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If one takes the bus going through the South Luzon Expressway, one
would notice signs along the way proclaiming one’s proximity to
various industrial, automotive, “Techno” and “Light Industry
& Science” parks in Laguna. In Quezon City, one can also not
help but notice the new UP Technohub that sprouted along
Commonwealth Avenue. There are similar complexes that seem to show
our propensity for wide urban spaces (in the usual definition of
parks) as well as a burgeoning industrial capacity that spells the
development of domestic science and technology.
But all is not what it seems.
Far from being the industrial hubs where
national industries are born, these “science parks” and
“techno-hubs” are examples of how foreign firms capitalize on
local talent and government incentives to locate within “parks”
usually designated as export processing zones. Most of these parks
involve the electronics industry making consumer electronics,
peripherals, semi-conductors and components for export. Recently,
these parks have also accommodated information technology services
and development and business process outsourcing locators.
The idea of building “incubator” parks near
or within universities is not new. Some notable examples were along
Route 128 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology area, Silicon
Valley near Stanford University in California, Haidan Science Park
at the University of Beijing and the Singapore Science Park at the
National University of Singapore—and now the UP Technohub in
Diliman. There is also an incubator in Cebu, the Ayala-UP Visayas
venture geared towards computer-based technologies.
The current science and technology parks in UP
Diliman styles itself as promoting “synergy between the academe
and industry for R&D collaboration”—the same idea behind the
success of MIT and Stanford. It hosts a Science Centrum, training
laboratories, fiber optic networks, and other facilities which
provide access to UP’s academic resources. Taken out of context of
the reality of a pre-industrial and agrarian economy, it seems a
grand plan to upgrade and modernize the university.
The development of high-tech materials,
processes and ideas, and its translation to mass-market and high-end
specialized goods, stems from the “synergy” that is present in
MIT, Stanford, Beijing, Tsukuba and Singapore: in these countries,
there are basic industries and manufacturing plants that were able
to support nascent technologies and supply the needs of the new
industries.
In contrast, there are no local and domestic
industries in the Philippines that are ready to absorb the
intellectual output of the S&T parks. The only existing
industries that are able to do this are either the big bourgeoisie
compradors or the multinationals. The new Technohub-AyalaTBI is
presently occupied by big industry players, such as IBM and
Hewlett-Packard and IT enabled services such as voice-based
telemarketing, accounting, transcription and web design.
Even without these parks, the “synergy”
between business and the academe is skewed in favor of business.
Without local industries, the academe’s human and intellectual
output is typically channelled to foreign businesses located in the
country or to greener pastures abroad. But with these parks located
near the universities, they don’t have to go too far.
True, UP experiences an annual constriction in
its budget from the government, with a projected P280-million
reduction in the 2009 national budget. But the answer should not be
to allow government to abrogate its role in education by selling out
to the prospect of developing and commercializing UP’s land and
intellectual resources. The science parks in Diliman are being
promoted as the next Silicon Valley. Sadly, this will not come true
unless we are able to build national industries.
Who should shoulder the cost of developing the
capacity for industrialization? Who should benefit from the
intellectual products of a state university? The development of
science and technology, especially in the premier state university,
is a state responsibility and as such UP’s products should be
primarily geared for the building our own domestic capacity and not
of any multinational or comprador company. Any such program for
university linkages with industry will not be of genuine use to the
majority as long as these firms can take out its profits without
reinvestment in our economy and eventually leave our country with no
genuine technology transfer.
We do need genuine investments in science and
technology. This should be coupled with building national
industries. National industrialization plays a part in the genuine
advance of science and technology and will be the key in making
universities a true conduit of the knowledge and skill of the people
and realizing these into new processes and new ideas for their
benefit. These science and techno-parks that abound only feed and
intensify the cycle of brain drain—in the sense that our
“brains” are being “drained” without us having to leave the
country.
[Dr. Tapang is a physicist and the current
national chairperson of AGHAM.]
Prom.bound@gmail.com
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