SENATE OFFICE, Manila, February 3, 2011-Senator Edgardo J. Angara, former University of the Philippines (UP) president, led the unveiling of the project marker for the Php1.7 billion construction of the new National Science Complex (NSC) at the College of Science in UP Diliman yesterday to provide facilities and equipment for the UP College of Science which includes both pure and applied Science and Mathematics courses, saying that the NSC had been a long-standing plan which had come into fruition because of the leadership of the University.
“We had earmarked 21 hectares of the UP Diliman Campus in the hopes that it will one day give rise to a world-class facility for our scientists early on in my term as UP president,” the senator said, adding that even then the Arts and Humanities programs of the university was already internationally recognized to the point that they realized that the university needed to make Science and Technology one of the priorities for the UP system.
It was during Angara's term as UP President when a three-way split was made among the College of Science, College of Arts and Letters, and College of Social Sciences and Philosophy from an unwieldy College of Arts and Sciences.
Angara, chair of the Senate Committee on Science and Technology said that the reason was to give due recognition to the identity of Science as a profession and to its prime importance as an instrument of national development stressing that the separation allowed for a more effective academic leadership, administration, and coordination of the undergraduate, graduate, and research programs in the Natural and Mathematical Sciences
“The mass of scientists produced by UP hold the key to the future of our country and therefore there is a need to groom our scientists to spearhead the development of the S&T sector, so that they become globally competitive like our Asian contemporaries,” he added.
Angara concluded that these scientists will provide the change and innovation that the country needs right now. The most important now is what we do next, saying that to translate what they learn from the lab and transform it into something meaningful for the Filipino people, it is up to the academe, both the faculty and the students of the College of Science. (Jason de Asis)
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