The training at the SWAT School of Central Luzon has been successfully conducted. There were 31 participants coming from different agencies including CLSU (faculty and graduate students), UPLB, UP Diliman and other government agencies around CLSU like DENR, PhilRice and NIA. Prof Annie Melinda Paz-Alberto, our host, welcomed all of us very nicely and provided every facility essential for the training.
 
On the first day, Jan 30, Dr. Karika, Dr. Wanraya and me presented our respective papers in the morning. During the open forum that followed, we could feel the interest of the trainees to learn SWAT. In the afternoon, Dr. Karika presented an overview about SWAT and was followed by hands-on training on MWSWAT. The training went smoothly at first but we encountered an error which hindered us to continue the training. It was fortunate that this happened when we were about to end the afternoon session.
 
In the evening of Jan 30, the SWAT Network of the Philippines has been launched . Dr. Nathan gave a brief background how SWAT was first introduced in the Philippines with an initial training held at IRRI in May 2007, to be followed with the creation of the SWAT-SEA (SWAT South East Asia) which was later proposed to include other East Asian countries like China, Korea and Japan to become SWAT SEEA (SWAT South East and East Asia) if those countries agree. The SWAT Network of the Philippines was successfully launched with the viewing of the new Facebook account for the SWAT NETWORK recently created (http://www.facebook.com/pages/SWAT-Network-of-the-Philippines/146323622148926). A pledge of promoting SWAT in the Philippines was also prepared where all the founding members affixed their signature.