People with corroded morality can destroy lives, homes and businesses, and, if they are in the government service or are politicians, can make nations go to the dogs. Unfortunately, the prevention and cure of moral corrosion although simple in principle are most difficult to execute: Just produce good citizens from the cradle to college and incarcerate or execute with dispatch the miscreants (be they in uniforms or in robes) are easily said but hardly ever done.

On the other hand, the prevention and cure of the health hazards and economic costs of material corrosion may require difficult study and research but once the solutions are known, they can easily be applied without socio-political complications although necessarily at great expense. For instance, for worldwide commercial shipping alone the annual cost is in the order of $6 billion, for the overall cost in USA (airlines business, highway bridges, pipelines, military, etc.) it is approximately $300 billion per year, and for year 1997 Japan spent a total of 3,940 billion yen, or about 0.9% of its GNP. Philippine data on corrosion, however, like some government personnel or documents, are unavailable.

But why is corrosion so expensive in its tolls and remedies? Because it is so widespread, its causes are diverse (atmospheric, galvanic, uniform, stress, crevice, etc.) and it occurs wherever there are metals. Even non-ferrous metals such as copper, silver and nickel undergo corrosion when exposed to sulfur compounds in fuels as often happens in engine parts. Moreover, according to a technical bulletin of CorrView International, the most potentially damaging losses to any private, industrial or commercial property next to the threat of fire is the severe corrosion of HVAC (Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning) piping systems.

Take a typical commercial building property of 33 floors, having a cooling tower at the roof and a 5,000 ton refrigeration plant in the basement. We can estimate approximately 1,000 linear feet of 24 in. supply and return piping in service. Based upon a moderate corrosion rate commonly found today, we can then estimate that approximately 1,210 pounds of steel will be lost from the steel and distributed into the system for each year of service due to corrosion losses.

Fortunately, we have corrosion specialists, researchers and engineers dedicated to fighting corrosion. One such group, as pointed out to me by my colleague Dr. Yoly Brondial of the Chemical Engineering Dept., DLSU, Manila, .is the Philippine Corrosion Society (PhiCS) whose current president is Mr. Orly Araujo,

Teaming up with the world-renowned Japan Society of Corrosion Engineers (JSCE), and supported by Chemtall (Phil) Inc., NTIA Zerust (Phil) Inc., and the Surface Coating and Development Center, they will be conducting the 7th PhiCS – JSCE Seminar on October 18-20, 2005, at the Training Room of the Food and Nutrition Research Institute (FNRI), DoST Compound, Bicutan, Taguig, Metro Manila. The theme of the Seminar is "New Developments on Corrosion Prevention by Coatings."

The main speaker will be Dr. Hiroyuki Tanabe of Dai Nippon Toryo (Paint) Corporation of Osaka, Japan. Other local speakers are: Engr. Cesar S. Siador, Jr., Chief, Air Quality Section, Environmental Management Bureau; Dr. Araceli M. Monsada, Director, SCRD, DoST-ITDI; Mr. Luis G. Fernando, Managing Director, Kemwerke, Inc.; and Engr. Raul C. Subalarse, PhiCS Vice President and Deputy Director, PCIERD-DoST.

For confirmation or reservation, please contact: Mr. Orly Araujo, Tel. 4112139, Fax 410-8374, and email — psiorly@yahoo.com; or Mr. Nelson Aguila, Tel 747-0777, Fax 640-9134 and e-mail agc@mozcom.com.

***** *****

Technolites belatedly congratulates Bro. Andrew Gonzales, FSC, Ph.D., President of Manila Bulletin, former Department of Education Secretary, world class authority on linguistics, on his conferment as President Emeritus of De La Salle University – Manila, on September 28, 2005.