Prometheus Bound
The State of Science and Technology in the Philippines

Samahan ng Nagtataguyod ng Agham at Teknolohiya para sa Sambayanan (AGHAM)

Advocates of Science and Technology for the People
(c) 2005

This material has been published with financial support from the office of Representative Satur C. Ocampo. Reproduction in parts or in whole is allowed even without permission from the publishers provided that the authors are properly acknowledged when quoted.

AS WITH ANY SEARCH FOR UNDERSTANDING OF A PARTICULAR SITUATION, we begin the analysis of the Philippine state of science and technology with its description. This entails quantifying and describing the concrete state of things and listing the particulars of what we mean by a backward and stunted state of science and technology. That we do not have an advanced state of science and technology is a statement generally shared and experienced directly by many scientists and engineers in the Philippines. To deepen and enrich our understanding beyond this perceptual and descriptive level, we have to investigate and study the existing relations between science and society; between scientists and the products
of their activities; between scientists, science and technology and the rest of society.

The place of science in society is already familiar to scientists— how scientific activities depend on the changing needs of society; how these activities change productive methods and how these productive methods eventually contribute to change in society. Science, technology and society are inextricably linked in the daily production activities to meet man’s material needs. This is true in every historical epoch human societies have undergone. This is one of the key elements that have guided us in writing this paper and therefore we take a bit more detail in looking at the relations between our economic and social conditions to the current state of science and technology.

Another key idea is trying to understand why despite new knowledge and technologies being developed almost routinely around the world, still a great majority of people live in abject poverty. And nowhere is this irony more intense than in countries like the Philippines. We have bright and learned scientists; we have people who can benefit from the skills of these scientists. Yet scientists find it hard to practice in this country and develop new technologies for our people. We have engineers who can find jobs only in foreign-owned companies or abroad. Meanwhile, we import manufactured goods at great costs. This despite the intellectual understanding of the processes and technologies necessary to produce such goods.

Why is it so? Who benefits from this situation? How can we change it?

Improving the state of science and technology in the Philippines is
therefore not just a matter of increasing the number of scientists, building the necessary infrastructures and generating successful technologies.Improving science and technology should mean addressing both sides of the coin: why Philippine science and technology remains backward and stunted and why it fails to benefit our people. This paper hopes to contribute in the understanding of these issues.

In the process of writing this paper, we saw that there are a lot more information that should be sought and that even more questions need to be answered. But we believe that this paper is a step bring closer to understanding and discovering ways on how to make science and technology meaningful to the Filipino people.