November 2007

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'Labor of love' also pays

LAST week, Atty. Ronilo A. Beronio,
Deputy Executive Director of the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) gave us an insight into the technology commercialization framework being drafted for the Department of Agriculture (DA) and its agencies.

I cannot agree with him more that the DA, in its century-old existence, is faced with the challenge of modernizing Philippine Agriculture in the context of emerging trends and technologies, especially biotechnology, brought about by globalization.

Central to the topic is the generation and release of publicly funded research outputs, which often land into the hands of multinationals who benefit the most, simply because they have the capacity to commercialize the technology and its products, leaving behind government, which funds the projects, and the scientists who were commissioned to conduct the study often find themselves with literally nothing.

The government and its scientists use public funds to develop technologies that should, in general, benefit the people. But what if the scientists start to look for greener pastures because the government does not pay them enough for their efforts but also does not recognize their hard work?

The government, according to Atty. Beronio, is losing some of its best scientists to multinational companies, because they offer bigger pay and they offer them a share in the technology they develop, unlike the government.

Truly, the only way to keep our scientists is for the government to recognize their right as inventor or technology developer, and for them to benefit from their so-called "labor of love."

The DA Biotechnology Program Office (BPO) has funded several studies that all support Atty. Beronio’s conclusion that the Philippine has the capacity not only for technology development but also for the commercialization of these technologies and their products as well.

The DA, for instance, has developed many technologies which it can proudly claim as its own.

These technologies could generate fund to make the DA or the DA agencies’ research projects sustainable, while the scientist or scientists who successfully worked on the projects could benefit from it through intellectual property rights.

The DA has more or less 200 technologies, 120 of which were funded by the DA’s regular agencies, while the remaining 80 were funded by DA’s attached agencies or bureaus.

Atty. Beronio says his studies have led him to the following conclusions: (1) The DA researchers are positive toward agribiotech, its generation, and commercialization; (2) there is a strong positive perception on intellectual property rights (IPR) and its impact on the generation and commercialization of agbiotech products, and; (3) the mindset that the public funded research are public goods and should be for free is changing.

Scientists deserve to taste the fruits of their arduous research, to have something tangible out of their "labor of love."

Public servants can legally own and benefit from the agbiotech they generate from the performance of their regular duties, while the DA and its attached agencies are fully authorized, if not mandated, to commercialize public agbiotech. Agbiotech is not merely an intellectual property, but a special one, because it is, after all, biotechnology.

The implementation of the rules on IPR is just one step toward the proposed technology commercialization framework being drafted and proposed to be effected through an administrative order to sustain the effort to modernize Philippine agriculture.

Soon, both the scientists and the government will finally realize their goals.

In the end, the ultimate beneficiary will be the general public they both serve.

Alicia Ilaga is the Director of the DA Biotechnology Program Office (BPO) and is also the Vice-President for Luzon of BIONet.

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