Stimulating the economy through R&D

We are currently in the midst of a worldwide recession that threatens many economies, including ours. Already many of our countrymen abroad are getting laid off from their jobs, and locally many of our export-oriented industries like electronics are feeling the pinch. Companies like Texas Instruments have already announced that they are laying off 400 Filipino workers from their plant in Baguio; others are expected to follow suit as markets in the US, Europe and Japan are not purchasing new products. We in Congress are formulating a stimulus package for the Philippines to boost economic activity.

Whenever tough times like these come, we can consider it either as a problem or as an opportunity. One instance where we can take this as an opportunity to move forward is in developing our domestic technology industries and jobs. Our high technology industries, in the semiconductor and electronics field, for example, are mostly export-oriented doing low value-added labor.

Although the figure from the industry is around $31 billion worth of exports annually, much of this is really the value of the equipment and materials that were imported to make these products, and not really the local content.

So in moving forward during these troubled times, this is a good time as any to change our mindset, and view this situation more positively and constructively in order to incubate a local scientific and technology industry, through research and development (R&D) and technology transfer. But key to all this talk about building high-tech industries is a robust R&D sector.

That is why Congress upon my initiative set up the bicameral Congressional Commission on Science and Technology and Engineering (COMSTE) to tackle our lack of competitiveness in science and technology R&D.

In the December 2008 issue of Science magazine, a prestigious publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, it was reported that we are spending around $81 million yearly on R&D. This may seem like a big figure to some, but in the worldwide context of things it is quite small. COMSTE is therefore looking at ways to boost our R&D spending, keeping in mind that the desired end-result should be local industry and job creation as well as the competitiveness of our products and services.

To this end, we held an R&D conference in UP Diliman where we invited the public sector R&D participants like the departments, the agencies, the state colleges and universities that are doing R&D. Several key findings came out of that conference, but the most important is the fact that there is no overall coordination that is happening on this limited amount we are spending. There are some redundant activities, and in some areas there is no activity. Instead of complementing efforts, we are competing with each other. That is not the way to move forward.

Sad to say that the $81 million, already a small figure, is being spent in a “laissez faire” manner without regard to a national strategic plan. This is actually a worldwide phenomenon; scientists do not like to be told where to apply their creative juices, and government agencies do not always go out of their way to work with each other.

However, this business-as-usual attitude, given the worldwide crisis, must now be dropped. We need to stimulate the economy, and take this rare opportunity to build our local scientific and technology capabilities through this spending, and create high technology jobs in the process.

Unless the scientific community, the government agencies and the SUCs realize that it is in their best interest to work together on a few key areas, given our limited resources, we cannot hope to produce significant strides in local industry and job creation.

The Diliman R&D Conference also pushed for two significant institution reforms. The first is the full operation of the Renewable Energy Research Institute, established under the Renewable Energy law. The second is the establishment of an R&D institute patterned after Taiwan’s successful Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), as an incubator of industrial innovation.

We need to pour our efforts and resources in a few key areas, work together, with the ultimate end of industry and job creation from our R&D efforts. That is the call of the time, and it will be sheer folly not to heed it.

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Sen. Angara chairs the bicameral Congressional Commission on Science and Technology and Engineering (COMSTE).