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If professional basketball teams can import players, why can’t the
Philippines import foreign scientists?
This was the question asked by former Science
and Technology Secretary William Padolina when he spoke before
members of the Joint Senate-House of Representatives Committee on
Science, Technology and Engineering (Comste) that conducted an en
banc meeting Monday morning at the Sofitel Hotel in Manila.
Padolina, chairman of the panel of experts that
made recommendations for legislation to boost research and
development in agriculture, told the committee members that
importing foreign scientists would quickly fill up the lack of
scientists in the Philippines for many projects. This could be done
as the government and the private sector simultaneously grant more
scholarships to Filipinos to take up masteral and doctoral studies
in scientific disciplines.
Padolina, the Science secretary during the time
of former President Fidel Ramos, told the panel that the presence of
imported scientists would also put pressure on society to increase
the compensation of Filipino scientists. In turn, this would attract
more young Filipinos to pursue careers in science.
Padolina’s remarks prompted Sen. Edgardo
Angara, who presided over the en banc meeting, to comment that in
the early 1990s, he had made a similar suggestion to Ramos,
particularly for Russian scientists who became unemployed after the
Soviet Union was dissolved on December 1991.
The science committee is co-chaired by Angara
and Representative Emilio Abaya of Cavite. Angara was Senate
president during the Ramos administration.
Angara said Ramos took note of his suggestion,
but made no further initiative. In contrast, Singapore quickly hired
a good number of unemployed Russian scientists.
Padolina said he was serious about his
suggestion, but the country’s labor and immigration laws would
have to be amended for that purpose.
He told The Manila Times that the Philippines
could not simply wait for its masteral and doctoral students in
science, to whom it had given scholarships, to finish their studies.
This is because scientific talents are immediately needed to boost
the country’s economic competitiveness.
A check with the committee secretariat showed
the Philippines roughly one doctorate holder in the scientific
disciplines for every 54,000 Filipinos. Japan’s ratio is one per
11,000 people and the United States one per 3,000.
-- Ike Suarez
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