blackshama's commentary on Philippine issues

We have this science graduate who got his biology degree this year with a magna cum laude to show and now is quite in the dumps. After having won accolades from the university like best thesis research and of course the McL plaudit, he applied to work for a top notch hospital as part of the research team dealing with patient satisfaction. Given the good scholastic record he has, he got accepted. But one month into the job he quit. The reason is that he was placed under job training first (where he got a pay he did not expect to get) and the change of orientation from the grade oriented life as an undergraduate to the output and team building orientation of life in the corporate private sector was quite of a shocker. He complained to me about "poor labour practices". And this leads me to think that our undergraduate training philosophies are horribly out of sync with what is to be expected in the world at large. Note that I refuse to use the cliche "real world" sinc...

The Philippine Supreme Court upheld the dismissal of an overweight Philippine Airlines steward. The court ruled on what seems to me as common sense. Being fat may be a safety risk in an aircraft especially in an emergency evacuation. I suppose the court heard expert testimony and measured the width of the aisle and the steward's girth. Let's say the steward's girth takes up > 2/3 of the aisle width, then I foresee a problem. However, if fat flight attendants are a no no, what about fat passengers?

I attended a workshop-discussion sponsored by the NAST or National Academy of Science and Technology (not National Academy of Senile Teachers as one wag who is an academician herself jestingly told me!). The whole meeting was about our blog post title. The mantra that we have heard often is that science and technology translates to more investments, economic growth and ergo, jobs. But unlike the quick fixes that our government economic planners have, science requires massive investments whose returns will not be realized in a few years. In fact the returns may be seen in a decade or so. The problem is that while DOST (Department of Science and Technology) has invested heavily in scholarships, infrastructure development and laboratory equipment, our science seems not to have left the ground (by this I mean have generated new knowledge and technologies) save for a few notable exceptions such as the University of the Philippines institutes of physics and marine sciences. The measure of th...