PH DoST THiNKs DiFFERENT! To Publish Science Asia Magazine – Challenge From A Digital Wizard

 

Why this proposal? Because Singapore’s Asian Scientist Magazine celebrates only one-third of scientific works – Research yes. Instruction nyet. Extensionnyet.

Those “8 Filipino Scientists Named As Among Asian Scientist Magazine's Most Outstanding Researchers In Asia[1]” (Charissa Luci-Atienza , 29 April 2021, Manila Bulletin), deserve the honor given by that Singapore-based publication. The Big Question is: Why does that publication limit Science to Research?!

As an instructor in agriculture who graduated with a BSA degree major in Ag Edu from the University of the Philippines College of Agriculture (UPCA, now UP Los Baños), I know that as practiced in westernized countries like my own, the Philippines: Science for the people is composed of Instruction, Research, and Extension(IRE). Perhaps today:

Research: 0.1 million research studies in Asia.
Instruction: 1 million students of science in Asia.
Extension: 100 million farmers in Asia.
So why does the Asian Scientist Magazine honor only the Researchers!?

But since I am a Filipino and not citizen of Singapore by any means:

I hereby challenge PH Science Secretary Fortunato De La Peña to order the financing by the Department of Science and Technology (DoST) for the publication of a thoroughbred science magazine to honor the IRE people, to be called Science Asia Magazine (SAM).

I will be the Editor In Chief, if necessary, a one-man band: Writer, Author’s Editor (Friend); will do the desktop publishing short of printing commercial copies. SAM can be a work-from-home (WFH) arrangement. (DoST appoints the Publisher, who has complete control over Content.)

I’m speaking from experience. I have spent 45 years in science communication for development, among others being the Founding Editor In Chief of Habitat, the quarterly color magazine of the Forest Research Institute  (FORI) based at UP Los Baños – Habitat made FORI popular here and abroad. I was also the Editor In Chief of the Philippine Journal of Crop Science (PJCS), published quarterly by the Crop Science Society of the Philippines; my all-digital editorship established PJCS as worthy of being included in the international elite list called “ISI” (now “Web of Knowledge”), which the PJCS Editors In Chief of the past 25 years failed to achieve!

I know I can deliver the goods. Yes Sir, WFH. At 80 years of age, I have been blogging and plugging for PH Agriculture every single day since last year – you can google around.

I was international consulting writer for the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) from 2007 to 2014, when now-Secretary of Agriculture William Dar was Director General of ICRISAT. In those 8 years, I wrote, edited and desktop-published 7 books for ICRISAT out of my WFH writings.

While thinking of all of the above, you can entertain yourself by reading me in my latest blog, THiNK DiFFERENT, at https://thinkdifferentyes.blogspot.com.

And yes, I am the one-and-only Outstanding Alumnus for Creative Writing of the entire UP System, the distinction given in 2012 for non-graduates of any communication arts.@517

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[1]https://mb.com.ph/2021/04/29/8-filipino-scientists-named-as-among-asian-scientist-magazines-most-outstanding-researchers-in-asia/?fbclid=IwAR0g3Z9dyAJ4BSqLy-NA72jjwMmwejaq-QvJ9sl06VJKcTuKG2W4-EfkuHM