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Messages - Eduardo (Jay) Olaguer

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16
Some time ago, my son presented to me as a gift a book on Philippine history that rekindled my interest in the national hero, Jose Rizal. And so, for the first time since high school, I read both the Noli Me Tangere and its sequel, El Filibusterismo. I did so with entirely new eyes, the eyes of one who, like Rizal, had been educated abroad, published books and scientific articles, and learned the histories and languages of foreign countries. What a revelation it was to read Rizal after so many years! The version I read was the classic English translation by Charles Derbyshire, complete with historical preface, a preface I found illuminating, despite having to filter out Derbyshire’s self-serving tendency to see in Rizal a justification for the brutal pacification of the Philippines by the United States.


                           IMAGE CREDIT: PROJECT SAYSAY   philippine quincentennial commemorations


When I first encountered Rizal’s novels, I was required to read them in a literary Tagalog vastly different from the familiar language of the streets. In retrospect, I doubt whether I and my cohort of then teenagers were equipped to appreciate the biting sarcasm of Rizal, let alone the various literary, cultural, and historical allusions that permeated his works. Although Rizal was the foremost of Filipino nationalists, he wrote his novels from a transnational perspective that transcended the limited world of the Filipino village. It is precisely because he wrote in the Spanish language, one with a firm literary tradition and historical consciousness, that he could express reality on the scale of civilization, unfettered by parochialism. It was fascinating for me to discover that Rizal even chose English as the medium of instruction for the school he founded while in exile in Dapitan. This from the man who said, “Ang hindi nagmamahal sa sariling wika ay masahol pa sa malansang isda (He who does not love his native language is worse than a rotting fish).”

This brings me to the main lesson of my re-encounter with Rizal. Filipino education, as I have experienced and observed it, tends to view things from the perspective of the ant, whereas Rizal saw things from the perspective of the eagle. We Filipinos tend to collect knowledge in the same way we build our barungbarongs-- haphazardly, like so much loose change. For example, Filipino college curricula are overcrowded with cafeteria-style survey courses without depth or organizing worldview. I remember a visit to the University of Santo Tomas arranged for me by my scientific colleagues, wherein I witnessed circumstances not vastly different from those described in El Filibusterismo, specifically the chapter entitled, “The Class in Physics.”
 
If we are to progress as a nation, we need to go beyond the temporal and spatial scales of the village to the scales that mark civilization. Let us by all means develop Filipino as our national language. But let us also recognize that the Filipino, like his model Rizal, is at his best when he is also a citizen of the world.

RELATED READING:
Did Rizal ever speak and write in English?

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You can have a two-tiered system where one tier subsidizes the student directly and the other subsidizes a small number of quality institutions where only the best can teach and study. That way you don't have a lot of unskilled college graduates running around. There is also the public research library which, if properly subsidized (including workshops taught by professionals and open to the general public), can accomplish what liberal arts colleges aspire to do. That's exactly how I became a published author on theological matters even though I was formally educated as a scientist.

18
Joe, you've hit the nail on the head! I long ago realized that the whole research system in the US was exactly a Ponzi scheme in which most post-docs and grad students were there merely to feed the pyramid. That is why I became an industry scientist and consultant, eventually joining a non-profit boundary organization to try to apply cutting edge science in practical settings, such as environmental and industrial policy and regulations.

19
Member Introductions / Re: Hi from Mark
« on: September 25, 2011, 08:31:50 PM »
Thanks Joe! I already got one e-mail from Ben Vallejo. I'm excited about the prospect of constributing in one way or another to the Philippines' development. It's something I've always aspired to, although I never found a mechanism that would allow me to do it.

20
Member Introductions / Re: Hi from Mark
« on: September 25, 2011, 12:46:40 PM »
I've just joined today. I'm a Ph.D. physical scientist who manages and does air quality research, and who also writes books (four already published and more forthcoming) on Scripture and Catholic Theology. I have a new manuscript entitled "The Power of Four: Keys to the Hidden Treasure of the Gospels" that anyone can access on www.authonomy.com, which is HarperCollins' website for prospective authors. My bio there lists my other published works, most of which are available through amazon.com.

Dr. Eduardo P. Olaguer

21
Education and Teaching / Re: PNoy’s science policy insults scientists
« on: September 25, 2011, 12:26:07 PM »
Hi, Folks

I am new to this forum, which deals with some interesting issues. I belong to the Filipino diaspora and want to add my two centavos' worth to the topic at hand. I agree that environmental monitoring is a key component of S&T development, and to this I would add environmental modeling. This is for two reasons: 1) We need to develop a green manufacturing capability that promotes sustainability locally; and 2) We need to learn how to manufacture products that meet increasingly stringent international environmental standards and promote sustainability globally.

I was just discussing an idea with Fr. Jett Villarin, my former Ateneo high school classmate, about building an environmental monitoring and modeling capability on a neighborhood scale that can be used in eco-industrial parks in the Philippines, including the marriage of external monitoring with industrial process control and simulation. As the Director of Air Quality Research at the Houston Advanced Research Center, I am involved in patenting a new Emission Monitoring and Attribution System that can measure industrial emissions from outside facility fence lines using a combination of DOAS (imaging and multi-axis) remote sensing, real-time in situ monitoring, and inverse modeling. I am likewise developing a new 3D neighborhood air quality model with its own chemical mechanism as well as standard transport algorithms that can be run in both forward and adjoint (inverse) mode. I have also just now published a paper in Atmospheric Environment on a new method for performing air quality Computer Aided Tomography based on long path DOAS measurements.

I would love to hook up with other Filipino scientists to promote this idea.


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