S&T seen critical to Asean integration
The Philippines needs to get its act together in science and technology in order to keep abreast with neighbors in a very competitive Asean Community in the next five years, a senior official of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) said yesterday.
"The Asean Community will be created by 2015 as a single production base and single market, and each country will have to find its competitive niche, including attracting foreign direct investment," said Dr. Filemon A. Uriarte, Jr., executive director of the Asean Foundation.
While the idea of a single currency is still far off, Asean by then will have a common constitution, flag and even anthem. The Asean is composed of the Philippines, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
"Science and technology is the only factor that truly contributes to the economies of nations," Uriarte said, adding it is not the number of people, nor the size of the country that is important, but whether the country has the scientific manpower.
"The creation of the Asean Community will have a great impact on science and technology in the Philippines," he said. "The country which has a more developed science and technology will have the advantage."
"Singapore, for example, has an advantage in biotechnology, attracting pharmaceutical firms. Thailand will have an edge in automotive manufacturing as it is now the Detroit of Asia," he said.
The Philippines, while lagging in most areas of research and development, has a strong Information Technology (IT) manpower and leads its neighbors in agriculture-related biotechnology, Uriarte, a former science secretary, said in a press briefing.
"We have a strong capability in Information Technology, biotechnology agriculture, clean environmental technologies and biomedicine, especially pharmaceutical products that can be extracted from marine resources," Science Secretary Estrella F. Alabastro told Malaya Business Insight.
"We also have a lot of natural resources, and that’s our strength over countries like, say, Singapore," she added.
"The Philippines has a lot of advantages to speak of but we have to make sure that our products, like food, can compete," Alabastro said, admitting that the creation of an Asean Community will "really be a challenge" for the country.
"That’s why we need to focus on science and technology," Uriarte said. "There is a need for an infrastructure that identifies scientific talent and we need to reward that talent."
Because of the keen competition in an open Asean market by 2015, Uriarte said, "the next president should really support science and technology."
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