Our Lady of Fatima University

Roberto Del Rosario (1936–2007) was the president of the now-

defunct Trebel Music Corporation, a founding member of the

Filipino amateur jazz band "The Executives Band Combo," and, in

1975, the inventor of the Karaoke Sing along System. Known as

"Bert," Del Rosario patented more than twenty inventions during

his lifetime, making him one of the most prolific

of Filipino inventors. Roberto del Rosario invented his version

of a karaoke machine between 1975 and 1977, and in his patents

(UM-5269 on June 2, 1983 and UM-6237 on November 14, 1986) he

described his sing-along system as a handy multi-purpose compact

machine which incorporates an amplifier speaker, one or two tape

mechanisms, optional tuner or radio, and microphone mixer with

features to enhance one's voice, such as the echo or reverb to

simulate an opera hall or a studio sound. The whole system was

enclosed in one cabinet casing.

Fe Del Mundo (Nov. 27, 1911–Aug. 6, 2011) is credited with

studies that led to the invention of an improved incubator and a

device to treat jaundice. Along with pioneering work

in pediatrics, she had an active medical practice in

the Philippines that spanned eight decades and founded a major

children's hospital in that country.

In a bid to help families in rural communities without

electricity, Del Mundo invented a bamboo incubator in 1941.

According to a biographical report on del Mundo by the Philippine

Center for Investigative Journalism, the physician’s makeshift

incubator was composed of two native laundry baskets made of

bamboo. Made of different sizes, the baskets were “placed one

inside the other.” She would then put hot water bottles all

around and between the baskets to regulate the body temperature

of babies. “I put a little hood over it and attached oxygen for

the baby,” she said. “We had to do with whatever was available.”
Mechanical engineer Eduardo San Juan (aka The Space Junkman)

worked on the team that invented the Lunar Rover, or Moon Buggy.

San Juan is considered the primary designer of the Lunar Rover.

The Moon Buggy weighed 460 pounds and was designed to hold

a payload of 1,080 pounds. The frame was 10 feet long with a

wheelbase of 7.5 feet. The vehicle was 3.6 feet tall. The frame

was made of aluminum alloy tubing welded assemblies and consisted

of a three-part chassis that was hinged in the center so it could

be folded up and hung in the Lunar Module Quadrant 1 bay. It had

two side-by-side foldable seats made of tubular aluminum with

nylon webbing and aluminum floor panels. An armrest was mounted

between the seats, and each seat had adjustable footrests and

a Velcro-fastened seat belt. A large mesh dish antenna was

mounted on a mast on the front center of the rover. The

suspension consisted of a double horizontal wishbone with upper

and lower torsion bars and a damper unit between the chassis and

upper wishbone.
Gregorio Zara (March 8, 1902—Oct. 15, 1978) was a Filipino

scientist best known as the inventor of the videophone, the first

two-way electronic video communicator. In 1954, Gregorio Y. Zara,

a Filipino physicist and engineer has discovered the first video-

chat in the world through television-telephone communication.

Zara invented a device that allows two people to see each other

on a television while talking using the telephone. Unfortunately,

the Philippine government neglects and did not support Zara’s

invention prompting him to sell it to foreigners.

Rolando De la Cruz During the ’70s, De la Cruz discovered that

cashew nut extracts can be used to remove warts and moles because

of the natural heat that they produce. In surgical treatments of

BCC, heat is also used to sear the tumor before it is removed.

De la Cruz used the cream to remove his own wart to prove its

effectiveness. He eventually conducted more research and

submitted the extracts to bioassay or biological assay, a type of

scientific experiment conducted to measure the effects of a

substance on a living organism. According to De la Cruz, DeBCC is

applied on the affected part of the skin using a cotton bud. It

usually takes three to five months for the BCC to be eliminated.

The product had earlier been sent to Europe and the United States

where it was also recognized by experts and patients.

Eventually, companies in Canada and Australia sought exclusive

distributorship of the cream. DeBCC is being marketed by RCC

Amazing Touch International, which has 17 clinics nationwide and

has exclusive distributorships in some countries worldwide.

Angel Alcala is a scientist from the Philippines who has spent

over 30 years studying the natural world. He was born in 1929 and

grew up in a coastal village in the Philippines. Dr. Alcala is

known for his research related to the rehabilitation of coral

reefs. In 1977, he created the first artificial reef, and this

reef became a model for many other fisheries development programs

around the world. The artificial reef program enabled him to

investigate what became known as 'The 25% Solution', which has

affected generations of fish populations since its inception.

Briefly, Dr. Alcala proposed that protecting and preserving 25%

of the total fish habitat would enable the fish population to

sustain itself over the long term. In other words, by protecting

25% of the habitat, the remaining 75% would provide an ample fish

supply. This is known as the spillover effect. This finding was

critical in a country like the Philippines, whose population

heavily depends on fisheries for their food and their

livelihoods.
Benjamin Almeda is known for inventing and devising various food

processing machines such as the rice grinder, coconut grater, and

the meat grinder, earning him the title of the Father of Filipino

Inventors. For his inventions and electronic gadget contributions

to the food industry, Almeda Sr. won not only national and

international recognition but also prestigious industry awards.

He received the Panday Pay Award for Skilled Technician in 1977.

A few years later, Almeda Sr. was awarded a gold medal from the

World Intellectual Property Organization — one of the 17

specialized agencies of the United Nations created to "encourage

creative activity" and "promote the protection of intellectual

property throughout the world."

Dr Felix D. Maramba, Sr. is recognized for his important

contributions in the field of a Filipino scientist who developed

and utilized biogas. He created a coconut oil-fueled power

generator and developed one of the world's most profitable biogas

systems. In 1984, a thriving piggery gave him and his son, Felix

K. Maramba Jr., the idea of generating their own power with

methane gas produced from manure. Other energy requirements at

Maya Farms, including their processing plant, and feed mill,

operated totally independent of Meralco. The said technology was

given for free. Farm technicians fan out to the provinces to

teach people how to harness energy from waste. Felix Maramba is

the president of the Philippine Association of Flour Millers,

Inc. He wrote two books: “Biogas and Waste Recycling, The

Philippine Experience” and “Farm Management in the Philippines”.

He designed the Maya Farms Model.

Francisco Quisumbing, a Filipino Botanist who invented the Quink

Ink (a fountain pen ink) introduced in 1931. Quisumbing studied

in the Philippines and in the United States and got his Ph.D. in

Taxonomy, Systematics, and Morphology from the University of

Chicago in 1923. After World War II, Quisumbing went back to the

Philippines to organize the Philippine Ink Corporation but was

unable to do it under the Japanese Reparation Program due to

government interventions. A Quink stand for Quisumbing Ink was

sold in the United States since 1931. Quink Ink has the

desired quality of ink flow, it resisted water and molding, it

was not corrosive and it’s quick drying

Ramon Barba made several beneficial discoveries that were used to

improve the production and growth of plants and their fruit,

perhaps the first and most important was flower induction of

mango trees. Based on a study from another researcher named

Leopold on the use of ethephon and the increased flowering of

plants, Barba thought to apply the food preservative and

fertilizer potassium nitrate with the ethrel, thinking that this

mixture would increase the flowering rate of the mango trees. He

discovered that the flowering rate not only increased, but it

also led to the tree producing fruit at a much faster rate. In

2013 Ramon Barba became National Scientist in the Philippines for

his “distinguished achievements in the field of plant physiology,

focusing on induction of flowering of mango and on micro

propagation of important crop species.”

Diosdado Banatao is electrical engineering alum of Mapua

Institute of Technology. he trained as a commercial airline pilot

with Philippine Airlines when he found that there no “true design

jobs” in the Philippines, he turned down job offers.

When Dado was at the U.S., he grabbed the chance to take his

engineering studies further. He finished his Master of Science in

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in Stanford

University in 1972. Later, he acquired working experience from

different technology companies such as the National Semiconductor

and Intersil. But his greatness was put to form when he developed

the first single chip, 16-bit microprocessor-based calculator

under Commodore International. Dado was able to reduce 300

components into three with that computer chip. He kept on

inventing as he jumped companies. By 1981, He kept on inventing

as he jumped companies. By 1981, he designed his second

invention, which is the first 10-Mbit Ethernet CMOS with silicon

coupler data-link control and transreceiver chip under the

company SEEQ Technology.

Dr. Enrique Ostrea received US patents #5015589 and patent

#5185267 for methods of testing infants for exposure to drugs or

alcohol during pregnancy. A method for detecting the presence of

drug metabolites in the meconium of newborn infants is described.

The method involves separation of the drug metabolites from

meconium in solution and then assaying the solution for the

presence of the drug metabolites. The method is particularly

useful for detection of cocaine, morphine and cannabinoids;

however, any drug metabolite in the infant meconium can be

tested. Conventional assay methods are used for the drug

metabolites in the solutions derived from the meconium. The

method provides for early detection of drug presence in infants

which contribute to infant illness. Meconium drug testing can

detect maternal drug use during the last 4 to 5 months of

pregnancy. A negative result does not exclude the possibility

that a mother used drugs during pregnancy. Detection of drug use

depends on the quantity and quality of the specimen tested as

well as the pattern and frequency of drug(s) used by the mother.

Alexis Belonio, the Philippines-based inventor who developed an

innovative, clean-burning cooking stove fueled by rice husks. He

was the first Filipino to receive the Rolex Award for

Enterprise in 2008 for his invention of a low-cost and

environment friendly rice huskstove. Belonio became obsessed with

creating a gasified stove in 2003, when the Philippines, which

relies heavily on oil and gas imports, was hit with sharply

higher energy prices. Drawing upon wood gasification technology,

Belonio spent three years designing a simple albeit revolutionary

cooker. It's powered by a small electric or battery-powered base

fan that drives air through the husks, converting them into a

gaseous blend of methane, oxygen, and carbon dioxide. A metal

tube pushes the mixture to a top burner that produces a hot blue

flame, similar to natural gas. A pound of rice husks generates

about 20 minutes of cooking time, and the greenhouse emissions

are about half those of fossil-fueled stoves.

Dr. Marc Loinaz was born in Manila, Philippines and grew up in

Makati City. He is the inventor of one-chip video camera, A

Filipino resident of New Jersey who works with Lucent

Technologies. He was featured in the July 1999 issue of discover

magazine. The 1-chip camera uses a single computer chip to

process the colors the camera sees. Most videos for a web site

used a 1-chip camera mainly because the video is compressed in

one-chip camera so it transmits more quickly. Today’s video

cameras generate pictures from charge-coupled devices (CCDs),

which provide a great picture but require a pile of support

circuitry that cannot sit on the same chip as the image sensors.

“This makes CCD cameras relatively large, power hungry, and

complicated to design and manufacture,” says Loinaz. The one-chip

camera, on the other hand, is based on the same ubiquitous

silicon chip found in microprocessors and memory devices.

Challenge 21 is an award-winning game created by Leonardo Mejia

Yu of Malate, Metro Manila. As the name implies, Challenge 21 is

a strategy board game that combines the difficulties of scrabble,

bingo, tictactoe, checkers, and even basketball.

It offers a great bonding time for your family while challenges

your own mental alertness, observation, mental calculations,

among others. For its ingenuity, Challenge 21 has received

several prestigious awards including a gold medal from the World

Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and the first prize

from Tuklas Award in 2012.