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By Go Bon Juan
Editor’s Note: The Sixth Dr. Jose P. Rizal
Awards for Excellence awarding ceremony will be held on June 14,
2008, 7 p.m., at the Kaisa-Angelo King Heritage Center on Anda and
Cabildo Streets, Intramuros, Manila.
The “Father of Philippine Science” is
Chinese. Born in China, raised in the Philippines, and a medical
practitioner in the United States, Frank Co Tui was honored with
this accolade by a Filipino statesman in 1962.
A native of Jinjiang, Fujian province, Co Tui
served as science adviser to two former Presidents: Ramon Magsaysay
and Carlos Garcia.
In November 1956, during the celebration of
Science Week, the Magsaysay Cabinet invited Co Tui, already renowned
for his medical practice and research in Chicago and New York, to
serve as vice president of the US-Philippine Science Foundation.
Two years later, the Garcia administration asked
him to survey the state of Philippine science and technology. His
recommendations formed the bulk of proposals that President Garcia
unveiled in his State of the Nation Address. Congress, upon Co
Tui’s recommendation, later passed a law establishing the National
Science Development Board, now the Department of Science and
Technology. Another of his recommendations led to the founding of
the Philippine Science High School.
Born in 1897, Co Tui had only two years of
Chinese schooling in Xiamen. He came to the Philippines when he was
eight and continued his education at the Aparri High School in
Cagayan province in Northern Luzon. After high school, he studied at
the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City. He
completed his baccalaureate studies in 1917 and received his medical
doctorate in 1922. He placed second in the national board
examinations, just one point behind the topnotcher.
Co Tui joined the Chinese General Hospital in
Manila the following year, but was recruited by the Michael Reese
Hospital in Chicago later that year.
In 1929, he became a professor of pharmacology
at the New York University School of Medicine and dean of surgery at
the same university in 1931. He became executive vice president of
the American Bureau for Medical Aid to China also in the 1930s.
In 1950, Co Tui helped establish the New York
State Department of Mental Hygiene and create the New York
Psychiatric Institute. He specialized in the research of mental
psychopathology and published numerous papers that appeared in
various American medical journals such as the prestigious
Psychiatric Quarterly.
In 1952, the University of the Philippines, his
alma mater, awarded him the Most Outstanding Alumni Award. He was
honored by the Philippine Medical Society that same year.
But Co Tui was never a Filipino citizen.
Although he married a Filipina, he retained his Chinese citizenship
while living in the Philippines, and eventually became an American
citizen. His being a non-Filipino, however, did not stop President
Magsaysay and President Garcia from tapping his talent in the 1950s.
Co Tui also became a consultant to the Southeast Asian Treaty
Organization’s Committee on Scientific Advancement.
At a 1962 gathering of scientists that marked
Science and Technology Week, then Vice President and Foreign
Secretary Emmanuel Pelaez fittingly acknowledged Co Tui as the
“Father of Philippine Science” in recognition of his
contributions to the development of science and technology in the
Philippines.
Co Tui passed away in 1984. On March 24, 1998,
when the Department of Science and Technology celebrated its 40th
anniversary, President Ramos awarded him a posthumous presidential
citation.
Living legacy
His legacy lives on. His insights on science in
particular and on life in general are still widely quoted to this
day.
“In a science-rich state, because man’s
activities directed at nature are productive, he can afford to be
civically conscious and honest and patriotic, and public morality is
high,” Co Tui told the Manila Lion’s Club on January 23, 1957.
“In a science-poor state, there is usually social discontent. And
because there is little to go around, man intrigues against man,
civic morality is low and there is an absence of civil pride, each
man having to look after himself and his family.”
“Rich countries are science-rich and poor
countries are science-poor,” he said in a speech, a cogent
argument in favor of accelerating scientific effort in the
Philippines.
And the acknowledged “Father of Philippine
Science” warned half a century ago: “Of all types of
wastefulness, the waste of human talent is the most sinful since it
is irreplaceable.”
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