CEBU, Philippines—For a country well into the 21st century, President Gloria Macapgal Arroyo’s promise of P3 billion for science and engineering research and development is a very blunt admission of the dismal state of knowledge production and technological expertise obtaining in higher education institutions in the country today.
Educators and academicians, therefore, cannot be faulted for eagerly awaiting the fulfillment of that promise, which she made in last Monday’s State of the Nation Address (SONA). But one skeptic I talked to yesterday commented wryly that if such an amount would still go through the government bureaucracy, nothing much will come of it as the vultures there would simply “filter” the whole amount for themselves. Ever the optimist, I am willing to give government the benefit of the doubt and see how this will play out.
Mrs. Arroyo’s offer, however welcome, is not new as it comes after a long line of presidential and American colonial) attempts at raising Filipino knowledge production to world standards. The success has been minimal at best as can be seen from the very few Filipinos that do get noticed the world over for contributing new things (inventions, innovations) or ideas (theories, philosophies, world-views) to make the world a better place, as it were. In fact, those who did were forced to sell their ideas to private firms who now reap profits after owning patents for these inventions.
Probably the most successful attempt at developing science (both social and natural) and engineering in a very backward country is Japan which, during the Meiji restoration, rapidly modernized to emerge an economic power within 45 years. This remarkable feat began when 15-year-old Emperor Mahutu, who took the name Meiji, assumed the throne in 1868 and promulgated the Five Charter Oath of 1868. A general statement of the emperor’s goals, the fifth oath is of particular import to the Philippines and to GMA in particular thus: “Knowledge shall be sought throughout the world to strengthen the foundations of imperial rule.” (I am, of course, referring to knowledge and not imperial rule here.) Overnight, over 3,000 teachers, engineers and scientists were imported to Japan from the U.S. and Europe while thousands of students went in the other direction to learn from the modern world. By the time of Emperor Meiji’s death in 1912, Japan had become an industrial power to be reckoned with.
The American colonizers also sent hundreds of Filipino scholars, called pensionados, to the United States, while an equal number of Americans began modernizing the Philippines. Many of the scholars came back to become the pioneers of higher education and research. But something happened along the way as many of them took on the appearance and aspirations of the colonial master at the expense of a vastly underdeveloped archipelago, creating a two-tiered society of English-speaking, American educated elite and a large number of barely literate compatriots.
Yet to a certain extent the country came out of the colonial experience and trained its Southeast Asian neighbors in the fields of agriculture, engineering and the social sciences. Vietnam, China and Thailand, from where we often import their surplus rice, learned the modern techniques of rice production from the Philippines, to cite one example.
That was in the 1960s, when all our neighbors (except Japan) were dirt poor and had little opportunities for economic growth. Forty years later, we look with askance as Malaysia and Singapore pour millions of dollars to develop their science and engineering programs carrying out world-class research and development while we produce nurses to earn money for the country abroad and many of our engineering graduates work in call centers, go abroad as domestic helpers, or go back home to farm. Obviously 3 billion pesos is not enough to close the gap with our neighbors. But that is surely a good beginning; that is, if it will not get lost in red tape and corruption.
Educators and academicians, therefore, cannot be faulted for eagerly awaiting the fulfillment of that promise, which she made in last Monday’s State of the Nation Address (SONA). But one skeptic I talked to yesterday commented wryly that if such an amount would still go through the government bureaucracy, nothing much will come of it as the vultures there would simply “filter” the whole amount for themselves. Ever the optimist, I am willing to give government the benefit of the doubt and see how this will play out.
Mrs. Arroyo’s offer, however welcome, is not new as it comes after a long line of presidential and American colonial) attempts at raising Filipino knowledge production to world standards. The success has been minimal at best as can be seen from the very few Filipinos that do get noticed the world over for contributing new things (inventions, innovations) or ideas (theories, philosophies, world-views) to make the world a better place, as it were. In fact, those who did were forced to sell their ideas to private firms who now reap profits after owning patents for these inventions.
Probably the most successful attempt at developing science (both social and natural) and engineering in a very backward country is Japan which, during the Meiji restoration, rapidly modernized to emerge an economic power within 45 years. This remarkable feat began when 15-year-old Emperor Mahutu, who took the name Meiji, assumed the throne in 1868 and promulgated the Five Charter Oath of 1868. A general statement of the emperor’s goals, the fifth oath is of particular import to the Philippines and to GMA in particular thus: “Knowledge shall be sought throughout the world to strengthen the foundations of imperial rule.” (I am, of course, referring to knowledge and not imperial rule here.) Overnight, over 3,000 teachers, engineers and scientists were imported to Japan from the U.S. and Europe while thousands of students went in the other direction to learn from the modern world. By the time of Emperor Meiji’s death in 1912, Japan had become an industrial power to be reckoned with.
The American colonizers also sent hundreds of Filipino scholars, called pensionados, to the United States, while an equal number of Americans began modernizing the Philippines. Many of the scholars came back to become the pioneers of higher education and research. But something happened along the way as many of them took on the appearance and aspirations of the colonial master at the expense of a vastly underdeveloped archipelago, creating a two-tiered society of English-speaking, American educated elite and a large number of barely literate compatriots.
Yet to a certain extent the country came out of the colonial experience and trained its Southeast Asian neighbors in the fields of agriculture, engineering and the social sciences. Vietnam, China and Thailand, from where we often import their surplus rice, learned the modern techniques of rice production from the Philippines, to cite one example.
That was in the 1960s, when all our neighbors (except Japan) were dirt poor and had little opportunities for economic growth. Forty years later, we look with askance as Malaysia and Singapore pour millions of dollars to develop their science and engineering programs carrying out world-class research and development while we produce nurses to earn money for the country abroad and many of our engineering graduates work in call centers, go abroad as domestic helpers, or go back home to farm. Obviously 3 billion pesos is not enough to close the gap with our neighbors. But that is surely a good beginning; that is, if it will not get lost in red tape and corruption.
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