Name: Jaheron Muloc Dacula

Course: Master of Arts in Education Major in Filipino

Commentary Article
“If we are seeing our country in deep shit, it is partly because many of our PhD
holders are only concerned about earning and bragging rights of having reached that
level, and not on doing research or extension work that will change their part of the
world for the better.” – Rufa Cogoco-Guiam
Above statement is an accurate description of the research practice today in the
Philippines. To support this, let us read another perspective by analytically reading
the keynote address at the 27th Meeting of the Association of Systematic Biologists of
the Philippines, National Museum, Manila, 29-30 May 2009 by of Professor Flor
Lacanilao, a retired professor of Marine Science, University of the Philippines Diliman.
The keynote speaker made a speech for all biologists that day. However, if you
critically understand the message of the speech, that applies for all researchers in the
Philippines. The center of the text is how to improve research environment and the
main point of the text is to correct wrong research practices in the Philippines.
There are important things highlighted in the speech based on the objective
indicators:
First, Doing Research Properly. Accordingly, many studies end as a project
report or graduate thesis. In the Philippines, this is often the accepted completion of
research or graduate training. If published, in most cases it appears as gray literature.
Examples are papers in newsletters, institutional reports, most conference
proceedings, and nearly all local journals. They have doubtful scientific value. Until
today, only a small fraction of research papers we produce is published properly as
scientific papers.
This first idea of Professor Lacanilao is indeed reflective the way schools
manage the curriculum here in the Philippines. I must say one reason is that we lack
support coming from our government. If research would be well-supported as if an
investment, Philippines would have been one of the powerhouse countries in the field
of research globally. I think government should take a step by strengthening valid
publication of a research. Government should require all schools strict peer-reviewed
research. Government should challenge all schools to produce research accessible for
international verification. Just a matter of motivation is what we need to excel
internationally in research.
Second, Symptoms and Major Causes of Wrong Research Practice. Accordingly,
In “Bibliography of Philippine marine invertebrates” (1994), for example, only 7
percent of the 1032 references listed is ISI-indexed or valid publication. In
“Bibliography of Philippine seaweeds” (1990), only 8 percent of the 780 listed
references is such publication. And in “Biology of milkfish” (1991), only 19 percent of
the 298 cited literature is valid publication.
 These evidences mentioned by Professor Lacanilao is a manifestation of Filipino
weakness in research. I think one reason of having less valid publication is personal
judgement. Allow me to mention a certain practice here in the Philippines that proves
this personal judgement. Undergraduate thesis is one of the requirements in college
before students can graduate. It undergoes proposal and final defenses. The worst
problem I see based on my experience is that the usual panelists who review the
manuscript are not pure researchers who have no valid publication experiences. For
that, they cannot give the best improvement to make the manuscript qualified for valid
publication. I think schools should invite those qualified panelists to correct the
research for international verification. Schools should pay attention.
Third, How Research Leads to Development. From the figures presented by
Professor Lacanilao, using Science Citation Index Expanded, Katherine Bagarinao
reviewed the publication performance (number of indexed articles) of five ASEAN
countries from 1980 to 2006. She has shown with graphs that Thailand and Malaysia
were ahead of the Philippines from 1980 (Fig. 3A), but the Philippines was ahead of
Indonesia and Vietnam. The Philippines, however, was overtaken by Indonesia in the
mid1990s and by Vietnam in mid 2000s in number of publications (Fig. 3B). The
Philippines is not only behind in publications, but it has also shown the slowest
growth rate among the five countries throughout the covered period.
From that, Professor Lacanilao concluded that, development depends on the
quality of the research output, which in turn relies on correct research practice.
Accordingly, there two ways to improve research: (a) by leaving to scientists the job of
performance evaluation or (b) by using the established and objective indicators (e.g.,
journals and publication citations in Science Citation Index or Social Sciences Citation
Index).
From the brilliant ideas presented by the speaker, I think valid publication is
the overall goal Philippines should aim. Schools should integrate it with the
curriculum implementation. Researchers should not just end up to gray literature. To
sail high in the world of research, government should be the vehicle to make the
Philippines a research industry. Motivation should be the top priority of the both
schools and government. If we can make all our researchers motivated, only we can
make them committed to work. Research plays an impactful role for development.
Today, the world is affected by pandemic. Our medical researchers face the challenges
on how to protect our citizens from this CoViD-19. Let it be a realization to start
valuing research as tool for welfare and security. Adelante!

REFERENCE:

Ky Lee. (2020, July 20). https://www.facebook.com/kylleanthony.pejanakagatan/posts/2708177966130411