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==[[Marinduque News]]==
==[[Marinduque News]]==
'''Butterfly Farming'''
'''Solon seeks higher fine for crime of 'intriguing against honor''''
*Source: http://www.mb.com.ph/articles/358921/butterfly-farming
*Source: http://www.philstar.com/nation/article.aspx?publicationSubCategoryId=200&articleId=804592
*Sunday, May 6, 2012
*Monday, May 7, 2012
:by FLORO L. MERCENE
:by FLORO L. MERCENE






MANILA, Philippines — Butterfly farming is a little-known cottage industry, fuelling the tiny economies of dozens of barangays in Boac and Gasan, two of the six municipalities of Marinduque. The incomes the locals earn are enough to send their children to college, with a nice house to boot.
MANILA, Philippines - A person who will be convicted of committing the crime of "intriguing against honor" will only be asked to pay a fine of P200.


Butterfly release business is now the fad. Let loose during weddings, birthday celebrations, and other large gatherings, the fluttery creatures add a new colorful dimension to any celebration.
The very small fine prompted Marindueque Rep. Lord Allan Jay Velasco to file House Bill 5830, which seeks to increase the fine of P200 to P16,000.


Doves, for centuries the symbols of peace and unity, which are released shortly after the wedding formalities, are now considered obsolete.
"With regard to the fine component, the amounts are still based on 1930 prices, the year the Revised Penal Code otherwise known as Act 3815 was enacted. The massive inflation and devaluation our currency has gone through renders the punitive fine component of the RPC negligible," Velasco said.


Today, depending on the species, butterflies command prices ranging from R1 per piece to R20 each.
He said that in adjusting the fines accurately, the inflation rate should be computed from 1930 up to the present.


A minor wedding would have about 500 of them winging their way into the hairs of guests, the wedding cake, on the tables and chairs, bringing joy to children and adults. A thousand butterflies for the well-to-do are now common.
"There is no data available for the Consumer Price Index earlier than 1955 in the Philippines and from 1986 to 1988. Moreover, there had been a total of eight rebasing of base years for the computation of inflation rates," said Velasco, a vice chairman of the House Committee on Constitutional Amendments.


A local hobbyist Romeo Lumawig, from Cawit, Boac, started the trend in 1965 while he was in the elementary grade. He collected wild butterflies and placed them in glass jars. The insects laid eggs which, in four days, turned into caterpillars or larva.
Velasco said the year 1955 will be used as the base year for the computation up to 2011, and disregarding the inflation rate in the years 1986 to 1988 making the derived inflation rate a conservative one.


From observation in the nearby forest, Lumawig knew what leaves the caterpillars feed on. He gave some of them leaves from lagaylay, citrus, kaytana, tapias-tapias, ivory, and other native plants.
The crimes of intriguing against honor include libel, oral defamation, slander by deed and incriminatory machinations such as incriminating a person by planting evidence and destroying a person's reputation by a scheme, plot, design, but not by direct spoken words.
 
Each caterpillar will eat only one kind of plant, according to Professor Panchito Labay, of the Marinduque State College.
 
It was Lumawig who inspired him to write his thesis, “Social History of Butterfly Livelihood in Marinduque.” He presented his papers before an audience of hobbyists and enthusiasts in Hague, Netherlands, during an International Rural Development gathering, sponsored by Ford Foundation.
 
“Lumawig introduced butterfly farming in Marinduqe, developing the techniques and identifying the host plants that are the food of larva,” Labay said.
 
Lumawig has since passed away, but not before 11 butterflies were scientifically named after him by Collin Threadaway, an entomologist, based in Germany.
 
It was to Threadaway that Lumawig had sent his butterfly specimens, which he collected not only in Marinduque but from as far away as Mindoro, Palawan, Leyte, Cebu, and Surigao.
 
A few of them are: Paruparo lumawigi lumawigi Schroeder, 1976; Paruparo lumawigi panayensis Hayashi, Schroeder & Threadaway, 1984; Atrophaneura sempen Imogene lumawigi Schroeder & Threadaway, 1976. The latter nomenclature Imogene was named after Lumawig’s daughter.
 
Labay said the butterflies named after Lumawig were sub-species of butterflies found not only in Marinduque but neighboring provinces.
 
Papilio luzvieae is another butterfly named after Luz Maneng, a daughter of one of Lamawig’s butterfly gatherers.
 
In his lifetime, Lumawig’s constant companion was Ambrosio Layron, a neighbor. The two of them have combed forests from Batanes to Jolo, gathering butterflies, which initially ended up as framed specimens or embedded in resin, adorning the house of the wealthy abroad.
 
The Marcos family’s former abode at Makiki Heights, Hawaii, is adorned with the rarest and most stunning butterflies, framed just above the entrance of every door.
 
Many also ended up in foreign laboratories for identification and further studies.
 
As he gained in years, Ambrosio took along his son Danny Layron in his gathering expeditions in some of the most formidable forests in the country. The old Layron is gone, leaving behind the business to Danny.
 
The young Layron and wife Carol, who had sent three children through college farming butterflies, are now only engaged in trading the insects, buying the pupa and butterflies from farmers and selling them through their old contacts in Manila.
 
They send the insects by airplanes to buyers all over the country.
 
Carol experimented on what food butterflies preferred most and found out they like ripe papaya, water melon, banana, etc. She also concocted a mixture of water and sugar or honey, which made the insect stronger and able to fight infections.


==[[:Category:Marinduque, Philippines Photo Gallery|Marinduque, Philippines Photo Gallery]]==
==[[:Category:Marinduque, Philippines Photo Gallery|Marinduque, Philippines Photo Gallery]]==
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