"It is a useless life that is not consecrated to a great ideal. It is like a stone wasted on the field without becoming a part of any edifice."

- Jose Rizal

Would you believe that the life of Jose Rizal is being taught in graduate schools in Singapore? And as one Singaporean Indian says, "I am proud of being a South East Asian because of Jose Rizal." For us Filipinos, we are somehow complemented.

But sad to say, technically we are still treated as 2nd class citizen by other nation. Though we continuously receive donations and grants from rich countries neighboring countries, our people are maligned and Philippines as a whole nation are disrespected in someway or another. Shame on them! If it was not to our fore fathers, some of these neighboring countries may not have reached the status they are enjoying right now. Do they know that many of their agricultural scientist have developed their skills at International Rice Research Institute Philippines and at our other agricultural universities? In South Pacific, free trade did not started in Hong Kong, it started in the Philippines during Spanish era with the galleons. And almost every ASEAN nations have been devastated by wars and poverty then. Philippines is always there to support and help as they rebuild their struggling nations. Though Philippines was ahead to them in many ways then, Filipinos then did not maltreated other nationals who sought asylum to Philippine land. Shame on other nation who's leaders and its citizenry who continuously disrespect us for being Filipino, though they capitalized on our people's skills and inventions.

Philippines may have been devastated lately by catastrophe, political transitions and other negative force. But this doesn't mean that Philippines is lesser as a nation. Even the greatest boxer has his shares of pain and knock down. But what matters the most as how he stand up and fought back. Perhaps other nation should also look at our past to see who we really are. Philippines have not produced yet Nobel Prize awardees but its Filipino ingenuity and achievement have been the cornerstone of most industrialized nation's development. Who would have thought that Filipinos were the first in many crucial inventions for development and necessity. Did you know that we Filipinos were the first among other neighboring countries who have reached the moon and the stars (literally and figuratively):

Significant Inventions and contribution to development

Moon Buggy

Filipinos consider Eduardo San Juan as the inventor of the Lunar Rover, or more popularly known as the Moon Buggy. The Moon Buggy was the car used by Neil Armstrong and other astronauts when they first explored the moon in 1969. Eduardo San Juan, a graduate of Mapua Institute of Technology (MIT), worked for Lockheed Corporation and conceptualized the design of the Moon Buggy that the Apollo astronauts used while in the moon. As a NASA engineer, San Juan reportedly used his Filipino ingenuity to build a vehicle that would run outside the Earth's atmosphere. He constructed his model using homemade materials. In 1978, San Juan received one of the Ten Outstanding Men (TOM) awards in science and technology.

New planet named after Filipino teacher

BUTUAN CITY (31 March) -- "I am proud to be a Filipino, and since I defeated 4,000 other teachers from around the world including the American finalists in their hometown, I can say that Filipinos are really one of the bests".

This is what Dr. Josette Biyo said, the first Asian teacher to win the Intel Excellence in Teaching Award in an international competition held in United States in 2002, during the 34th Commencement Exercises of Saint Joseph Institute of Technology (SJIT) which was held recently here, where she was invited to speak in front of 462 graduates. Partially excerpt from by Robert E. Roperos write up.

Full story at

http://www.pia.gov.ph/default.asp?m=12&fi=p060331.htm&no=45#TOP

Space Engineer

On June 25, 2002

, the provincial government of Cavite awarded Edward Caro a plaque of recognition for
his 42 years of service at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in the United States where he helped launch the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission or the Explorer. Caro, 70 and a native of Cavite retired from NASA in 2001. In return, NASA during the same year conferred Caro the Distinguished Science medal, reportedly the highest honor it gives to its employees. (Source: Philippine Star)

Fluorescent Lamp Inventor

Many Filipinos acknowledge Agapito Flores as the inventor of the fluorescent lamp, which is the most widely used source of lighting in the world today. The fluorescent lamp reportedly got its name from Flores. Written articles about Flores said he was born in Bantayan Island in Cebu. The fluorescent lamp, however, was not invented in a particular year. It was the product of 79 years of the development of the lighting method that began with the invention of the electric light bulb by Thomas Edison.

Among the other inventors who claimed credit for developing the fluorescent lamp were French physicist A. E. Becquerel (1867), Nikola Tesla, Albert Hall (1927), Mark Winsor and Edmund

Germer. French inventor Andre Claude was recognized for developing the fluorescent tubular lighting systems. Yet, he was not officially recognized as the inventor of fluorescent lamp. It was reported that the General Electric and Westinghouse obtained Claude's patent rights and

developed the fluorescent lamp that we know today.

According to Filipino scientists, fluorescent lamp was not named after Flores. The term fluorescence first cropped up as early as 1852 when English mathematician-physicist George Gabriel Stokes discovered a luminous material called

"fluorspar", which he coined with "escence". The National Academy of Science and Technology also dismissed Flores being the inventor of fluorescent lamp as a myth. "No scientific report, no valid statement, no rigorous documents can be used to credit Flores for the discovery of the fluorescent lamp. We have tried to correct this misconception, but the media (for one) and our textbooks (for another) keep using the Flores example," a Filipino scientist wrote in her column at the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

The fluorescent lamps were introduced into the U.S. market in 1938. Still, Filipinos recognize Agapito Flores as the inventor of the product that illuminated the world.

He Discovered Erythromycin

A Filipino scientist reportedly discovered erythromycin in 1949. He was Dr. Abelardo Aguilar who died in 1993 without being recognized and rewarded for his discovery. Reports said Aguilar discovered the antibiotic from the Aspergillus species of fungi in 1949 and sent samples to Indiana-based pharmaceutical firm Eli Lilly Co. The

drug firm allegedly registered the propriety name Iloson for the antibiotic in honor of Iloilo province where Aguilar discovered it. In 1952, Eli Lilly Co. began the commercial distribution of Iloson, which was sold as an alternative to penicillin. Erythromycin, the generic name of Iloson, was reportedly

the first successful macrolide antibiotic introduced in the US.

Computer Guru

Diosdado Banatao, a native of Iguig, Cagayan and an electrical engineering gradu

ate from Mapua Institute of Technology in Manila is credited for eight major contributions to the Information Technology. Banatao is most known for introducing
the first single-chip graphical user interface accelerator that made computers work a lot faster and for helping develop the Ethernet controller chip that made Internet possible. In 1989, he pioneered the local bus concept for personal computers and in the following year developed the First Windows accelerator chip. Intel is now using the chips and technologies developed by Banatao. He now runs his own semiconductor company, Mostron and Chips & Technology, which is based in California's Silicon Valley. (Source: Filipinas Magazine)

Modular Housing Inventor

Edgardo Vazquez won a World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) gold medal in 1995 for developing a modular housing system. Such a system called Vazbuilt is reportedly capable of building within weeks a house with prefabricated materials that can withstand typhoons and earthquakes. Ironically, Vasquez is not getting enough support from the Philippine government to propagate his technology, which could help provide shelter to some five million Filipino families without their own homes. Vazquez is the national president of the Filipino Inventors Society.

Mole Remover

In 2000, Rolando dela Cruz developed an ingenuous formula that could easily remove deeply grown moles or warts from the skin without leaving marks or hurting the patient. His formula was extracted from cashew nut (Annacardium occidentale), which is common in the Philippines. The formula won for dela Cruz a gold medal in International Invention, Innovation, Industrial Design and Technology Exhibition in Kuala Lumpur in September 2000. In March 1997, dela Cruz established RCC Amazing Touch International Inc., which runs clinics engaged "in a non-surgical removal of warts, moles and other skin growths, giving the skin renewed energy and vitality without painful and costly surgery."

Karaoke Inventor

Roberto del Rosario, a Filipino is claiming the right for the invention of the Sing-Along-System (SAS) that eventually led to the development of Karaoke, a Japanese term for "singing without accompaniment". Among del Rosario's other inventions were the Trebel Voice Color Code (VCC), the piano tuner's guide, the piano keyboard stressing device, the voice color tape, and the one-man-band (OMB). The OMB was later developed as the Sing-Along-System (SAS).

Inventor of Incubator

Fe del Mundo, the first Asian to have entered the prestigious Harvard University's School of Medicine, is also credited for her studies that led to the invention of incubator and jaundice relieving device. Del Mundo, an International Pediatric Association (IPA) awardee, is an alumna of the University of the Philippines (UP) College of Medicine. Since 1941, she has contributed more than 100 articles to medical journals in the U.S., Philippines and India. In 1966, she received the Elizabeth Blackwell Award, for her "outstanding service to mankind". In 1977, she was bestowed the Ramon Magsaysay Award for outstanding public service.

Water-Powered Car

For more than three decades now, Daniel Dingel has been claiming that his car can run with water as fuel. An article from the Philippine Daily Inquirer said that Dingle built his engine as early as 1969. Dingel built a car reactor that uses electricity from a 12-volt car battery to split the ordinary tap water into hydrogen and oxygen components. The hydrogen can then be used to power the car engine.

Dingel said that a number of foreign car companies have expressed interest in his invention. The officials of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) have dismissed Dingel's water-powered car as a hoax. In return, Dingel accused them of conspiring with oil producing countries. Dingel, however, was the not the only man on earth who is testing water as an alternative fuel. American inventors Rudolf Gunnerman and Stanley Meyer and the researchers of the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory have

been pursuing similar experiments.

Others

Do you know that Diosdado Banatao, an engineer from Cagayan, Philippines, made GUI (graphical user interface (GUI) possible? Without which we will still be limited to that green monitor that can only display text?

- 64% of Asian-Americans were netizens and 85% of Fil-Am homes have computers?

I hope one of these Filipinos will make you proud, not to mention Carlos P. Romulo, Ben Cayetano, Lea Salonga, your mom and dad, and of course Jose Rizal.

* Did you know that Carlos P. Romulo has played a significant role how Israel was decided to be formed again after World War II?


Sports and Entertainment

Did you know that the greatest football (socker) player ever played was a Filipino?

(FOOTBALL) PUTTING RONALDINHO BACK IN HIS BOX  "Is Philippine-born Paulino Alcántara really Barcelona's all-time top scorer, as claimed on the website of the Philippine Football Federation?" asks Jerome Castro.  He certainly is Jerome, with a phenomenal record of 356 goals in 357 games for the Catalans between 1912 and 1927. Prolific Paulino, who was born in Iloilo City to Spanish parents in 1896 and was the first Asian-born player to play for a European club, also remains Barcelona's youngest ever goalscorer after slotting home a hat-trick on his debut against Catalá SC at the fair age of 15.  It should be noted that Alcántara's achievements may have been helped by the fact Barcelona played in an exclusively Catalan league at that time, rather than the modern La Liga, but they have never been seriously threatened. He also played for both the Philippines and Spain, but only a handful of times for each since he preferred to prioritise his medical studies ahead of his career. His boots remain on show in the club's museum.
Excerpt from Guardian unlimitted

Paulino Alcántara Riestrá (born October 7, 1896, Iloilo City, Philippines - died February 13, 1964,
Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain) is a former Filipino/Spanish football player and manager who spent
most of his playing career at FC Barcelona. He also played for the Catalan XI, the Philippines, and Spain.

Alcántara made his senior debut for FC Barcelona at the age of 15 and remains the youngest player ever to
play or score for the club. He also scored a remarkable 356 goals in 357 matches, making him the
club's all-time leading goalscorer. Alcántara is also the first Filipino and Asian player to play for a
European club. After retiring as a player in 1927 at
the age of 31 he became a doctor. On July 5 1927, FC Barcelona played against Spain in a testimonial in his
honour and he later served as a club director between 1931 and 1934. In 1951, Alcántara was one of three
selectors that coached Spain for three games.

Excerpt from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Did you know that one of Bruce Lee's instructor and co actor in his film was a Filipino?

Dan "Danny" Inosanto (born July 24, 1936) is a famous
Filipino American martial arts instructor from
California who is perhaps best known for being both a
teacher (FMA) and a student of Jeet Kune Do/Wing Chun
to late martial artist Bruce Lee.

Arts

In the late 1800's when most Asian and South East Asian countries were still trying to figure out the meaning of modern art, Filipinos are already making waves and were winning awards in Europe. And decades before Hollywood captured the Roman gladiators on film, Juan Luna from Philippines already captured its moving reality on canvas .

The first time the art world sat up and took notice was when Luna entered his first masterpiece, The Death of Cleopatra, at the 1881 Madrid Exposition of Fine Arts and won second-place silver medal for it. What was more important was that several critics thought his painting far surpassed the Italian and Spanish entries. The Filipino community in Madrid was watching closely the progress of this young painter from then on. Luna was then barely 24, an ex-naval officer and pensionado of the Philippine Colonial Government. He had briefly attended classes at the Academia de San Fernando and was now protege of Alejo Vera, one of the young Filipino so impressed Vera that he took Luna along with him when he went to Rome to undertake some commissions. In Rome , Luna imbibed the classical spirit of Michelangelo and Raphael and worked hard---for eight months---on an immense canvas which measure roughly 4 x 7 meters. The painting, which now hangs in the

hall of Flags, Department of Foreign Affairs, a gift from the Spanish government in 1958, is the Spoliarium. This was to be his entity at the Madrid Exposition of 1884. It was an immediate sensation. It won not only the highest possible honor, the first of three Gold Medals, but also enthusiastic notice in the newspaper columns of Madrid, Barcelona, and Paris. Many of the notices were extravagant raves. Here is a sampling taken at random: "The largest work, the most frightful, the most discussed work of the Exposition." "It is more than a painting, it is a book, a poem." "It is something more than the mere mechanism of genius, of the art composition. . . Luna is a thinker." "The superior qualities of Luna are: as an artist, his ambition to produce great designs; to subdue the multitude with the resources of the highest class in art; serious and rough, not with vile adulations from the pencil nor of color in beautiful lines; as a painter, his energetic style, broad and noble, truthful and on occasion fantastic." "A giant of art, a kind of Hercules, that enters furiously leveling down all the gods with blows from his club, bringing in a new art, full of ideas and forms, carrying a Spartan soul and the brush of Michelangelo. More than sixty years did Michelangelo study! How many years did Luna study? Six! Let us

wait." Such adulation is a bit lavish, you say. But his was heady wine to the Filipinos in Europe. Consensus of opinion among critics, painters, and the press of Madrid and Barcelona was that Luna deserved, besides his gold medal, the rare and more prestigious "Prize of Honor" award, which had previously been conferred on Francisco Padilla, the greatest contemporary Spanish historical painter, in the 1878 Madrid Exposition. It must be remembered that in this same Exposition of 1884, another Filipino, Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo, won a silver medal for his entry, Christian Virgins Exposed to the Populace. No wonder the Filipino community in Madrid went wild with joy. The double victory called for a celebration, and a banquet was held at the Café Inglés, to which were invited some European friends. On this occasion, Rizal delivered his speech extolling the two winners to such majestic heights that today it is difficult to criticize the works of Luna and Hidalgo without inviting the censure of conservative admirers of their kind of painting. Rizal interpreted the Spoliarium as a symbol of "our social, moral, and political life: humanity unredeemed, reason and aspiration in open fight with prejudice, fanaticism, and injustice." On another occasion, Lopez-Jaena likewise read political implications in the Spoliarium, as follows: "For me, if there is something grand, something sublime, in the

Spoliarium, it is because behind the canvas, behind the painted figures . . . there floats the living image of the Filipino people sighing its misfortune. Because. . . the Philippines is nothing more than a real Spoliarium with all its horrors."

Excerpt from the Article of Eric Tores

Remarkable discovery

Fish in 12-hour waterless sleep

Excerpt from Likha C. Cuevas article

A technology invented by a Filipino for Filipinos will help raise the competitiveness of the country’s millions of fisherfolk in the global market.

Boni Comandante, an enterprising agricultural engineer from Dumaguete City, has developed a technology that can make fish hibernate up to 24 hours without water. This halves the cost of exporting live fish from the Philippines and also reduces mortality.

Because there is a high demand for live and high-quality fish in the world market, Filipino fishermen and aquatic farmers can now tap this technology to enable them to transport their products all over the country and overseas.

Comandante developed this technology of making fishes, like the grouper (lapu-lapu), sleep and lie on a “tripod state” (fins and tail lie flat on a surface) without water in hibernation tanks while being transported from fish farms to the place where they are sold or processed.

The technology, operated by Filipinos on departure and arrival at the destination, includes waking the fish up alive and well, and in a better state than those transported in water tanks.

Comandante first discovered the possibility of developing—and perfecting—this technology while he was in Palawan. He was trying to achieve sex reversal with groupers, which are hermaphroditic, to make reproduction easier and more numerous.

“I just threw this fish in an ice chest at 11 p.m., thinking that it would be a good viand for the next day. I woke up at 5 a.m. the next day and saw the fish on a tripod position. I saw that it was still alive and counted that it had been six hours. My eyes suddenly became dollar signs,” he said.

‘Buhi’ technology

Recognizing the potential marketability of this discovery, he tried to pursue its development through the support of friends and investors. Comandante is now mum about how this technique was done because many foreign entrepreneurs are interested in acquiring what he calls now the “Buhi” technology.

He shelved the project for 14 years and pursued his Master’s in coastal management at Siliman University and used his discovery for his graduate thesis. At that time Coman­dante was engaged in a direct marketing business.

When his business slackened and he saw the viability of his study, Comandante decided to go back and work on perfecting his technology. In 2004 he won a Department of Trade Industry-sponsored competition and used the prize money as capital for his fish marketing company.

A Chinese Filipino investor supported his business and started marketing his technology in trade fairs, where Comandante attracted an Australian investor who injected money for global patent, which requires at least US$200,000.

Buhi International Group, owned by a majority of Filipinos including Comandante, will soon transport temperate fishes like salmon (which can hibernate for six hours) from Australia to Japan.

However, Comandante gave the assurance that this business venture would not be in direct competition with Philippine products.

Purely organic

The Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources of the Department of Agriculture has certified that this technology uses purely organic materials and that the products are safe for human consumption.

Comandante said the Buhi technology can reduce the cost of transporting live fishes by 75 percent since it eliminates the need for water. Ordinarily and without use of his technology, for every kilo of fish, about 3 kilos of water is needed. The need for ice is also minimized and this also brings down the cost.

The Buhi technology also prevents the rigor mortis curling of fish.

(this site is still under construction and still undergoes proof reading and editing)

**sources of information are to be quoted later. I welcome contributions from co Filipinos around the world.


There are still more.