WHERE HAVE GLORY, ERap, Fidel and Cory gone? These quality breed carabaos (water buffaloes), named after Philippine presidents, came out of test tubes and hailed as products of the country’s best scientific minds to propagate and improve the native symbol of Filipino industry.

At the Philippine Carabao Center (PCC) gene pool in the Science City of Muñoz in Nueva Ecija, Glory and Cory, named after President Macapagal-Arroyo and the late President Corazon Aquino, had already given birth to two high-quality calves each. They are prolific milk producers.

Erap, named after ousted President Joseph Estrada, is a high-quality, hulking bull that the PCC uses in its breeding program. He was sent to the PCC National Bull Farm in Carranglan town, where he joined other bulls in donating semen that is processed in a laboratory for the PCC’s use.

Fidel, the carabao named after former President Fidel V. Ramos, is at the dairy farm of the PCC branch station at Central Luzon State University (CLSU) in Muñoz. He is with the herd of the dairy carabaos siring calves through natural mating.

The project from which the “presidential carabaos” have been produced is officially called “Propagation of riverine buffaloes through embryo in vitro production-vitrification-transfer technique.”

Glory was born on April 5, 2005, the birth date she shares with Ms Arroyo. Glory was a cause for celebration for the PCC and scientific community as the technique was proven to be a success and that no physical defects were found on her.

Animal experts say Glory is a top-of-the-line water buffalo that promises to produce at least seven times more milk than the average yield of a native dam.

Dr. Danilda Hufana-Duran, senior agriculturist and project leader of the PCC’s technology commercialization, said Glory’s embryo was assembled by a PCC team in India. This was flown to the Philippines in cryopreserved form and transferred to a surrogate mother buffalo in the agency’s gene pool.

Duran said Erap, Cory and Fidel were born in the PCC days apart of each other following Glory’s birth.

A number of other calves have since been produced using this biotechnique, the latest of which was in December last year in Barangay Mapangpang in Muñoz.

Dr. Libertado Cruz, PCC executive director, said the “test-tube calves” were given such names to honor Philippine presidents who helped push the carabao improvement program in the country.

The program, he said, is meant to propagate improved breed of Philippine water buffaloes for more draft power, meat, milk and hide and to create a robust carabao-based industry in the country.

Appearance
Glory’s physical appearance differs from Cory and the rest of the more than 300 genetically superior water buffaloes being kept at the gene pool. One of her horns is curved downward and the other a little upward.

“Maybe, her mother has the gene of another breed of water buffalo,” Duran said. “But we saw nothing wrong about it as the mother was assessed to be of elite breed.”

The semen of Erap and other bulls in Carranglan is stored in liquid nitrogen tanks and sent to other parts of the country so farmers and farm owners can avail themselves of the technology of artificial insemination.

At the Carranglan farm, semen is collected from each of the bulls two times in the morning, Tuesdays and Fridays.

One record from the PCC showed that Erap produced 1,270 doses of semen from January to June 2007. Officials said Erap had sired thousands of calves in different parts of the country.

Other test-tube calves were given names in honor of local and foreign officials.

Pat was named after Patricio Faylon, director of the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources Research and Development; Liberty, in honor of PCC Executive Director Cruz; and Sharma, Irfan, Karvir and Shuttarri, after Indian officials who supported the project.

Duran said the PCC resorted to the test-tube technique to hasten the production of superior quality carabaos.

“It takes about 15 years or more to produce purebred carabaos. In the test-tube technique, all it takes is only one year to produce purebreds,” Duran said.

The technique involves getting immature oocytes (a cell from which an egg or ovum develops) from the ovary of the female carabao and fertilize them in the laboratory with the semen from quality bulls. After this process, the embryo is cryopreserved in a liquid nitrogen tank.

The embryo is later transferred to the selected surrogate mother carabao.

Duran said this technique was an improvement of the original procedure which produced the first test-tube calves, Malakas and Maganda, in 1996. The fresh embryos then had to be transferred to a surrogate dam within a few hours.