• CHRYSEE G. SAMILLANO
The president of the Philippine Federation of Chemistry Societies (PFCS) is encouraging more of today’s youth to be interested in making chemistry as a career, noting the lack of scientists and chemists in the country.
“I hope we will be able to impart in our general population how important our role is in terms of making our environment better by doing some analysis on our water, soil, and other things that affect our daily lives,” Dr. Glenn Alea yesterday said during a press conference at the opening of the 37th Philippine Chemistry Congress at the SMX Convention Center in Bacolod City, attended by about 1,400 participants from all over the country.
Alea said he hopes that more students, especially from the Visayas and Mindanao, will be interested in taking B.S Chemistry as a course and practice the profession after they have graduated.
He has observed that many board passers are into medicine. So, he hopes that companies who employ chemists will provide higher salaries in order to motivate more students to enroll in chemistry. Because if parents feel that it is not a lucrative job, they won’t encourage their children to take up B.S. Chemistry, he added.
“Our teaching force should also be developed to remove the impression that chemistry is such a difficult subject, and that when they graduate, they will end up teaching, which is not true. In fact, many of the participants of the congress are from the industry and only a few are from the academe, aside from researchers,” Alea said.
Department of Environment and Natural Resources Undersecretary Carlos Primo David said “We encourage scientists to be part of nation building in particularly to help government in some of its endeavors. I believe they will have big contributions so I encourage them to help the DENR.”
Meanwhile, Alea said the congress will be a platform where all chemists, professional or not, will gather to collaborate with one another and share experiences to be able to come up with further collaboration to solve the country’s problem. In this particular year, they are focusing on agriculture and food security.
The theme of the 37th Philippine Chemistry Congress from July 26 to 28 is “Chemistry and Agriculture 4.0: Chemistry for Agriculture and Food Security.”
This is the first face-to-face, in-person congress to be conducted after restrictions are lifted since the onset of the global pandemic. The event was organized by the Integrated Chemists of the Philippines (ICP) National and its Bacolod Chapter, in partnership with Philippine Federation of Chemical Societies (PFCS).*
