Congratulations to Academician Ruben L. Villareal for being the 2022 The Outstanding Filipino (TOFIL) Laureate in the field of Agriculture Science.

Brod Ruben is recognized for his significant contributions in tropical vegetable breeding and promotion of modernization of agriculture and vegetable gardening. Among his contributions to science and technology in the country are the following: (1) his pioneering efforts in the concept of heat tolerance for vegetable crops in the tropics and studies on the morphological and physiological bases of heat tolerance; (2) development of heat tolerant tomato varieties; (3) control of bacterial wilt through grafting and cross protection; (4) breeding of sweet potato for intensive cropping, under drought stress and minimum input; (5) his discovery on the non-Mendelian or cytoplasmic inheritance of the southern leaf blight disease (Helminthosporium maydis) of corn which ended the incorporation of "T" cytoplasm in the U.S. and in local inbred lines.