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BY JULIO P. YAP JR.
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Wednesday, March 21, 2018
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IT IS EXPECTED that the “Balik Scientist Act,” which is envisaged to be enacted into law anytime soon, would provide more incentives to returning Filipino experts, scientists, inventors, and engineers.
The Act, also known as Senate Bill 1533, was approved during the third and final reading at the Senate and House of Representatives during the recent Bicameral Conferenceat Senate of the Philippines in Pasay City.
Principal author Sen. Bam Aquino and his Lower House counterpart Bohol 2nd District’s Rep. Erico Aristotle C. Aumentado are expecting that President Rodrigo Roa A. Duterte will sign the Act into law within the next two months.
The Balik Scientist Act seeks to institutionalize the Balik Scientist Program of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) which is encouraging some of our scientists to return and contribute to research that will help address development gaps in the Philippines.
Under this bill, a returning scientist can enjoy various compensations that include: tax and duty exemptions to importation of professional equipment and materials; free medical and accident insurance covering the award period; reimbursement of expenses for baggage related to scientific projects; and even exemption from “renouncing their oath of allegiance to the country where they took the oath.”
Also, a Balik Scientist can also participate in DOST’s Grants-in-Aid research and development.
A grant may be provided to the Balik Scientist and released through the host institution for the implementation of the project in accordance with relevant government regulations and the need of the program involved.
The benefits also include special working and non-working visas, a round-trip airfare from a foreign country to the Philippines, exemption from local travel tax, and DOST-subsidized visa application.
Also under the bill, long-term Balik Scientist awardees can enjoy relocation benefits, such as support in securing job opportunities for the spouse of the awardee, and admission support for the children of awardees in preferred schools, relocation allowance and monthly housing or accommodation allowance, and funding for the establishment and development of a facility or laboratory.
It can be noted that DOST Secretary Fortunato de la Peña has been supporting the said bill for several years already, even since he was still an undersecretary of the department.
De la Peña says that it is very crucial to strengthen the Balik-Scientist Program of DOST because we have areas that lack experts.
Examples are space technology and artificial intelligence which are just starting.
He added that it is very crucial to have enough human resource in these fields to help us in conducting various research and development projects.
Also under the bill, a non-bachelor’s degree graduate but with extensive experience in important fields can be also considered a Balik Scientist and can apply for the program.
The bill also states that the Balik-Scientist Program will prioritize experts in the fields of space, technology, artificial intelligence, biomedical engineering, energy agriculture and food technology – biotechnology, information and communications technology, pharmaceutical, disaster mitigation and management, environment and natural resources, electronics, genomics, health, manufacturing, nanotechnology, cyber security and semiconductors. (jaypeeyap@ymail.com/PN)
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