Science and Technology for Socioeconomic Progress

• The need to develop a country's science and technology has been recognized as an imperative for socioeconomic progress, especially since World War II.
• Dependence in science and technology is a concern for Third World countries, tied to their political sovereignty and economic self-reliance
• There is an imbalance between scientific and technological development among states, with developed countries hosting 98% of research and development facilities
• Science is defined with the systematic understanding and explanation of the laws of nature
• Scientific activity focuses on research, leading to new knowledge that may or may not have direct applications
• Technology is the "systematic knowledge of the industrial arts" implemented through techniques
• Modern technology involves systematic research with concrete outcomes like products or processes for sale
• Science and technology were historically separate, but modern advancements have linked them closely together
• There is little reliable written information about pre-colonial Philippine society, culture, and technology before 1521.
• Early Filipinos had simple technology compared to the Chinese and Japanese, but sufficient for their needs.
• Archaeological findings show modern humans inhabited Palawan and Batangas around 50,000 years ago.
• Around 3,000 B.C., adzes, seashell ornaments, and pottery with various designs were being produced.
• Pottery became well-developed for about 2,000 years until Chinese porcelain imports caused a decline.
• Initial manufacture of ordinary cooking pots continues in some local communities
• Early Filipinos gradually learned to make metal tools and implements from copper, gold, bronze, and iron.
• Filipinos engaged in extraction of iron from ore, smelting, and refining during this period
• The Iron Age in the Philippines: Lasted from the second or third century B.C. to the tenth century A.D.
• Filipinos were weaving cotton, smelting iron, making pottery, and glass ornaments by the first century A.D.
• Lowland rice was cultivated in diked fields, and terraced fields utilizing spring water in the interior mountain regions of the Cordillera.
• By the tenth century A.D., boatbuilding had become a highly developed technology in the Philippines.
• The early Spanish chroniclers noted the refined plank-built warship called caracoa.
• By the tenth century A.D., Butuan inhabitants traded with Champa (Vietnam), with the inhabitants of Ma-i (Mindoro) trading with China.
• Trade relationships between the Philippines and China was well-established during the tenth to the fifteenth centuries.
• Chao Ju-Kua's account in 1225 describes communities and trading activities in Ma-i (Mindoro) and San-hsu (Palawan and Calamian Islands).
• Ma-i and San-hsu traded beeswax, cotton, true pearls, tortoise shell, medicinal betelnuts, yu-ta cloth, and coconut heart mats for Chinese porcelain, iron pots, lead fishnet sinkers, colored glass beads, iron needles, and tin
• Filipinos in Mindanao and Sulu had trade relations with Borneo, Malacca, and parts of the Malay Peninsula antedating those with Chinese
• Hindu-Buddhist, Malay-Sanskrit, and Arab-Muslim influences spread to the Philippines through the trade
• When the Spaniards colonized the Philippines in 1565, they found scattered, autonomous village communities called barangays.
• These communities were kinship groups or social units focused on producing what they needed
• Settlements exposed to foreign trade and cultural contacts had more sophisticated technology.
• The Spaniards found the town of Mindoro fortified by a stone wall, defended by armed Moros
• Manila was defended by a palisade with artillery.
• These reports indicate the Filipinos had learned to make and use modern artillery.
• All over the islands, Filipinos grew rice, vegetables, and cotton; raised swine, goats, and fowls; made wine, vinegar, and salt; wove cloth; and produced beeswax and honey
• Filipinos in Panay, Mindoro and Bicol mined gold
• Houses were made of wood or bamboo and nipa, and their own system of writing and weights and measures existed
• The pre-colonial Filipinos were highly superstitious and they did not develop a literary tradition
• There was little pressure for invention and innovation among the early Filipinos
• Filipinos built houses of stakes, fished, rowed, and cultivated land

Development in Science and Technology during the Spanish Regime

• The Spanish regime introduced schools, hospitals, and scientific research, impacting the country's professions
• The role of religious orders shaped the development of science and technology during the Spanish colonization
• Spanish conquest was facilitated by the religious strategy of reduccion, consolidating barangay communities

Reduccion Policy

• It was a response to the shortage of Spanish missionaries
• It consists of religious conversion and military force
• It led to the creation of towns and the foundation of the present system of local government
• The colonial authorities established centralized control for tribute tax collection, labor services, and compulsory product sales
• Filipinos resisted reduccion due to displacement from their livelihood sources and onerous economic demands
• The first century of Spanish rule caused socio-economic dislocation and decline in agriculture and traditional crafts
• Filipinos migrated to Manila to serve in convents and avoid labor services, leading to congestion
• Religious orders played a major role in establishing the colonial educational system
• Decrees were issued in Spain to establish a school system in the colony but were not effectively carried out.
• Primary instruction was mainly religious education due to a dearth of qualified teachers, textbooks, and instructional materials.
• Higher education was provided by schools set up by religious orders in urban centers like Manila
• Subjects like physics, chemistry, natural history, and mathematics added in the nineteenth century
• Higher education was for priesthood or clerical positions until the late nineteenth century
• The Royal and Pontifical University of Santo Tomas was the highest institution of learning
• It was set up by the Dominicans
• It initially granted degrees in theology, philosophy, and humanities
• Pharmacy studies consisted of natural history, chemistry, and pharmaceutical operations
• 164 students graduated with a degree in pharmacy during the Spanish period
• There existed no schools that offered engineering at the time
• The Nautical School offered a four-year course of study
• The Manila School of Agriculture was established
• It was designed to provide theoretical and practical education of skilled farmers and overseers and to promote agricultural development in the Philippines
• The colonial authorities issued a royal decree in 1863 to reform the existing educational system
• Higher education was viewed with suspicion and feared by the colonial authorities
• Science courses were taught by the lecture/recitation method
• There were hardly any Filipino graduates which meant no access to employment
• With the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, knowledge of the West also reached the Philippines.
• Filipinos went to Europe for professional advanced studies, including José Rizal
• The religious orders led technological innovation and scientific research to provide basic necessities for missionary work and finance their colleges and universities
• The Spaniards introduced town planning and building with stones, brick, and tiles
• Chinese master builders, artisans, and masons were imported due to a lack of skilled Filipinos
• The Filipinos completed the construction of Manila walls, its churches, convents, hospitals, schools, and public buildings by the seventeenth century
• Religious orders established charity hospitals and provided public service
• Research in these institutions were confined to pharmacy and medicine and concentrated on the problems of infectious diseases and their possible remedies
• Father Fernando de Sta. Maria's Manual de Medicinas Caseras published in 1763 observed, catalogued and wrote about Philippine plants, particularly those with medicinal properties
• By the second half of the nineteenth century, studies of infectious diseases were intensified
• Native Filipinos began to participate in scientific research
• The Laboratorio Municipal de Ciudad de Manila was created in 1887

Galleon Trade effects

• There was very little development in Philippine agriculture and industry
• Spanish relied on profits from the Galleon or Manila-Acapulco trade
• Trade antedated Spanish rule
• The galleons brought Chinese goods to Latin America and brought back Mexican silver
• Manila prospered as the entrepot of the Orient
• The Filipinos hardly benefited from the Galleon trade
• Direct participation in the trade was limited to Spanish inhabitants of Manila who were given shares of lading space in the galleons.
• Spanish preoccupation with the Manila Galleon eventually led to the neglect of agriculture and mining and the decline of native handicrafts and industries in the Philippines.
• At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the Bourbon dynasty ascended to the Spanish throne and brought political and economic ideas of the French Enlightenment.
• The need to promote economic recovery after the British Occupation of Manila in 1762-1764 further encouraged exploitation of wealth
• Research in agriculture and industry was encouraged by the founding of the Real Sociedad Economica de los Amigos del Pais de Filipinas by Governador Jose Basco y Vargas under authority of a royal decree of 1780
• The Society functioned somewhat like the European learned societies
• Manila was opened to Asian shipping in 1789
• Manila was officially opened to world trade and commerce in 1814
• Foreign capital allowed to operate equally with Spanish merchants in 1829
• Modern amenities started being introduced in the nineteenth century
• Meteorological studies were promoted by Jesuits who founded the Manila Observatory in 1865
• The first public typhoon warning issued in 1879
• A royal decree turning the Observatory into an official institution in April 1884
• Economic development benefits were unevenly distributed in the archipelago in the nineteenth century
• Increasing concentration of wealth in principalia.
• Filipino nationalism culminated in the Revolution of 1896 due to inequality, abuses and injustices committed by the Spanish friars and officials

Science and Technology during the First Republic

• There was very little development in science and technology during the short-lived Philippine Republic (1898-1900).
• The government established secular system through a decree
• Created the Universidad Literaria de Filipinas which was a secular, state-supported institution of higher learning offering courses in law, medicine, surgery, pharmacy and notary public

Developments in Science and Technology during the American Regime

• During the American Regime, science and technology in the Philippines advanced rapidly
• Simultaneous government encouragement and support for education system in an extensive public
• The grating of scholarships for higher education in science and engineering
• Organization of science research agencies and establishment of science-based public services
• Introduced a system of secularized public school education
• Commonwealth Act was enacted reestablishing the Office of Private Education
• Higher education provided mainly by the private sector
• The government created the National Economic Council to prepare an economic program and advise the government on economic and financial questions
• The government reorganized and new ones created to varied functions such as the exploitation and development of natural resources
• The Philippines became and independent state after the Commonwealth period