I just want to highlight the fact that since we are all engaged in the development agenda, I trust that we understand deeply the value of making sustainability its conscience. In other words, whenever we have a plan, an initiative, an activity, we ask the question, does this fit?
and comply with the future that we’d like to see, which is sustainable. And that should go down to the research projects that we pursue, okay? And I’ll elaborate on this, and I hope you’ll see more and more what we mean by this.
Well, just some philosophical framework by which we should look at how science is developing now, because many, at many times we hear the word science-based decisions. But actually, the science that we know now may be altered by future. So the suggestion now is not to use science-based decisions but scientific process-based decisions.
You remember the debate that Dr. Anthony Fauci got engaged in because he said first masks are not necessary but when data came in he said it is necessary. Now at that time he made that statement it was science-based but the scientific process as you know at the Kuhn model is very dependent on falsifiability.
In fact, Kuhn says unless a particular information is falsifiable, that means it is testable, it is not science. Now, that’s an issue of debate. But anyway, in a very exquisite poster issued by the American Chemical Society, this particular phrased as research is an activity where two questions arise from one question that has been answered before. If we like to see how we as scientists and as a science community operate in order to be able to respond to our social outcomes, especially in a developing country context,
This particular model, which I adopted, and I’m sorry I didn’t cite the particular reference, tells us that there are a number of biophysical inputs that are transformed by a provisioning system, which is our science community, and resulting into social outcomes, which we hope for the future will comply with the circular economy and the net zero emissions energy systems. For now, these two are very important aspirations, but they need to be operationalized. And we have here from our foresight document at the National Academy of Science and Technology, the key operational areas.
You can see how varied they are and how wide they are. And you know the requirements for talent in order to address all of these issues that come our way almost at the same time. It is also very important that no matter what kind of technology you use for as long as you touch nature, you change nature.
Whether you do organic farming, whether you do conventional farming, whether you mine, whether you establish a medicinal plant plantation where these plants were not in a canopy of a plantation before, but they survived as wild, you change nature. And many are questioning now about whether there is, in fact, any corner of the earth that is still pristine. Why?
Because your carbon dioxide canopy covers the whole planet. There is no area that is exempt from global warming. It’s not that the carbon dioxide emitted by United States stays in the air space of the United States. No, it spreads. That’s why you have this debate in COP 28.
But with all of these and on top of all of these we do have to understand what is happening, the trends and the drivers of change. Geopolitical and geoeconomic shifts, very obvious now with what’s happening not only in the West Philippine Sea, which we hope will not be explosive, but also in other parts of the world. And of course, rapid technological change, which we are dawning upon all of us. Systemic competition, which is very fickle, harsh and brutal, and of course, your transnational challenges like climate change. This transnational challenges cannot be solved by just one country alone. And there are many challenges in Los Banos that cannot be solved by UPLB or UPOU alone. This community must get together and solve these.
But we have to be prepared. And there are trends and changes that we cannot predict. These are the black swans. The 9-11 event in the United States is considered or was considered a black swan event. Now I don’t know whether they, well maybe the pandemic would be considered one, but there were indications, that’s still a big debate. But this is very difficult because you need build in some degree of resilience.
And that’s important for a 115,000 populated area, such as Los Banos. We’ve got to build in some degree of resilience that will allow us to cope with disruptions and survive the disruptions. Otherwise, you know, we are going to be in a very difficult situation. So these trends and changes we will have to really think about as we plan and I hope your strategic plans Bring this in, you know Like there will be changes in administration There there might be a change in the In the mayor there might be change in the chancellorships The different heads of agencies this have to take you have to take this into consideration
There will be changes in the national administration. But we realize that there is much progress that has been achieved, but the rising tide is failing to raise all the boats. And unfortunately, the benefits of progress are flowing primarily to the already fortunate. Now this may be obvious to in our community, but it is very clear in many places globally, as well as even just looking at the drama that’s taking place in the West Philippine Sea, comparing our coast guard boats and the coast guard boats of our friends. Just to give you a profile of the incidents of poverty in the regions of the Philippines. And this is where I’d like to put some kind of an emphasis. That’s why I’m interested that the LBSCFI should survive. The action is at the local level.
The 16.6 national average is meaningless in Los Banos, and more so in arm. Look at the gap. 61%. I don’t know if we have profiled our barangays in Los Baños either on the degree of the incidence of poverty because unless you know this, on the ground information interventions will not be effective. I think we have to start realizing that an intervention that is one size fits all may not work anymore in a situation in our circumstances where things are becoming more and more complex. Because the more you simplify it the farther you are from the solution. That’s why I’m always very worried about handling to cloud the real situation downstairs and on the ground.
Furthermore, this particular Republic Act has not been given enough attention in prioritization of our development agenda. This is a law and I hope we will not take it as a suggestion. Just like all our traffic laws, they are suggestions. We need to provide the Filipino family survival needs, its security needs, and the enabling needs. How is our program addressing this?
And just by the list of member organizations that I see, I think you cover all of this already. Now how we are able to intervene collaboratively is probably your strategic plan. How do we intervene in Los Banos for the survival needs of the community of the town? And we probably will have to also attend to our neighboring towns, especially when you talk about our natural resources, water. Okay. Security and of course enabling, which is probably the basic strength of this Los Baños Science Community Foundation. Just to give you an idea of what is emerging as a concept of the recircular economy, it is really based on recycling.
And every time I go back to home and pass by the Putho Tuntungin Road, I see a place there where we have this, the street vendors. And I keep wondering where do these used newspapers, used metals, used refrigerators, used washing machines go? I don’t know.
Have we traced that so that we know we are not really in the nine, not in my backyard syndrome, and just moving them to some place in Laguna for them to get poisoned rather than us, which is of course not the kind of moral ethic that we would like to promote. But the point here is that you see a lot of reuse, recycling.
There is a limit to that. Some plastics cannot be continuously recycled. They just reach a point where it’s done. And what do we do? Now, our scientists can probably discover ways by which they can be reused, recycled, or degraded to some benign forms. And this is what is meant now by a net zero emissions world.
That means whatever you emit must be neutralized, either captured or processed in some way so that it doesn’t add to the greenhouse gases. And mind you, water is a greenhouse gas. So you be very careful when you look at the hydrogen economy because the net result of burning nitrogen is water, and water is a greenhouse gas.
Now to our country. Just a reminder of how archipelagic we are, how scattered we are, and the challenges of putting these communities together. I don’t know, I haven’t seen a complete map of Los Banos, but I don’t know where the barangay is are and how they are related, whether territorially they share common boundaries or there are some spots that are not owned or considered as barangay territory. And I don’t know if you call it no man’s land, but anyway, the size of Los Banos is of course very vital for us. I know we have very little rice land already.
And mind you, Laguna is only 29% self-sufficient in rice. So if the distribution lines get disrupted, that’s Mindoro and Northern Luzon, we will starve. Okay? Even if IRRI is here yeah, because here we will not supply the rice for Laguna. It’s the land that’s being converted that keeps decreasing our land available for rice production or for agriculture. Coastline is the fifth longest in the world. That’s why we need to be aware that we have a maritime country.
I don’t know how we regard our shoreline with Laguna de Bay. I would consider it part of our responsibility to make sure that shoreline is kind of protected. And of course, we have more marine environment than land. 60% of our population reside in the coastal areas, the most vulnerable part of our population and about the same land areas, Pakistan, Japan, and Spain. But the challenge is this. By 2045, we will have 33 million more Filipinos from 2020, the last population. That’s not a joke.
Dr. Raniola, what is the projection for Los Banos by 2045?
200,000.
Maybe not, 150.
- So from the word of the administrator, our planning for 2045 must be based on that. There are going to be more mouths to feed, more children to educate and accommodate in our schools, health facilities to cater to our population, and of course the roads because we will probably have more cars than we can bear. It’s such a big difference when I was a student here in 64 to 68 because we only had bicycles and of course the jeeps and a population, Mr. Chancellor, of 1,600 students. So we knew each other very well.
Okay, now region 4A where we are located, Director Bagsit, that’s your responsibility, is going to be top of the list. It’s for 4 million.
Maybe you can compute based on our current rice consumption of two sacks per capita, how many hectares do you need to harvest to feed an additional four million? Or just maybe to be more useful, one million more mouths to feed, okay? Anyway, I’m just.
I’m sorry I don’t have very detailed information but the message is that you have to go down to communities because that’s where the action is, that’s where your outcomes will make a difference. So if it’s Los Baños, ano nangyayari sa puto tuntungin? Ano nangyayari sa bambang? Ano nangyayari sa bangkal? Ano nangyayari sa Sampa.
that will have to be understood very carefully. Land area is a challenge because I don’t think you can do any agriculture without land. Notwithstanding the new developments on vertical farming, et cetera, et cetera, but feeding a population of 140 million with vertical agriculture seems to be a very big challenge. Now, region four, you have one of the largest land areas for agriculture now. Of course, that’s probably a little bit less now. Maybe not a little bit less, but less because of the, you know what, okay?
And just to repeat how these are all related, you might want to study by putting all these tables side by side. The incidence of poverty is really quite astounding in terms of differences among the regions. How much more in the terms of communities, the barangays, within each of these? OK.
This is just a very interesting presentation by a Japan Prize winner, Peter Vitacek, who is professor in Stanford. He won the Japan Prize in 2010. And this is how he looks at the human population. That’s why I emphasize that. And its impact, but through the different human enterprises on land transformation, on our biotic population, and the global biogeochemistry, and how they impact on climate change and the loss of biological diversity. You might want to superimpose here what’s happening in Los Banos.
Human population has increased. I don’t know how it has impacted on our agriculture, our industry, our recreation. I don’t know how much participation we have in international commerce. I don’t know if you consider OFWs as international commerce. Maybe that’s too degrading. But all of this, you might want to take account of and see how they fit into this paradigm by Vito Tse. The sustainability definition is very important. And the brunt line definition, if you look at it completely, is this. But usually we stop at the first.
You can see that it gives priority to the poor which we never mention when we say just the future generations to meet their own needs, period. And of course, the idea of limitations. So again, as we look at the Los Banos environment and the profile, I think we should be aware that the Brundtland definition is this.
Now in many, from many observers, this is aspirational. This does not tell you that to consume one liter of water every day is sustainable. Or to put one kilogram of the muriate of potash in a coconut tree every year is sustainable.
What is the science behind this aspiration. Otherwise it becomes an aspiration. And I was told that if you look at the records of the United Nations, there are 22 different definitions of sustainability. And indeed, even in our own community, Land Bank will define sustainability differently.
Now, what is going to be our responsibility such that there is an internal consistency in how we regard sustainability? It’s in the operational aspects. And here is the big challenge for science and researchers and all of the community.
For them to be regarded as sustainable must be in synchrony with the earth’s ability to regenerate itself and in synchrony and congruent with the earth’s ability to absorb waste. Because I mentioned earlier, in the case of plastics, there’s an end to the way we can recycle it and reuse it. So where do we put it?
And is it possible for the Earth’s biota or whatever to degrade it? And that’s why the microbial population is going to be very important. And we know very little about it, especially in the Philippines where we are told that we are the ASEAN Center for Biodiversity. At the center of the center of biodiversity. Where else can you locate yourself? Center of the center. So that means we have such a gene pool that we probably still need to appreciate. There might be secrets there that we need to unlock.
So for now, these are probably going to be the framework for which you can hang a research project and ask, are the materials that I’m going to use going to affect the Earth’s ability to regenerate itself or the Earth’s ability to absorb the waste that I am going to generate, is my product going to affect and how is my product going to affect this? Just to kind of get the idea rolling and I’m not saying you should be able to solve it now.
Because the tools are going to emerge much later, but the directions have to be set. The compass has to be set, okay? And there are planetary boundaries in compliance with the original definition of the Brundtland Commission, that there are limits. So this is a 2009 publication, and already three of the planetary limits have been exceeded.
The next slide tells you a sadder story because six of the nine are already exceeded. Are we contributing to that? Is the Los Bano science community contributing to that? Again, you may be aware of this debate about considering.
This particular era where we are living now as the Anthropocene. That’s been disapproved by the geologists. But there is an emerging term which they call the technosphere. And you can see, as a community, the different roles that you have played and continue to play.
It says here, unless it is accompanied by countless large and small discoveries that are required to create more value from a fixed set of natural resources. Fixed set. Can we have infinite dreams for a finite set of natural resources?
I don’t know how our economics group debate on this because there is this degrowth and no growth. The value of growth, growth, grow, grow. There’s a debate on that. Very interesting. I don’t know how it will turn out.
But we are happy to see that there are now tools that allow us to see more, to detect more. See, your cell phones tell you where you are. Now I remember Joanna Thiry, where we were looking at Inger and getting their GPSs, maybe Glenn will attest to this. We located some of them in the middle of the ocean. How can you have rice lands in the middle of the ocean? Because they did not have the GPS. The time, now your exact location can be disclosed, okay? And since more.
Now, your, some of your cell phones or some of your wristwatches can even look at your pulse rate or your temperature, et cetera. So there are many tools available now. They’re not enough yet. But the problem is having people in residence that can manage this and use this for the benefit of mankind. For example, I’ve been challenging the Philippine Space Agency. Can your satellites detect the cargo of the ship?
Because that’s going to be a very big deterrent to smuggling. Because 50%, I’m told, of the ships, of the bills of lading that are addressed to the Philippines do not have consignies. So they stay in the high ocean and there are small boats going there.
And that’s where we’re getting all our cheap batteries. And the rice that’s coming in, because the rice here is very expensive, so why not smuggle? It’s higher than the world price. So that encourages all of this. But if we can detect by satellite, oh, you may be beyond our territorial 200-kilometer limit, you have rice there. Or you have guns, or you have drugs, I think it’s possible, because this is just signal processing.
And these are the tools now, this not completely listed, but if you are intending to pursue a higher degree, or you have children that you’d like to study, I suggest you look at this list, including the social sciences, because this is going to really be a very, very active set of new knowledge that will allow us to look forward to a transition towards the circular economy and a net zero emissions world. Lots, very powerful. But do not neglect the basic sciences.
UPLB is very fortunate. It has this. There are many schools that cannot maintain chemistry, biology, et cetera, because the enrollment is very low compared to the other degree programs. And according to Eric Briliofson, the way we should think now is to be digital, exponential, and combinatorial.
The LBSCFI is combinatorial. Now, will you be exponential or you have some elements of being digital? So otherwise you will not be able to plan well. Bottom line, this is Alvin Toffler’s mantra, no new knowledge, no new wealth. But we know knowledge does not diffuse on its own. You have to have a giver and a receiver. So that’s what we need to sort out.
You have very powerful set of scientists here very knowledgeable. You have all probably a very enviable set of expertise in Los Banos. Now, how they are transmitted and how they are received is very important and the barriers that exist must now be torn down. And that’s where I think the social sciences will have to make a good understanding and a good discernment, because this requires a very deep behavioral change. Now, new knowledge, aside from people, will need institutions. So your 25 institutions here will be the haven of this expertise, the tools, the different ones.
And they have rules of the game. They’re the ones that determine hiring, firing, promotion, how many days you’re going to take a leave, et cetera, et cetera. They’re the rules of the game. So depending on how they are able to provide an environment where the talent will be happy and the environment where he can be productive.
That’s where the institutions matter. In fact, the World Bank report says talent development is useless unless you have good institutions. Because the institutions are going to be the haven and they are the ones that are going to attract talents to stay.
Did I say more? So at the Academy, we have now attempted to look at more than your next, well, part of your next 40 years, as Chancellor Bandelaria says. You’re looking forward to the next 40 years, which will be 2064. 40 years now, 2050 long. 40 years, 24 plus 40 is 64. So you’re even beyond 2050. We can only afford up to 2050 because many of us are already in the departure area. We’re just waiting for the boarding pass, okay?
So I echo here what I presented before as a being aware of our archipelagic and maritime environment. Those are God-given attributes that we have thus far taken for granted, unfortunately. And we now must wake up because you will have 330 million Filipinos by the year 2045. By 2050, maybe 350 more Filipinos, because we multiply at about a little over 1 million every year, even if the birth rate is very low. But your denominator is very high already, 100 million. So this document is 320 pages.
And I hope all of you will read this and next time you invite me, I will give a quiz. Okay? And we derive this, this is a lot of work, went to about two to three years, using by bibliometrics, that means you go through the literature as much as you can. SWOT, you have probably gone through that, the brainstorming, inviting experts, consulting, and some many times your community has participated there, and of course the Delphi method. These are accepted international methods, okay, at the very minimum.
And so from there we were able to list an inventory of about 200 technologies that we can apply to operationalize 12 special concerns from the blue economy to space exploration, to business and trade, to science education, and for us to be able to kind of fulfill the aspirations expressed in Ambition Natin 2040, which is 10 years behind ours. But anyway, Secretary Abelisakan says it’s probably not going to change.
What worries me, however, is that that Ambition 2040, if you read the details, considers our being a leader in science and technology as the lowest priority. Of the 10,000 people in all the different classes interviewed, ABCDE, only 2% consider being an S&T leader as first priority compared to all the other aspirations. So it’s a challenge. I’m very sad that that turned out to be the figure, but I’m not discouraged, even if we are already in the departure lounge, okay?
So this is processed, and this is a living document and I hope your community will be very active in putting in more inputs. This has to be revised almost every three to five years. So it’s due for a revision in the next two years. And our goal is to really come to a preferred future of a one-archipelagic maritime nation where the population is educated and healthy, productive, in sustainable activities, and harnessed in an inclusive manner. We have not put any timelines because we are aware that there are many forces operating. Unfortunately, every time there is a different president, you know what I mean.
You have different priorities. The different cabinet secretaries are also, sort of change it. So we just need to be able to navigate those particular challenges. But we have put some stages here, which we hope will be validated and maybe adjusted later, depending on the different areas where we now have clustered them into four. Innovation is very important, but it’s got to be innovation in a system. You cannot just innovate your R&D. You’ve got to innovate your governance too, and how you manage your R&D, and how you manage your educational system. I know it’s very difficult to innovate when you’re in the public sector because you get what? Audited, audit, what do you call that? AOMs, yes.
So I don’t know how innovation can get into governance of the public sector. But the private sector should be able to share its experiences and see how these adjustments.can take place. My point is it’s not just products. It’s the whole process system, your educational structures, your business models. So now that you can see we are getting more and more business done online, so how do you then change your organization? So just some suggestions on where we can probably kind of put a grip now.
I’m not saying these are the only ones, but maybe kind of take a handle and see how we can move forward. Since this is a largely agricultural community, with due respect to the others, but even the arts will have a role here. Precision agriculture, again, I am a very strong advocate for microbiology, although I’m not a microbiologist, and of course the developments in the genomics area. But a possible growth point is really the biocommerce market, and I will explain that a little later. We have thus far and justifiably been focused on the commodities that are for food.
Now, we should probably review that and see how we can connect that with the biocommerce market and what do I mean by that.
Just to review our understanding of what is precision agriculture, you need detection, you need sensing and I hope our engineering faculties are going to develop sensors because that is going to be the secret for us to be able to monitor the changes. But the big challenge is the energy for the sectors sensors. If you’re putting 1000 sectors sensors in an area of say 10 hectares, you cannot be changing the batteries every month, 1000.
So let’s look for ways that we can harvest the energy, vibration, heat, et cetera. That’s why some of the sensors are placed near your high power transmission lines. They harvest that energy, and you don’t need to worry about batteries, okay? Otherwise, sensors are meaningless unless you can power them, okay?
Very important understanding now of how the gene is awakened by your environment and the way you manage it. Okay? Because we normally would expect, because the plants don’t tell us, hey, you know, I’m not happy here. The plants don’t talk to us. The animals maybe, but when you put different medicinal plants, for example, from one place to the other, and this happens to be my background.
you never know whether they will produce the same level of active ingredients, because it’s G by E by M. They are also living organisms, and one of the primary features of living organisms is irritability.
We interpret it in a different way, but the plants are irritable too. They react. The sunlight, soil, water, and they grow differently. Again, I hope you’re not bothered by my being a broken record, but this is important. And here is the bio-commerce market that I’m referring to. But we have thus far not given enough attention.
Flavors. We have a lot of flavors that are not topped. It can be related to the spices. It can be related to, you know, taste and smell are very much related. The essences, you know, the perfumery industry is always in search of a new smell. That’s why I said the arts will come here because the new smell will sell a thousand and a hundred thousand times its value. It’s just like your Rolex watch. Your Rolex watch is cheap, but it is a jewelry. That is how it is sold. That’s why it’s expensive. The materials are cheap.
Starbucks. So, 20% only. 80% only, because this is a broad. So, it’s a very profitable enterprise. Anyway, you have the biologicals. Enzymes are now very important in many undertakings, because they want to get away from the inorganics, enzymes as catalysts for certain production facilities, enzymes in your detergents, enzymes in food preparation, health and wellness. Of course you have some of these new approaches, taste and well-being, fragrance and beauty, new materials. We have ignored Nata de Coco.
But do you know the most expensive headphone that Sony sells is made out of a very thin main membrane of Nata de Coco? $6,000.
The vibration is so fine and so precise. We ignore that. And there are many other biomaterials that we can produce out of this microbial world, or even the way we can process our biomass. What do we do with coconut shell?
The midrib, we harvest every 45 days this biomass. Where else can you find sustainability?
Some, we have to cut the tree. The coconut tree is there. Every 45 days, it produces biomass. What do we do with it? Well, it’s stinking.
Okay, so you know, these challenges will have to be looked at and our inventory of materials will have to look up very deeply and very carefully. And now you have the challenge of lab-grown meat. I don’t know if you have tasted this, but it’s growing in terms of availability, I don’t know of demand, but availability in the advanced countries. And other uses which I don’t think we can now identify. It’s only when we are able to identify the composition. For example, no one still knows the composition of coconut shell.
Why? You cannot dissolve it. If you dissolve it in acid, it will change the composition.
So we need to get somebody with an expertise on maybe spectroscopy or something that will be able to identify structure and the elements. No one knows. And because we need to find out how we can flatten it. It’s a very strong material.
In all of these, talent, not capital.will be the key factor. So this is a challenge for the educational institutions here, LSPU, UPLB, the different schools, whether you’re in the basic education, whether you’re in the arts, it’s talent. Because these are the brains that will provide the thinking for innovation, competitiveness, and we understand how the global value chain is changing.
Why am I saying that? Because there is no one country that has the complete set of talents. So they will have to attract the whole pool globally. And that’s where we are missing out. Until now, the public schools cannot even hire foreign professors that must be looked at. The debate on whether to allow foreign-owned universities to operate is active. Now, let us see what we have. Because I hope this will kind of disturb you. The urgent task is to develop and retain. We develop but we are very weak in retaining them. And that’s why I said institutions are very important.
And the governance part is probably a critical element in how the institutions are going to be run. Only 14% of all professors in these HEIs with doctorate degree holders are in STEM. Very low. And majority of them are in agriculture.
But why are we having problems in agriculture?
Dr. Javier, National Scientist Javier keeps asking that. Where there are more doctorate degree holders, we cannot just let them go.
Okay?
This is a study headed by Marky, who is now the executive director of the, of ComEdCom2, and of course, C.P. David and Jeff Ducanes, okay? It’s four years old, but it’s probably not changed. So I don’t know how it is in UP and how you have been able to attract more doctoral degree holders. This is very low. And mind you, what we have, continually cited as a target of 380 R&D personnel per million population for the Philippines does not have any basis.
We call it the UNESCO target. I looked at the literature, Jeff Dukhanis looked at the literature, Noel DeJos looked at the literature. We could not find any basis because I said, I’ve been using that when I was in the cabinet and it’s been 25 years ago. Why is it not changing? And the population is growing. So we said, let’s look for the formula.
It is an average figure. And we have been citing that. And it’s very low. Singapore has 6,000.
Same percentage of graduates in STEM, but more are in R&D. Now, you can see the full-time equivalent deployment of researchers among the different regions.
Now, maybe here in Los Banos, let’s see how this deployment is profiled across disciplines, whether we have the balance of these, so that should there be a problem, we can immediately call, hey, you microbiologists, help us.
I remember when we had this cocolisap problem. It took a while to solve because the first diagnosis was wrong. It was the wrong identification for the insect. But it took a while because the other expert was engaged in another project and could not pull herself out. So that’s talent deficit.
We attend to the rehabilitation of Boracay. But Boracay is only Boracay, one of them. What about Panglao? What about El Nido? It’s becoming dirtier and dirtier because we cannot deploy them at the same time. So this is where you can now see the critical mass that needs to be generated. And the regions are very deficient. Calabarzon has one five, it’s the largest, I’m sorry, except for the National Capital Region, NCR. Some people call it the National CR.
We cannot build cathedrals with architects alone. We need plumbers, we need carpenters. This is the profile now of what TESTA has been doing in terms of certification. Look at agriculture compared to construction and tourism.
And that’s what I mean by monitoring and reckoning the balance. Are we overly producing this? And what is the impact?
Or is tourism drawing away chemistry graduates so that they become tourist guides, just like the BPO’s are drawing away many of our science graduates to serve us in the call centers.
How should that be managed? Now, of course, the cost. Maybe Dr. Eborra can help us here. This is based on the GAA up to 2022, a total of $2 billion for DA agencies’ investments in R&D. Over from 2018 to 2022. And the total for each year is indicated. If you ask me, that’s very low.
Okay, and look at how it is balanced in terms of the different agencies. Philippine Carabao Center, Philippine Milk has quite a big channel compared to Phil Rice.
Okay, R&D lang to. By region. Again, you can see how the different regions are funded out of a five billion kitty. So if you add five billion over five years plus the three billion of the other one for the agencies, you have a total of about 18, six, no sorry, eight billion.
But the grand total here, as you can see, for all the different agencies here is about 16 billion. Okay? PCCARRD, Ray, is this right?
This is a projection. Are you getting this? I hope.
But your 2024 budget should be 31 billion.
Okay, I mean, I think this is a total, including everything. But I’m just presenting this so you can see the resource base. Because in many fora that I have attended, people are too shy to talk about the money whenever a research project is being presented, they’re silent about the budget.
Many times, almost 90% of the time that I attend a forum for this presentation, they don’t talk about the budget. So I cannot assess whether it’s the cost benefit. HCI’s, including UP, including UPOU, including Laguna. You have a kitty of 128.2 billion.
I don’t know how much of this is in R&D because you have an item there called research services. And that particular item is discretionary.
I mean the institution can decide how to use it. That is the challenge for us here to look at how we can collaborate with these resources and how we are able to fund our priorities. The challenge now is to look at how we can look at how can produce globally competitive next generation products. That’s why I said your ciencia should not be wine and that’s not a next generation product anymore.
No, to be competitive, you cannot imitate. How can you compete and sell that? Our medicinal plants industry is suffering because it cannot export. Why? We don’t know the active ingredient.
So why should we study the active ingredients so that we can export our lagundi, our sambal? What do we do? Smell and taste. That’s the S&T.
That is not going to bring us anywhere. Of course, we need experts who will foster social and economic resilience by creating adjustments to manage, minimize, if not avoid, the negative impacts of disruptive events, natural or manmade, especially on the effects of climate change and the disruptive technologies.
This is very evident in our new health delivery technologies. It’s very expensive. You want the CT scan?
You want an MRI, which is really non-invasive? It’s expensive. And I just had my Shingles vaccine. Boy, that’s my one-month pension.
Very expensive. It’s just that I had to have it because one half of my face got affected and it’s terrible, terrible pain. So I said I must not have it again. Anyway, this is a big challenge for us. And are we producing the workforce that will allow us to move to this particular level of productivity and imagination.
So, just some suggestions on how to move forward. Remove your silos. Work together.
The complexity of the problems requires the central role of multidisciplinary skills. Of course, I just put in some of the basic sciences to emphasize you should not marginalize them. Next is your undergraduate and graduate programs need to be reformed. One particular practice that I’ve always being disturbed is when you, when the research and thesis proposals of your students are funded out of their pockets.
That practice should stop.
What kind of proposal, what kind of data will you generate from the 50,000, even the DOSD grants are very small. Yeah.
That’s why our publication record is very poor. What can you generate out of 50,000 peso grant? And who can afford out of pocket a one million peso budget for a thesis? So get the projects, fund their thesis from your projects so that they have enough resource base to move forward and produce decent and validated data. That’s the practice globally.
Unfortunately here, it’s something we need to really get to change. And lastly, of course, what I have repeatedly said earlier, we have to reform your institutional policies and make them move as the environment changes. Just some food for thought, whether you agree with this or not, just some observations from people who have studied the situation.
Technological backwardness is not merely accidental. I don’t think you should interpret it as by choice. No one, of course, would like to be technologically backward, but there are circumstances which prevent us from doing that. And many of you know that. You have gone through congressional hearings. Why do you need research?
That is a big question. What is the value of research? Okay. Those are things that we don’t like, but it’s there. And we have to find ways to overcome that. When you say Filipino Kasi, you are demeaning the ability.
It’s the choices that we make. It’s not the DNA. In fact, if you make that statement, maybe you’re bordering on being racist.
It’s the choices that we make. So the budget that is given to the Los Bano Science, the resources that you raise, is not an accident.
It’s a deliberate choice. Congress says we put this. Congress says we will put this intelligence fund and get the rest from DOST. Okay, is that accidental?
Something that we need to think about when we embark in what we call pilot projects, which we are so fond of, and which, in my observation, are designed to succeed.
Have you heard of a public project that failed on the basis of the reports?
Maybe I’m wrong, but I am not. They’re designed to succeed. They’re really partial interventions. But the Prime Minister of UK, Gordon Brown, former Prime Minister says, these great feats of human ingenuity do not happen to half measures. You’ve got to give everything. Otherwise, it’s not going to matter very much. And the social outcomes are going to be not too impactful.
Lastly, just a repetition of what I meant earlier, and I hope that this will tickle your minds, inspire you, discourage you, whatever will be your reaction, should trigger some kind of response as a community. And that’s the important feature of this gathering.
So maraming salamat po, congratulations.
