QnA The Importance of Research for Nation Building and Sustainable Development

Sir Gerard, how's the weather there? Okay, n man. >> Well, it's u it was raining when the lecture started. >> Okay, it's >> raining really hard now. The sun is up again. I'm sorry. Very spotty, but >> Oh, >> but I'm here and I hope >> Yeah, >> as I said, I hope to have a conversation with our workshop participants. >> Is that Rico's Cafe? No, you look no this is this is the St. Louis. >> Okay. >> St. Louis in BGC. >> Okay. Okay. >> Privacy center. [laughter] >> Okay. >> Raymond Dan might get sponsored. [laughter] >> Okay. But anyway, uh we were actually ahead of schedule. But before I open the floor to questions, sir, uh can I ask the first question cuz I might not get the chance to ask later. you were comparing us uh other Asan neighbors no but uh like Vietnam and Malaysia and uh in terms of research productivity and forum he was mentioning that uh Harvard or other university like that endowment and well again I mean people will have to invest question a university like ours if if there was there were people who wanted to donate money or invest Why would they again on practical sractical uh why would they what would make them let's say donate or invest at when they can donate to other let's say more productive Asan neighbors or even institutions that are well established from the American for America or other European countries sir or is it really a big challenge talaga Uh thank you Cesar for starting off with a very difficult question. >> Okay. I'm [laughter] sorry. I'm sorry. >> But it it's fine. This is something I think about all the time. >> Oh. >> When it comes to grants, obviously this workshop is itself is evidence of what's called comparative advantage. If you're creative enough about making a case for an activity or a project, then it is possible to be able to secure support for activities as long as we know what's important for stakeholders. And very often well especially if the funding doesn't come from the Philippines internally then we need to understand how we as scholars in the Philippines can contribute to global interests and not just to our own local interests. So that's the first mindset that we need to be able to secure international support. Think of what we have to contribute to our minds to the rest of the world. Now when we look at the local funding scenario, it's a bit different. The for endowments and for research grants that are funded from Philippine sources, the ultimate rationale is how does this help build the country? And the argument that I would like to make um [clears throat] more of is even though there's a natural tendency to gravitate towards investing in physical resources, >> buildings for example, >> uh for example, many benefactors donate to different educational institutions and have buildings named after themselves or or relatives and such. I think we need to make a better case that it is important that a large chunk of the funding goes into developing human capital. And that means for example uh in addition to buildings uh tycoons and people capable of making such endowments should have more um graduate student scholarships to help build not just to get people to give people bachelor's degrees but to help them get through masters and PhD programs and the scholarships of course could be named after uh the the benefactor that endows them. But what you have every time you do that is not only do you help develop incrementally human capital as you do this, >> but you also help build lives and and in fact of course once that person gets his or her degree, they will be indebted for life to to this benefactor. So there's that ecosystem that I think we have not fully developed, but I think we should work on that. So less buildings and more uh the more investments it's a human capital I mean >> I didn't say less buildings I just said >> continue that please but in addition >> uh it's like the hardware and the software let me put it that way >> okay >> in addition to the hardware of institutions software is >> equally important >> and uh last a follow-up question po um would you know if our neighbors in uh in Southeast Asia are getting more support in terms of having grants for individuals to finish their masters and their PhDs compared to the Philippines. Well, I will say this. I when I was younger, this was roughly about 20 years ago, I had the opportunity to there was an extended scholarship program funded by the Japanese government and many of the beneficiaries back then in the early 2000s were students from Vietnam and they would send a cohort every year to stud to get masters and PhD degrees in DLSU. So I actually had firsthand experience visiting them. >> I could see the difference in economic development. I could see but I do know my students from Vietnam one generation ago worked extremely hard and to the point where they made life stressful for the for the local counterparts whenever they were classmates. >> So they raised the bar and >> they raised the bar and they were invested in earning those degrees. I know that there were other scholarships to send them to to France to to Russia to get their >> the others would get their degrees from those countries, some from the Philippines. So that sustained investment in human capital I think is why they have they have Vinfast. It's their own local electric car. >> Okay. >> Something which trajectory. Yeah. >> Yeah. A long way from and this of course cuts across different disciplines. Even sports even even sports actually sports. I've seen that first Sunday. But anyway, thank you very much. Maybe just >> just a final comment. I keep I keep bringing up Vietnam because there you have evidence >> that we cannot use our GDP or our our economic development status as an excuse >> because Vietnam is similar to us in level and they have more the only difference is they were more organized and more ambitious. >> So we can get our acts together move forward that way. >> Okay. Thank you very much sir. Uh anyway, uh I'm gonna those of you who have gan uh those of you who have questions type chat area and then tatawageno first come first serve so that you can uh unmute your audio, unmute your camera and then talk to Dr. Tan personally. Okay. So we already have uh two questions here. Mr. Quite question. Okay. So, we have here from the from PUP. Okay. So, Mr. Alex Hensson, if you're there, you can unmute your audio if you want to unmute your camera and you can address uh your question to Professor Tan directly. Okay. So, Alex Hensson, good morning. Anjang kaba. >> H. Yes. Good morning. >> Go ahead. Um good morning um Certan. Uh here's my question. I'm from PUP Manila. Um despite the uh Good morning Tia, despite DSU's significant investment and achievements in research, how can the university ensure that its research outputs translate into tangible large-scale solution for the Philippines most pressing challenges such as poverty, climate resilience, education, and public health rather than remaining primarily within academic circles. And then another question po is um uh >> Alex, excuse me, Alex. >> Yeah. So let's let me answer the first question first before you move on to the next one. Um well u as I pointed out u any attempt at advocacy or impact that doesn't have discip disciplined rigor is just opinion. In the same way that we do not uh you don't just give a scalpel to anyone who wants to perform surgery to save lives. That person goes through rigorous training for years. So it's the same thing. Um research is the foundation for impact that is probably going to be not going to have adverse side effects. uh we do encourage our researchers and teams to try to engage with that. One thing we need to understand is researchers are not generally the decision makers. Decision makers are politicians or CEOs of major corporations but never poor academics like us. So the the idea is engagement. Once you're confident that your discipline has come up with solid findings, what you should do then is try to transfer this knowledge into the hands of people who can actually use it and be careful not to overreach because we are not we're not lawmakers but we may have ideas on how laws can be written properly. So we just put that in the information of people >> um who are trying to do that. If they have questions, we make ourselves available to answer such questions. So that is the approach that we use. And likewise for technology, it's it's very similar that um the researcher that invents a device doesn't need to be the same person that runs a business utilizing that technology can be it could be the same. It could be a different set of people. the idea is transferring the knowledge to to the hands of people in the quote unquote real world. Um so that's my answer. We can proceed to your follow-up question. Yeah, I agree with you sir because sad to say it is a repeat it's a uh occurring cycle not to our country that we have a beautiful research regarding a certain thing then because of the the incapacity of our country to to realize it. So other countries are in that in the research that we that we curtail here in a country. So that is a very sad thing to to think which is already yeah already >> already being occurring uh from the past >> right can I can I add something to that let me use this analogy so that we understand better if I was a medical doctor I was telling my patient to hey you need a lifestyle change stop smoking exercise more change your diet and all of this >> it's not up to me to actually make those changes I give that information to my patient he or she may choose to follow the directions or or the advice or not. And um it's very similar with research. Sometimes the bottleneck is not the researcher himself or herself, but uh the bottleneck could actually be the decision makers. So keep that in mind because a lot of the failures that you see are might not be researchbased. That for example, the appetite to turn research into business or policy that lies outside of academia. >> All right. Thank you, sir. Uh my next question is um considering ourselves as a developing country with limited research funding, what role should DOSU play in ensuring the research priorities aligned with the nation's urgent social and economic needs? >> Yeah. Well, again regarding Philippines being a developing country, Vietnam is a developing country as well with similar conditions except for the organization and the ambition. Now, uh part of the direction comes from research funding because research funding is most of the funding available in the Philippines comes from the government and naturally is aligned with national needs. So there's a natural tendency for us to deal with uh national problems. But at the same time, it's important that a small percentage of what we do is >> more forwardlooking because some problems actually >> might not seem urgent, but we might uh recognize problems that will occur down the horizon. which policy makers might not yet understand. Um to give an example, when I was starting out in the late 1990s as a researcher, >> climate change wasn't a serious problem back then. Um I had the good fortune to select it as part of my PhD work and of course turned out to be a good idea in hindsight to have focused on that. So it sometimes we rely on our own expertise. Sometimes we rely on external signals through funding. >> So I hope that helps. >> Thank you very much. >> It really helps. Yeah. >> Thank you. >> Thank you for that question, sir. Alex, no. Thank you. So sir, n a few questions here. No, let me call on them. No. So we have from Oh, wait. s Mr. Justin Shanluis Canaria. Uh you can unmute your audio and video if you like. No. So you can uh ask Dr. Tan your question. >> Hello. Good morning sir Raymond. Uh thank you for your wonderful uh uh presentation. It's very informative. I'm just curious like to hear from your perspective. How do you think uh we in the philosophy field who are specializing or shall we say more theoretical we how can how do you envision that we are able to uh contribute to sustainability because when you think of sustainability it's usually always in the uh natural sciences so like in your field and uh other natural sciences whereas we in the humanities uh it seems a bit difficult to wrap my head my theoretical research because uh I mean ethics for example. So how do you envision we in the philosophy field to contribute to these efforts of sustainability? >> Well first of all uh I don't think all intellectual enterprise or endeavors need to be justified on the basis of how useful it is. I do not think once again of course >> I do not believe that all human thinking should be just because it's useful to solve problems. >> Uh sometimes we pursue ideas because they're interesting or quote unquote beautiful which is why we have philosophy, we have mathematics, we have literature. Uh so that's number one. Number two is uh from the outside looking in as a STEM person with friends and colleagues from philosophy. Um I do know that there are many recent developments that require that kind of philosophical outlook because not all the answers are found in the nuts and bolts. One of the one of the things that interests me in particular, for example, is the emergence of artificial intelligence. Something I've discussed with the head of this project, Professor Bana, and other philosophy colleagues. >> There are practical implications, but >> I ask those questions primarily because I find them interesting. Like when will will there ever be a conscious machines? when will they when will we have a singularity of it machine intelligence exceeds human intelligence and etc etc these are things that I think of not because it's my work but because it's again interesting I find that uh I think the outlook from philosophers in this particular area is very important finally I'm not the only one that thinks this because the major tech firms that are developing AI models actually are hiring philosophers to help them manage the ramifications of potentially dangerous machines. So I think uh there are practical reasons but there are also fundamentally you know non-practical reasons but we we think because it's in our nature to think that's what philosophers do. >> Yeah. Thank you for your sponsor. um quite sad to hear that there are those uh in the natural sciences who really don't uh look favorably on the our field and receive as a second rate. So to hear that positive response from you um is uh readily reassuring for us in the philosophy field. Thank you and uh please continue with your wonderful work. >> Thank you as well. Thanks. >> Thank you very much uh sir Justin very nice and interesting question. So sir, uh we have uh one of our graduates from the department of philosophy who's now studying at UPDo. We have Mr. Jose Marie Quetto. So Mr. Quetto, you can ask your question. >> Uh hi uh professor Dan. Uh great presentation. Um >> morning. I'm actually um curious on your statement to repeat what I put in the chat uh your statement on research integration because among my endeavors during the undergrad I think differences and tensions within paradigms actually are inevitable like there is the analytic and continental divide within the realm of philosophy and if if we extend that to the sciences is we have this uh divide between the hard and the you know the soft sciences and it I I can't help but noticed how scholars are you know devouring each other and um in that aspect and there because it's real that there are indeed irreconcilable differences in opinions and I I I was curious to know what do you think of that and how can we further get scholars to be in a room with each other and talk. And second question is um I would like >> Okay. Sorry. >> Sorry. Sorry to interrupt. It's because I'm I'm in my 50s. I'll probably forget your first question if I hear the second. >> Okay. >> Um regarding the disciplin, it's a natural consequence of specialization. As people go develop deep expertise in a particular area, there is a natural cognitive overload that they they tend to understand [snorts] >> other disciplines less. [clears throat] So I think we should not think of it as as a barrier. we should just think of it as a natural tendency which we can try to overcome by engaging in in more uh discussion across the things and again the example I have is I often have conversations uh with colleagues from the philosophy department about as I said things like >> artificial intelligence or environmental ethics a matter of it's like trying to learn to speak a new language. It may not come naturally. It may be difficult sort of uh exert the effort to do it. Um, second is I think uh part of it is >> from from the way you phrase that first I would advise you to be a little bit more to have a little bit more quote unquote arrogance about your training and expertise. I think uh in other words don't let anybody else think that your work is second rate. Just if you're try to benchmark yourself with the best people in your discipline and take pride in in your standing and that will carry over and uh will allow you to speak with engineers, computer scientists, biologists on equal terms even if you speak somewhat different languages. >> Okay, I'm ready to hear your second question. >> Right. Uh thank you for your response. Uh actually um have been thinking of the arrogance notion as well like I have to be I have to integrate that as well especially if >> yeah it's humility can be is okay but you could overdo it and especially if somebody puts you on a stage to speak and you don't take your humility up to the stage with you. >> Okay. Um thank you. Uh for the next question um I'm sorry I have these questions but like okay I'm not sorry that's all right >> you got to be arrogant but like okay I would like to [laughter] further inquire on your idea of progress because um I my worry here is um the fixation towards research outputs and um and leaving them behind up there and I wish to know how >> how can one have those outputs be well integrated into the system in place cuz um I'm asking in the standpoint of uh for instance there are institutions in in China for example where they integrate process um on uh process paradigms into their uh agenda for an ecological civilization and I also couldn't help but uh re be reminded of this German philosopher Haidiger how he mentioned how this he criticized this notion of human capital which enables um further exploitation and and um it can disrupt the essence of being human and I wonder what you think of um how can we I'm not trying to oppose it but um I just wanted to have a what could be a better way because I don't really like uh seeing humans as capitalist. So there's that. >> Okay, that's perfectly fine. Again, there's always you don't need to apologize for disagreeing with somebody. That's perfect. No matter how senior he might he or she might seem. Uh my answer really lies in the there's there's a difference between what we do as individuals and what we do what happens collectively. Let's put it that way. Vietnam's success is an emergent property of collective behavior. But that doesn't mean that every individual was consciously uh trying to build out the country. The people that I met, the students that I mentored from Vietnam, basically they were trying to get degrees. Their objective was to get a better job to raise families. So there's a difference between our individual freedoms and ambitions and what happens collectively uh as you know what an emergent property is anyway you can look that up later. So what happens to a country is an emergent property of the behavior of individuals and these need not be dictated from the top down. It just emerges from individual behavior. So uh that that's my answer. Basically it's not to say that we're ultimately the lesson here is we must all aspire for individual excellence in our respective fields whether it's philosophy or engineering and if we all did that and if we all committed to that then the Philippines would be a better place just as a result of individual struggles of people like us. You know, I think see Mr. Quetto just presented a paper abroad. Mr. Quto present Yeah. I presented in uh China. Yeah. China. Okay. >> How was it? Uh did you enjoy uh it was >> it was a really transformative experience and I was able to meet with scholars abroad and I didn't realize they were >> Titanic figures. They were my friends but like Oh, I didn't I didn't know. Okay. Anyway, >> congratulations. >> Well, that's always a good experience. Yeah. And I think sorry Cesar just I think one of the advantages of working in philosophy and fields like mathematics or philosophy is basically you can be as good as anyone in the world because you >> your main resource is your brain. So there's fundamentally nothing that can separate someone from Harvard from someone from the Philippines except the training, except the outlook book. So in a way all of you here are primed for more global competitiveness than someone like me where there are fundamental constraints to what I'm able to do which are tied to cash resources. >> Yes. >> So take that as a challenge. Uh that also takes away excuses because basically how far you go depends just on what's in your skull. >> This level that goes for everyone in the room level playing field basketball in your field since the people you meet. No. Would you say that percentage? Uh let me put it this way and present company included. I have a I have a pretty big ego myself. [laughter] >> Okay. >> But but sorry, we've worked together in in different communities. >> Okay. >> It it's not that I'm necessarily an arrogant person. In fact, I'm not. >> No, no, no. Actually, no, no, no. I don't think so. >> In many ways, I'm down to earth. But in my ambition, this is the key. >> When I start a new research project, >> the ego comes in and say through the idea of how can this be the first in the world? How can this be better than what that guy in China or in the US are doing? It's that >> that is where the ego comes in. becomes a fuel for competitiveness, but not something to to throw in the face of my colleagues. So, the same goes for a lot of the people that the quote unquote demigods of my field. I find them generally down to earth people >> except they have ambition and when they have ideas, they think of changing the world with their ideas. So way but not quite in the abrasive way that we might think. >> So parang it's more like uh it's ambition no ambition. Ambitious or something. Yeah. Oh yeah. I think that's the word. >> Yeah. I mean >> wanting to get wanting to get there first before >> well I think because as uh Dr. Biana said this is a competition actually this whole uh this whole event they're going to be narrowing down you participants to I think tama ako Hazel 10 participants am I correct >> yes 10 so so I think guys that message from Dr. is very timely. No. So, >> sorry, Cesar Hazel, can I add one more thing? >> Okay. Okay, sir. Give up. >> Uh, this is going to be a pyramid that narrows down to the apex, but the final 10, of course, there's never a finish line. Once you reach the final 10, maybe that gives you a confidence boost and maybe >> that could change your career. Maybe you become the top uh >> logician or the top ethicist in your field. So the competition doesn't end there. It's >> Yeah. >> Once you reach that peak, there's always another peak afterwards. So >> if you're going to be arrogant in a way, that's the way to do it. Just keep going to the next peak afterwards. >> Cyrus climb. No, if there's another mountain, I'm not familiar with that. >> Really, sir? So anyway, so that's a good song in the climb actually. So anyway, uh we have some more questions here. So thank you very much. No, Mr. Quetto see very productive. So we have an independent researcher no s Mr. Angelo James Cornelio. Okay. So if you're there, Mr. Cornelio turn and Dr. will answer your question personally. >> Hello po. Hello po. >> Hello. Yes. Good morning. Good morning. >> Hello. Good morning po. Is do you think philosophical research on Filipino philosophy po will be welcome internationally? We're talking the world rankings about research impact and particularly will it have research funding scholarship application opportunities and global research recognition and rankings. when we talk about philosophical research in Filipino. >> Uh yeah okay thanks for that question. Uh by the way that's true also for example in engineering and technology and the short answer is you always have to ask yourself if if being Philippine is your unique selling point you always need to ask yourself what is it that other people from other countries stand to learn or gain from that perspective. It will never have for them. It will never have intrinsic value. The value for them would be what is it that in what is it in your ideas would be useful or helpful to them. So that is how you should approach things if you want to be internationally competitive. like >> um think of it as cultural export >> and not to belittle not to >> but it's sort of like the way K-pop >> has penetrated international markets. It's not because it's it's music >> or entertainment by Koreans for Koreans. It's by Koreans meant for a global audience. Now you could do that for more serious things. Why couldn't our ideas be good enough to change the planet? >> This is question I'd like everyone to ask. >> Thank you. I think that's a very good insight, sir. No, for the global audience. Okay. So, I hope Sir Angelo okay uh did did the was your question answered sufficiently? Okay. Nam man. Yes. And then I'll have to go to the other question. Go, go, go. I guess knowledge production since we're talking about university as knowledge producers advancements philosophy early career philosophers global developments philosophical teachers like AI philosophy AI ethics no or posthuman metaodern philosophical approach meta crisis since knowledge production philosophy or with the contemporary Filipino researchers tackling 21st century issues. >> Well, every philosopher needs to make his or her own decision as what to pursue. That's number one. That's fundamental academic freedom. You pursue what you want to pursue. Uh, but I think what the Philippines needs is to be able to show the world that our ideas uh are as good as anybody else's. And this is I think the lack of national ambition that is what's holding us back. Okay. >> But again that's my opinion and we should all pursue uh what we are interested in pursuing as individuals. >> By the way guys Dr. T has about 600 Scopus index publications. No. So Google I hope that inspires you. Okay. So we have a we have a limited time professor. So that's uh uh here we have uh maybe we can accommodate two more questions. Is that okay? Mr. Edgardo de Rosario. No. So if you're there, please ask your question. No. And get ready. Mr. Kamosa after Okay. >> Go ahead sir. Go ahead. >> I will not going to go uh further. I just gonna ask directly the question on >> Sorry volume audio. >> Yes. Sorry going to some for our pre-app >> sorry to interrupt. Can you muffled audio? Could you type the question so I can hear it so I can read it instead of uh struggling with the audio? >> Am I bored now sir? >> Yeah. Okay. Try again. >> Uh can you hear me now sir? >> No. Better better is better. >> Yeah. Great. Good. Thank you. Uh sorry I'm on one trip to San I'll go directly with my question since we are actually uh looking into possible uh working on a research and publication. And the real struggle that we have uh this is just my based on my personal opinion is that uh we are actually having some struggle on publication and lack of support as well from some institutions that we have on funding uh our research work. Is there any possible way for us to know support in terms of working on this research papers that we have for publications? >> Okay. Um well again based on my understanding of your field which is also based on my interactions with example Cesar and Hazel and other colleagues um philosophers basically have that as the laboratory. So the main resources you need are time to offload you from all other duties and also uh of course access to literature, access to events where you can interact with top intellectuals in your field. What I would recommend is uh to engage your university leaders in in a discussion. Just show them the ROI. >> Like it or not, university administrators will think in terms of ROI. So if they free up your time so that you can produce more research, how does that help the university? The rankings are part of the answer. But uh you build reputation, you attract more students. Uh so that trade-off of promising an output in exchange for resource input is a formula that we've used in the LSU for for more than a decade now. >> So in other words, university leaders try to make the case that you can help build the university that way. >> Okay, >> I hope that helps. All right. So, that's a nice term university leaders. Okay. So, good luck. So, we have uh Mr. Khal Ramos from UP Dan. So, are you there, Mr. Ramos? Yes. Magdalong. Yeah. Go ahead. >> Yes. Am I audible? Okay. Audio. >> Yes. Yes. Very clear. Very clear. Yeah. >> So, I would just to I would like to just get your thoughts. Um Dr. Then um in the research ecosystem you presented earlier, you've shown that there's an there's this interdependency between researchers and the government where the researchers benefit from the government through funding and the government benefits from the researchers through the outputs of their uh through the through their outputs for policym. Now I'm curious though um if you think this relationship actually holds in our country at present. more specifically, do you lean towards saying that our country's policy makers are actually maximizing our research outputs? Um because if not, then that might be another problem to solve, right? Um perhaps we can generate a ton of high quality research without them making the difference because you know um I mean without them making the difference we expect because they are not being utilized by the people who are at the top. So like to just get your thoughts on that. >> Okay. I will uh misuse the word philosophy here. I think when we have problems like this uh we have to take a philosophical approach to the problem and I bring it back to the earlier analogy. If I was a medical doctor advising patients to change their diets, to quit smoking and so on and so forth, and many of them still insist on pursuing their old unhealthy lifestyles, I would then ask myself, what is it I'm doing wrong? What could I do better in terms of being more persuasive? uh number one that should not be an excuse or a reason for us to stop doing the rigorous research in the first place because uh sometimes I do find that that's the undercurrent when people use that as bring that up it's it might become an excuse not to pursue research in the first place uh which I believe is a completely wrong way to go about things number two is that that tells us But at the level of research teams and universities, then there needs to be a better effort to for knowledge transfer. That could mean organizing things better. That could mean your university uh setting up a research or knowledge transfer unit whose job is not to create new knowledge but to to be more persuasive in packaging this knowledge. uh this could be for example using u social media as a channel for doing doing that kind of knowledge transfer and finally this is not necessarily for philosophers but maybe if we understand the bottleneck between the research community and the policym community maybe this is where you have political scientists and sociologists weighing in on trying to understand that ecosystem and trying to apply their own research expertise to relieve that bottleneck and allow better transfer. And that basically means that the answer lies not in the individual but in organizations, research teams and research universities trying to get the message across in a better way. That is still an open question. Obviously I myself am uh grappling with some issues related to this as an individual research of some >> but ultimately that should not be a reason for us not to do research anyway because >> uh there's a different reason for doing research it's to create new knowledge >> okay so I think we have uh time for maybe two more questions no so we have Mr. Ron Justin Mundato >> if you're there. Yeah. Okay. Go ahead. Go ahead. Sir Ron, go ahead. >> Uh good morning uh everyone. Good morning, professor. Uh so I have a question and this is something I have been uh grappling with for some time. Uh so you mentioned uh earlier something about an eventual handover from academia to industry uh for the benefit of the general public. So hence my question um as we know research funding is heavily favoring uh industry applications? Uh so are academic researchers obligated to adopt uh corporate or industry uh standards and practices in some way? bought researchers orient their methodologies toward um commercial applicability uh or is it imperative for academia uh researchers and uh research in general to preserve its separation to protect some kind of pure uncomodified research or would you suggest some kind of middle ground talk? >> Yeah, good question. Uh I personally think that from the words I've been using all morning. Research is intended to advance the state of knowledge and that could be proving theorems that could be uh things that have no clear commercial prospects in the near future. But I think that is still part of that's how humanity has progressed for millennia and that should not stop. That said, uh the actual environment in the Philippines does have a bias towards commercial ROI. Uh partly because we are a developing country and there is pressure to show that resources are used efficiently. So on the one hand I have my opinion on the other hand there is that reality which I don't think is the proper way to do things. there should be a portfolio of research in any comprehensive university. >> So I I hope okay uh sir okay. Yeah. >> Yeah. Thank you uh sir uh Tan and Sir Cesar that clarified something. Thank you so much. Good. Good. Thank you. By the way guys now before we have the last question please take note of the forms that you need to fill up. very important yan and if you have any questions later about you if you need certificate signatures stay uh stay until the end of the of this uh of this day one sessions because we'll have important announcements later so sir I think we can accommodate one more question this is from uh I think it's miss bani al- mmsu okay are are you there uh you can unmute miss >> okay hi good Morning say. >> Hi good morning. Am I am I audible po? >> Yes poite mmsu ano po yun. >> Ah sorry that's um Mariano Marcus state. >> Okay. Okay. So >> hello good morning doc. Um uh I really appreciated your point uh especially the one that hit was the fact that I like that you said let's not keep using the GDP or the lack of you know funding as the reason why we cannot do meaningful work. It's so beautiful when you said that philosophers, mathematicians laboratory or our primary foundational resource is our minds. No. And I teach philosophy in a provincial university. So it's ilkos norte where you know the perception of teaching philosophy is that it's too abstract or it's impractical. It's disconnected especially in a provincial university. But every time I teach it, it's just amazing that I see it click in students' eyes every time they start to question things outside of the box and I see that maybe philosophy really is possible. So um my question sir is how do we as educators in the humanities social sciences make the most out of this resource that we already have which is our minds? Um especially in communities where there are very real material limitations and where the value of disciplines like philosophy is not always going to be going to be immediately recognized. Sir, >> thank you. Uh again, I'll be sharing my opinion as an academic and and not as a university administrator. Uh how many of you show of hands please? How many of you have been following the exploits of Alex the tennis player? >> Yeah. Okay. Mame obviously. You know, >> here's my question. How come nobody ever questions or asks her for societal impact? The reason is simple. Every little bit of excellence, whether you're an Olympic athlete or an mathematician or a philosopher, every little bit of excellence that can be demonstrated on a global stage helps build up national pride. Uh something that we undervalue. So if you're a philosopher, just aspire to be as good as you can. Get published in the top tier journals. That's like an Olympic medal. Uh if people if you have skeptical colleagues or bosses that question the value of your work, just ignore what they say because trust me, every little bit of excellence that you can demonstrate helps build uh build this country up. Just a little bit, but a little bit from everybody adds up to a lot. Okay. >> I think siguro what uh I think Miss B what Dr. an is saying that whether it's research or teaching strive to be excellent teacher philosophy but anyway