Lock of the Present; Key to the Future:
The Present State of Science and Technology in the Philippines
Science and Technology. This pair of words are known and looked upon with respect and hope. At the same time, these are one of the leading forces in driving a country’s national and economic growth, as well as one of the main pillars in supporting the socio-economic needs of the community. The pair provides innovations that make a specific task more efficient by developing products that may provide new applications that will benefit our society. If we apply this logic to our country, we can’t help but ask about the situation of S&T, as well as how our economy and industry are affected by it.
We all know how S&T positively impacts a country’s economy by providing breakthroughs that make the manufacturing of products become smoother and more efficient, so, has our economy been doing well with the current state of S&T? The short answer is no. The Philippine economy is currently experiencing widespread poverty and unemployment wherein 26 million Filipinos are living below the poverty line with an additional 1.5 million due to the lack of social subsidies amid the COVID-19 pandemic. It is estimated that 4.2 million Filipinos are unemployed while 7.9 million are underemployed, however, 66 million are living with less than 120 pesos daily. The underlying cause for this problem lies within three (3) issues; 1) There is a lack of basic industries; 2) There is no program for rural industrialization and agricultural modernization and; 3) There is no genuine infrastructure that supports the various science and tech fields.
The lack of basic industries in the Philippines is a crucial weak point in the Philippine economy because it causes us to be dependent on foreign firms. This is disadvantageous in many ways because it decreases the country’s GDP and shares in certain sectors. Take, for example, the manufacturing sector wherein the manufacturing shares in the GDP fell from 22.5% in 2000 to 18.6% in 2019, with the share of manufacturing to total employment decreasing from 10% to 8.5%. A reason why basic industries in the Philippines have stunted growth is that the country is import-dependent and export-oriented. This means that the country depends on the exports of other countries to provide for the needs of its people and that it exports raw materials to foreign countries to generate income. However, the raw materials we export are cheaper than the products that we import because the latter requires advanced processes, equipment, or skills that we don’t possess, adding more value to the product. This causes our economy to grow slowly, hindering the income generation of the country.
The Philippines is in no way a resource-poor country. It has 12.4 million hectares of arable land, 200 million hectares of ocean, and over a trillion cubic meters of natural gas. The massive area of arable land alone gives the country an advantage in agriculture as it allows widescale crop cultivation which greatly benefits the country. This in itself is evident as agriculture provides around 40 to 45 percent of the total national income and about 70 to 80 percent of exports. However, in recent years, agriculture has had little to no support as the prioritization of export-oriented production has led to the promotion of foreign agribusinesses like the planting of cash crops that are bought at a low price by foreign countries; reducing the natural resources that local industries could have used to develop themselves and the national economy.
The lack of genuine infrastructure that supports the various sci-tech fields severely limits the capabilities of workers or may even prevent them from being employed which has led to a shortage of sci-tech professionals, as well as professionals from other fields. It is estimated that 5,460 workers leave the country to work abroad on a daily basis that has led to a shortage of 23,000 nurses in the country, likewise to other scientists nationwide. Moreover, it was discovered that the Philippines has 189 scientists for every million; a data far away from the international standard figure of 19,000.
Taking all this into account, one thing is clear: the key to resolving the economic problems of our country is national industrialization, that is, the process of establishment and development of different industries which would stimulate the economy and supply the needs of the country. The first step should be the removal of the semi-colonial orientation of the country; the second should be a change in the economic system to prioritize the people’s needs rather than a foreign country’s. The third step is self-sufficiency; wherein we no longer need to depend on the industries of foreign countries and instead start developing our own. This would create more jobs, increase the purchasing power of the peasantry, end foreign technology dependence, and create a sovereign economy. The crucial element in national industrialization, however, lies in S&T. Through S&T, agriculture could serve as a base for industrialization by modernizing and mechanizing. Light industries could be established to produce our goods such as grains, meat, and clothing-footwear while heavy industries could be used to process metals, chemicals and pharmaceuticals, and machinery. Nonetheless, if S&T is the key factor in national industrialization and revitalizing our economy, why has it not done as much as expected?
The state of science and technology in the Philippines is, in a nutshell, inadequate and poor in quality. The Philippines has the lowest expenditure per student among all the PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) — participating countries which is evident in many schools around the country, especially in public schools. They experience shortages in educational facilities and lab tools to the point where students have to buy their learning equipment rather than being provided by the school for free. This factor has caused many students to be denied quality education; resulting in the Philippines having one of the lowest scores in reading comprehension and mathematics in global rankings. Although some educational institutions do indeed have high standards for education, being able to provide the latest learning materials and lab equipment to students, most of them are privatized and highly commercialized. What this means is that schools that have high-quality education are subject to higher fees which serve as a barrier for students and their families wherein only the elite are able to afford the best possible education while those who are less affluent have to settle for free education that has a drop in quality.
Aside from the case of S&T in education, S&T in the professional field has likewise seen a lack of support and funding. In 1998, funding for research and development was allocated at 0.3% of the Philippines’ GDP, however, over the years, that value slowly diminished with 0.14% being the GDP expenditure of R&D. The sparse financial support towards R&D has prevented the production of new research, technology, and scientists which is obvious at first glance when the Philippines ranked 59th out of 63 countries in terms of global competitiveness based on S&T budget, when only 14.6% of patent applications are done by locals, and when there are only 27,811 international research publications that were written by Filipino scientists.
Overall, both S&T and the Philippine economy are not doing well; the situation may even grow worse over time. Thus, change must happen. To improve the economy, industrialization is a must; however, such requirement is dependent on the development of S&T. Although recent allocations have shown the decreasing valuation for the said field, it is never too late to restart. Providing schools with better learning materials and more equipment/materials is a good start in this ordeal, as well as increasing the GDP expenditure on research and development. However, what matters the most, in this case, is the passion of the Filipino people, whether they would truly want to learn S&T, or to leave it to future generations that, hopefully, will. So ask yourself this: do you think that S&T can benefit our country? If so, are you willing to lead your generation in becoming the future scientists that our country desperately needs?
