CEBU CITY – The National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA)-Central Visayas has vowed to help sustain the development of the country’s science and technology sector to respond to strong global competition.

NEDA-Central Visayas Director Marlene Rodriguez made this pronouncement during the recently concluded economic briefing held here by the Government’s economic team comprised of, among others, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), Department of Agriculture (DA), Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), and Department of Energy (D0E), among others.

In an interview, Rodriguez said, “NEDA recognizes the huge contribution of this industry to attract high-value investments from other countries. There is, thus, a need to fast track the development of our science and technology sector.”

According to the NEDA official, a bulk of the P1-billion allocation for the Department of Science and Technology (DoST) this year will be spent to ensure signified interest in research and development, which she believes is tenable through increase human capital in the field, encouraging technology business incubators, providing incentives for innovation, and upgrading the Filipino mindset towards generating innovations.

For his part, Graciano P. Yumul, DoST Undersecretary for research and development said that researchers’ priorities must be shaped by such critical concerns as “food and fuel.”

In a similar interview earlier, Carmen G. Peralta of the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) also explained that researches used to fall under the dictum “publish or perish.” Today, the need is to “protect, publish and profit.”

Pointed out Peralta, “It is important to publish, but researchers must file for patent as soon as possible.”

Recently in Cebu, exporters, through PhilExport-Cebu, the German Technical Cooperation-Small and Medium Enterprise Development for Sustainable Employment Program (GTZ-SMEDSEP), and the Department of Science and Technology (DoST) 7, started the development of a Materials Research and Development (R&D) program.

Said program aims to help export industry players, particularly those in the furniture, fashion accessories, and gifts, toys and house-ware (GTH) sectors, explore various opportunities in materials manipulation and development, as well as technology applications, to maximize their design capabilities and increase their competitiveness in the global market.