7. Why NAST failed?
The foregoing sections show that UP’s poor S&T performance in the 80s and 90s must have influenced national progress. Here I show the nature of that influence.
Crucial to a country’s economic transformation is the role played by its national academy of science. In the Philippines this is the National Academy of Science and Technology (NAST), which is mandated “to advise the President and the Cabinet on matters related to science and technology.” Hence, it is mainly responsible for the DOST’s administration of science in the Philippines.
As a national academy of science, the NAST should not only provide extensive policy advice to the government, but must also be active in policy debates related to science-based programs. It should play a major role in economic reform and social transformation. It should promote science literacy, especially among government and industry leaders, and ensure that scientific research is incorporated into all of the country’s development strategies.
With UP graduates and staff dominating the NAST membership and officers, why did it fail in its national functions? Perhaps the best way to explain this is to look at the individual performance of its members in science and social sciences. Note that the number of ISI-indexed publications is the established measure of research and S&T performance, not only of countries and organizations but also of individuals.
For example, only 7 of NAST’s 50 members in 1998 have enough ISI-indexed publications in 1981-1997 to be considered scientists (Table 2). None of its presidents is among them. Over a third of its members have had no publications during these 16.5 years. Neither can publications in the ‘60s and ‘70s of most of its older members, including national scientists, can compare with those of the top seven NAST members. For a national science academy, this profile is indeed a very sad reflection of its criteria for electing members.
The good news is that our most outstanding scientists are its members; seven of them are shown in Table 2. Foremost are BO Juliano of the International Rice Research Institute, LJ Cruz and ED Gomez of the UP Diliman Marine Science Institute, who continue to publish after retirement. Other scientists and nonscientists have since 1998 been elected to NAST. The outstanding scientists among them are C Saloma of the UP Diliman National Institute of Physics, AC Alcala of Siliman University, and CC Bernido of the Research Center for Theoretical Physics at Central Visayas Institute in Bohol.
They strengthen the organization, but there are not enough of them to make a difference. In making decisions, they are outnumbered by the dominant unpublished and poorly published members and officers. This is also true of the National Research Council of the Philippines, our other national science organization.
We often hesitate to speak of serious problems, especially if the problems are people, because we don’t want to offend anyone. We forget that problems will remain and give rise to other problems if we don’t talk and do something about them. Are we more concerned about the feelings of culprits rather than the persistent poverty in our country? As the editor-in chief emeritus of
Science says, “Scientists who mute their voices to avoid irritating colleagues do not help the overall science program” (13).
We have other outstanding scientists who have not been elected to NAST. No less than 15 of them have scientific publications in 1981-1997 within the range of the best seven of the NAST members shown in Table 2. Two of the four members elected in 2007 were among them, the two others, however, were poorly published -- raising more doubts about NAST’s criteria for electing members.
Consider how the U.S. National Academy of Sciences takes new members (14). “A formal nomination can be submitted only by an Academy member. Each nomination includes a brief curriculum vitae plus a 250-word statement of the nominee's scientific accomplishments— the basis for election—and a list of not more than 12 publications. The latter limit helps to focus on the quality of a nominee's work, rather than the number of publications”.
The reason why members are carefully chosen is to insure that “each member should serve as a role model for defining excellence in science for the next generation of scientists in his or her field.”
Table 2. Published members in international refereed journals in 1981-1997 of the 50 members of the National Academy of Science and Technology in 1998
| Academician |
Year elected |
No. of publicationsa |
| Total |
As sole or lead author |
| 1. Juliano BO |
1979 |
107 |
30 |
| 2. Cruz LJ |
1987 |
40 |
10 |
| 3. Gomez ED |
1993 |
28 |
13 |
| 4. Domingo EO |
1992 |
27 |
9 |
| 5. Fabella RV |
1995 |
14 |
14 |
| 6. Garcia EG |
1987 |
30 |
6 |
| 7. Encarnacion J |
1979 |
8 |
8 |
Of the 50 members in 1998, 25 had less than 6 published papers as sole or lead author, 18 did not have any published paper in ISI-indexed journals in 1981-1997.
|
Source: National Citation Report (1981- June 1997), Institute for Scientific Information, Philadelphia.
aPublished papers with Philippine addresses.
The “scientific accomplishments” as basis for election to the U.S. academy of science does not necessarily include science administration. In developed countries, a science administrator may also become a member of a national science academy. In those countries, they are well-published scientists first before they are science administrators. This is rarely seen in the Philippines. Yet past heads of DOST are among NAST members.
“From global terrorism and the spread of disease to the dangers of global warming, we are increasingly facing the sorts of threats for which governments everywhere will need to turn to their scientists” (6). But with the above picture of NAST membership and leadership, how can we rely on this important national science organization to effectively address these threats. The NAST is the basic cause of the country’s poor state of S&T. And UP is partly responsible.
8. Reviewing poor performance
A lot of money was spent for funding research proposals, research honorariums, professorial chairs, and faculty grants to researchers without published papers in international peer-reviewed journals. They have hardly taught recipients how to do research properly. They led instead to continued production of unpublished studies, institutional publications, and other gray literature, earning promotion or even awards for the authors. An example is the award given by NAST to authors of winning papers published in Philippine journals.
International scientists searching the literature don’t find most of these papers because they are largely not covered by widely used indexes. If they ever found them, these are largely ignored by established scientists and institutions around the world. The papers are largely of doubtful scientific value or contribution to knowledge. Their manuscripts have not passed adequate peer review, and published results are not easily accessible for peer verification. Hence, a former editor-in-chief of the leading journal
Nature says, only international publications are taken seriously (15).
Authors of many local books cite such unpublished papers and gray literature (from project reports, institutional publications, conference proceedings books, and local journals), which often dominate the list of references (16). In some of these books, not a single international journal paper by the author is cited. Some training and extension manuals by local authors don’t have a single ISI-indexed reference listed. The quality and integrity of a publication depend on the quality of the bibliography added to it (17).
An even worse practice is to use unpublished data for policy-making and development programs. Totally ignoring the established procedures of scientific research (which has over three centuries of developing tradition), the practice is common in local projects because of contractual demands from the government or international funding agencies. Some seekers of high positions even include a long list of "unpublished research" among their achievements. I remember two candidates for UP president who included this in their CVs published in the
UP Newsletter sometime in 1993.
The causes of these poor practices are the following: (a) PhD students are not required to publish their theses, when the thesis is meant as training for research, and research is not completed until it is published properly, (b) government research honorariums require only progress or final report, (c) peer judgment is the main basis for funding research proposals and rating output, and (d) gray literature earns for the author a recognition and benefits.
These four causes of poor performance continued with hardly any changes. Faculty members became full professors without any indication of contribution to knowledge or publication in international peer-reviewed journals. ISI’s indexes have always been out there and were used by progressive countries.
If only part of the nearly P2 billion increase in the budget of the DOST from 1991 to 1993 was used as incentives (e.g., for research proposal and output), the state of S&T at UP and in the country would have been different. And economic growth would have taken a different turn. “The alternatives are clear: keep up or be left behind.”
