Author Topic: Lone scientist in DOST has resigned  (Read 13008 times)

florlaca

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Lone scientist in DOST has resigned
« on: March 30, 2012, 05:42:59 PM »
Lone scientist in DOST has resigned
By Dr. Flor Lacanilao

Quote
Pagasa chief retires early
(Philippine Star, March 15, 2012)

Undersecretary Graciano Yumul has opted for early retirement from public service, effective March 12, an official of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) announced yesterday. The reason for the resignation was not clear.

Retirement, resignation? At 52 years old? I hope Jun Yumul is in good health.   

Amid such pleasant news as the following,

“Philippines seen to finally make investment grade” (Philippine Daily Inquirer, Mar 28, 2012),
“Philippines used Japan aid well, says envoy” (Philippine Star, Mar 28, 2012), and
“Historic first: Tourist arrivals hit 400K in January” (Philippine Daily Inquirer, Mar 28, 2012),

it was really sad to hear that the only scientist in the country’s S&T department had to resign.

When Usec Yumul resigned, he was the only properly published of the DOST’s seven top officials. The rest have not made any contributions to their respective fields; that is, no valid published works. This statement can be verified with the ISI database called Web of Knowledge, or with the freely accessible Google Scholar and Science Citation Index (SCI) or Social Sciences Citation Index.

Jun Yumul has 51 ISI-indexed publications, 27 as lead or first author, in 15 different journal titles. They include 24 SCI-indexed papers, 11 as sole or first author, in 9 journal titles.

He is easily one of the best published in the entire University of the Philippines. I hope he would return to UP Diliman, train more future Filipino scientists, and continue promoting public understanding of science. This social responsibility of scientists is urgently needed by our government leaders, media people, and general public. 

His replacement as undersecretary for research and development at DOST is UP’s Dr. Amelia Guevara. Although with less published papers, she is now the only scientist among senior officials of our S&T department.

On 1 Aug 2010, I posted in PhilScience, “How the President can fulfill the Philippine dream.” It said in part, “If the current crisis is to yield… enviable models for scientifically driven economic advance, scientists with research experience and applicable ideas must speak out so the new administration can hear.”

Click the indicated link to read more of that post as excerpted in “Cory, Ninoy and Noynoy” by Domini Torrevillas (Philippine Star, August 03, 2010).

I don’t tire repeating, “Scientists who mute their voices to avoid irritating colleagues do not help the overall science program.” (Dan Koshland Jr., Editor-in-Chief emeritus, Science 259:1379, 1993)

connordpewell

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Re: Lone scientist in DOST has resigned
« Reply #1 on: May 11, 2013, 02:29:13 PM »
It's sad to hear that the Philippines is losing all it's talented people and brain drain can soon be expected.