba. In 1961, he
became a reporter for the Philippine Herald-DZHP.
In 1971, he became section editor of the Tri-Media
Network-Evening News.
Mr. Burgos also joined
the academe and served as senior lecturer for
Journalism at the University of the Philippines
Los Baños.
Jose Burgos attended both high
school and college at the University of Santo
Tomas (UST).
He was granted a scholarship
by the United Nations Asia and Far East Institute
for the Prevention of Crime and Treatment Offenders
in Tokyo, Japan.
He was awarded a Jefferson
fellowship at the East-West Center, University
of Hawaii, Honolulu in 1973 wherein he took
up ecology subjects. And so his interest in
ecology began.
As an active farmer since 1988,
Burgos is engaged in organic farming in a 12-hectare
farm in San Miguel, Bulacan. His integrated
farm consists of rice crop, vegetables, forest
trees, mango orchard, livestock, fishponds and
ornamentals.
His being a journalist and a farmer adds to
his credibility as an agricultural writer and
broadcaster for he practices what he writes.
As a developmental journalist,
Burgos anchored a weekly radio program over
DZMM-ABS (4:00-6:00 a.m., 'Sa Kabukiran') which
has been adjudged as ''The Most Outstanding
Agricultural Radio Program'' in 1996.
Earlier, in 1994, he was likewise
awarded the ''Agricultural Journalist of the
Year'' (for his Filipino column in the Daily
Inquirer) by the Philippine Agricultural Journalists,
Inc. Both awards are known as BINHI Awards.
In 1998, he was a recipient
of the prestigious Outstanding Media Award in
Science and Technology sponsored by the Department
of Science and Technology.
He was writing an agricultural
column in Today newspaper when he was appointed
by President Estrada in 1998 as President/Publisher
and Editor-in-Chief of the government-sequestered
Journal Group of publications (Journal, People's
Journal, People's Tonight, Taliba and Women's
Journal). He has since resigned and is now engaged
in consultancy work.
With his experience as a farmer
and his involvement in agricultural and ecological
concerns, Burgos has been advocating farmland
protection and conservation in his lectures
and talks all over the country. In a way, he
has become a partner of research and agricultural
development experts and professionals with his
writings and radio talks which range from practical
farming methods to the adoption of relevant,
affordable and environment-friendly technologies.
He is the author of a book
in Filipino (titled ''Mula sa Bukid'') about
agriculture and his experience as a farmer.
He also edited an agriculture dictionary (English-Filipino).
Burgos is a member of the Technical
Advisory Committee of the Philippine Council
for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources,
Research and Development-Department of Science
and Technology; member of the National Crop
Protection Center Advisory Board; secretary,
Conservation Farming of the Philippines, and
member of the Council of Advisers of the Congressional
Commission on Agricultural Modernization (Agricom).
Concurrently, Burgos is deep
into rice advocacy and recently helped organize
the Rice Media Advocacy Network-Philippines,
Inc. (RMAN), an initiative of senior journalists
in the print and broadcast media in support
of rice research, development and promotion.
He is a member of RMAN's Board of Trustees and
incumbent volunteer executive director. He is
also chairman of the executive committee of
the regional Asian Rice Media Advocacy network,
an organization of more than 30 media practitioners
in 8 Asian countries.
