A Filipino professor has received the 2008 Rolex Award for Enterprise for developing a new technology that transforms the waste from rice production into clean, affordable cooking fuel.

Alexis Belonio, associate professor of Agricultural Engineering at the Central Philippine University in Iloilo City, was one of the five Associate Laureates named by Rolex and presented with $50,000. He also received a Rolex chronometer.

He developed a low-cost stove powered by rice husks aimed at reducing fuel costs and minimizing greenhouse gas emissions.

In the 48-year-old inventor’s design, a stream of oxygen converts the burning rice husk fuel to a combustible blend of hydrogen, carbon monoxide and methane gases, yielding a hot, blue flame similar to that produced by burning natural gas.

Started in 1976, the Rolex Awards for Enterprise have supported pioneering work in science and medicine, technology and innovation, exploration and discovery, the environment and cultural heritage.

“I will spend the Rolex Award money on promoting and sharing the technology with others for free, as widely as I can. I will focus on disseminating it throughout the world. I will produce more publications to show people how to do it,” Belonio said in an interview.

According to reports, Belonio’s early stoves, made in the Philippines, sold at $100 each and were too expensive for poor families. However, further research and development conducted in Indonesia significantly reduced the retail price of the stove to only $25.

“This was achieved by simplifying the design of the stove in terms of operation, materials and fabrication. Thousands of cookers are now being manufactured by companies cooperating with Belonio in the Philippines, Indonesia and Cambodia,” reports said.

By exploiting a freely available waste product at a time of soaring energy prices, the stoves can save a family of rice farmers about $150 a year in fuel bills, a huge benefit for families that live on $2 or $3 a day, Belonio said.

He said a ton of rice husks contains the same energy as 415 liters of petrol or 378 liters of kerosene.

Belonio said his stoves reduce greenhouse gas emissions and eliminate toxic fumes inside houses.

“Even the char left after burning can be recycled to improve farm soils or to form bio-coal briquettes,” he said. Philstar.com

MANILA, Philippines—It’s still a long way away from the Philippines’ first Nobel Prize, but for these whiz kids, it may well be a good first baby step.

Six students from Philippine Science High School (PSHS) won six medals at a prestigious science tournament in South Korea early this month, proving that Filipinos can go toe-to-toe with the best in Physics, Chemistry and Biology.

The seniors and juniors from the state-run PSHS brought home three silver and three bronze medals from the 5th International Junior Science Olympiad (IJSO) in Changwon City on Dec. 6-15.

First started in 2004, the Olympiad drew some 250 science wizards aged 15 or younger from more than 40 countries.

“I felt so proud. We never expected to do so well considering that we had less than a month to prepare,” said Benjamin Francis Rodriguez Jr., a junior who had the highest marks among the Philippine delegates.

“It just goes to show that Filipinos can compete with other countries” in the natural sciences, Rodriguez told the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

Jan Tristram Acuña and William Tan, both seniors, also won silver medals, while the bronze medalists were Guia Publico, Cara Evangelista and Ralph Ugalino.

Acuña said the examination proper had three parts: A 30-item multiple choice, a theoretical exam with three questions, one each for physics, chemistry and biology, and group experiment on each subject.

“Before the exam, we were always in a huddle, reviewing and asking each other questions that may be asked in the exam,” he said.

“On the whole, the Asians, including us, were more reserved and silent. The Europeans were the party people types,” Acuña said.

Cramming sessions

He said the group felt a bit disadvantaged upon learning that some of the other nationals, especially the Taiwanese, spent several months preparing, compared to their own “cramming” sessions.

“We didn’t have much time to prepare for the contest due to school activities and lessons but while we were there we studied every night before the contest proper,” Tan said.

He said winning silver was “quite unexpected.”

Helen Caintic, the PSHS executive director who accompanied the students, said: “This is a proud moment for all Filipinos. Once again, we have shown what Filipinos are made of.”

Acuña said winning a silver medal meant that a competitor fell within the top 20 percent of the contestant pool and a bronze within the top 30 percent. A gold medalist, on the other hand, was among the top 10 percent.

6 points away from gold

Only Korea and Taiwan won gold medals for each of their six delegates, according to a Taiwanese news website. Thailand, like the Philippines, won six medals—two golds and four silvers, a Thai news website reported.

Acuña said the Philippines “almost got a gold,” with Rodriguez and him just six points away from the cutoff. He added that Rodriguez was ahead of him by 0.5 point.

He said the test questions tended to favor the host countries, which typically patterned the exam according to their own curriculums.

“It appeared that the questionnaire, as in previous competitions, was biased in favor of the hosting countries,” Acuña said.

For instance, Indonesia won top honors in the two years it hosted the event, as did Taiwan and Korea.

According to the IJSO website, the Philippines won only two silvers and a bronze in the previous Olympiad.

Rodriguez said this year’s competition made him realize that Filipinos can compete with other nationals in science and mathematics despite the dismal state of education here.

“It can really be done,” said the 15-year-old, who wants to take up medicine at the University of the Philippines when he graduates next year.

Doing well in competitions

Tan said the Philippines had actually been doing well in scholastic competitions.

“Among science high schools, the curriculum in the Philippines is advanced compared to other countries, while among ordinary schools, we are not lagging behind other countries in terms of what they are studying,” he said.

Tan said he drew this conclusion after the competition proper. “The other delegates asked us how we dealt with the exam. Through that we were able to see what they knew and what they didn’t,” he said.

But Acuña thought differently. “With other developing nations, we can compete. But with advanced countries like China, I think we’re one or two years behind.”

Acuña and Tan said they wanted to pursue a degree in physics from the University of the Philippines. Both said they would not mind the less than lucrative jobs that might await them when they finished school.

“Physics is really my passion … In my spare time, I try to solve complicated physics problems,” Acuña said. “My friends find it weird.”

Meager funding

But he said most other Filipino students wanting to specialize in the natural sciences lacked incentive to do so because of little government support and meager funding.

Rodriguez said there were actually many good Filipino scientists, but excellent science research required proper facilities, like laboratories.

Which begged the question: Is a Filipino winning a Nobel Prize for medicine, physics or chemistry an impossible dream at this point?

Acuña replied: “It’s not impossible but it’s going to be very tough … We still have a long way to go before we can catch up with the developed countries.”

Added Tan: “I’m not saying it’s impossible to win a Nobel Prize with the way things are going, but it is going to be difficult.”

But Rodriguez was far more optimistic: “I really think we can make it. All it’s going to take is support from government and a lot of hard work.” Inquirer.net

Necessity is the mother of invention.

For Antonio Mateo, he invented the “Direct Rainwater Catchment System Module” to help solve the impending water shortage in the country over the next five years, specifically potable water.

Mateo said the lack of clean drinking water has been a problem for kids in remote areas who do not have the convenience to buy distilled water from purifying stations.

He cited how kids from the mountains, like the recent death cases in Baler, die from drinking unsafe water. Most of the kids in the mountains do not even reach the age of five, he lamented.

Having been involved in water system technology development for 20 years, he said it is imperative to invent a module that will allow Filipinos to access clean water resources, especially rainwater.

The use of rainwater even at 50 percent utilization would allow savings and would secure surface and groundwater sources, said Mateo.

Using the module, demand on fresh water needs supplied by utility companies in urban areas or by groundwater wells and streams in rural areas will be reduced.

His family, for instance, uses rainwater for 80 percent of its total water supply for household use over five years now.

“Rainwater harvesting is a method of collecting, storing and processing rainwater for human consumption and use,” said Mateo. It allows the provision of fresh water at or near the point of its use, such as the individual household, farm, industrial and commercial establishment.

The concept is nothing new; rain harvesting has been used a long time ago, said Mateo.

“Rainwater harvesting seeks to put rainwater to good use rather than be wasted through floods or natural runoff,” he said. He mentioned that the perennial rains in the Philippines can help supply water in many areas, thus benefiting people.

Mateo said that rainwater passes 14 out of the 16 parameters of potable water. Rainwater just needs to address two factors — reduction of acidity and purification from disease-causing microorganisms — for it to be potable, Mateo said.

According to Mateo, the rainwater becomes non-potable because when it falls on catchments such as roof, it usually washes adhering pollutants such as, dirt, soot, insect and animal manures — which all goes into the rainwater storage tanks or cisterns causing microbiological contamination. Added to these are dissolved solids in the atmosphere that initially comes with the first rainfalls.

To extend the use of rainwater for drinking, Mateo said the module can purify rainwater of sediments using different layers of ceramic filtration and remove, if not kill disease-causing microorganisms, such as E. Coli via a purifying chamber with non-pathogenic solution.

In rural areas, the purifying chamber can be replaced with malunggay seeds, Mateo said. The seeds are disinfecting and cleansing agent. Through three stages of rainwater purification of the module, he said rainwater can be used for watering plants and irrigation, bathing and flushing toilets and finally drinking.

Mateo said the rainwater harvesting industry will grow over the next five years.

Currently, he is looking for suppliers who can mass-produce the module design. He built the prototype with P100,000 budget.

Future plans for enhancement of the module include operation of the catchment’s roof by hydraulics or pneumatics, which can spread out when humidity changes as detected by sensors. – Inquirer.net

Philippine Daily Inquirer

MANILA — DeWart, DeMole and now—de-cancer.

By reformulating his amazing cream that gets rid of warts and moles without surgery, Rolando dela Cruz, 71, came up with DeBCC that combats skin cancer.

Doctors from the Philippine General Hospital have certified the DeBCC cream as a viable treatment for basal cell carcinoma (BCC), the most common type of skin cancer.

On Friday, Dela Cruz received the World Intellectual Property Office gold medal for DeBCC as an outstanding invention during the closing ceremonies of the National Inventors Week.

When he was a child, Dela Cruz asked his mother why his hands got burnt when he cut a raw cashew nut he found in their backyard.

“I was trying to open the raw cashew nut by striking it with a stone. The oil from the nut splattered on my hands and some areas of my hands got burnt,” he recounted.

Dela Cruz would often refer to this story as how the idea for his invention started. He was able to formulate a cream to remove warts and moles on the skin and later, a painless treatment for the most common type of skin cancer, which the Department of Science and Technology recently hailed as the outstanding invention of the year.

A former barber in Caloocan City, Dela Cruz recalled seeing scars on the faces and necks of his clients, and would ask them about the imperfections.

“I compared my experience of getting burnt from cashew nut oil to the scars of my clients who had their warts cauterized,” he told the Philippine Daily Inquirer on the sidelines of the closing ceremonies of the National Inventors Week on Friday.

“I asked them about the cauterizing machine. I had no idea what it was because I was only in second year high school,” he added.

The cauterizing machine and the cashew nut oil seemed to have the same effect, he figured. Using extract from the cashew nut, he removed the warts and moles of his clients at the barber shop.

In 1997, Dela Cruz and his family started marketing the products as DeWart, a cream to remove warts, and DeMole, a cream to remove moles, his son Rommel de la Cruz said.

In a separate interview, the younger Dela Cruz narrated how they joined an exhibit at the Greenhills Commercial Center in San Juan.

“[At the beginning] we didn’t even know how we would pay for the rent of the stall,” he said. “But in that exhibit, we learned how to price our products and how to sell them. It was a valuable experience.”

DeMole and DeWart were later recognized by the DOST, with the creams winning the Tuklas (Discover) award in 1998.

Doctors also deemed the creams as possible treatment for warts and moles after completing clinical trials and studies on patients, he added.

Then an odd thing happened.

“Patients diagnosed with basal cell carcinoma insisted on trying the DeMole treatment. They even signed a waiver [absolving us from responsibility] so they could apply the cream to their BCC,” the younger Dela Cruz said.

He and the staff charted the results and said the treatment “had a good, albeit, small effect on the growths.”

“In 2003, Tatay reformulated DeMole by adding other ingredients and increased the strength of the cashew extract. We called the cream DeBCC,” the younger Dela Cruz said.

According to the US-based Skin Cancer Foundation, skin cancer is the most common kind of cancer in the United States with over a million cases reported annually. One in five Americans could develop the disease, the foundation said.

Surgery, chemotherapy and radiation are the usual treatments offered to BCC patients, but doctors encounter difficulties removing growths in sensitive areas like the face and genitalia.

Dela Cruz’s cream made the removal of BCC easier. A clinical trial at the PGH validated the viability of the treatment.

It was documented in the study, “Anacardium Occidentale (Linn. Cashew Nut Extract; DeBCC ®) in the Treatment of Basal Cell Carcinoma or Skin Cancer” by University of the Philippines doctors Eric Talens, Orlando Ocampo, Daniel dela Paz, Horacio Estrada and Porfirio Tica.

The DeBCC cream was also chosen as one of 11 “Posters of Exceptional Merit” last year during the 93rd Annual Clinical Congress of the American College of Surgeons held in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Despite his success as an inventor, Dela Cruz has never forgotten his humble beginnings. Poverty has made him a stronger person, he said.

“Those were trying times. I even experienced living at La Loma cemetery, sleeping in a cold, open ‘nitso (tomb),” he said. During those nights, he dreamed of becoming a doctor.

“And even though I never had a chance to take up medicine, my inventions allowed me to team up with doctors and find treatments,” Dela Cruz said.

ABS – CBN News

Filipina scientist Jurgenne Primavera has landed on the pages of Time Magazine for her contribution to environmental protection.

In its October 6 issue, the international magazine named her one of 30 scientists, activists, celebrities, innovators and financiers all over the world for their noteworthy efforts in preserving the planet.

The magazine cited her campaign for sustainable fish farming, rooted in the protection of mangrove forests, and lauded her “groundbreaking studies” on the life cycle of tiger prawns in the country, which “helped galvanize an aquaculture revolution.”

Primavera, who has done aquaculture research on giant tiger prawns for 15 years, welcomed the citation for helping bring her mangrove and environmental concerns mainstream.

“In history, during Spanish times, the first ponds were built. We had a ratio of half a hectare of mangrove to half a hectare of pond. I’ve chanced upon an ecology paper that said no more than 20% of mangrove should be converted to ponds. As a precautionary principle, there should be four hectares of mangrove to a hectare of pond. As of 1994, there were only 20,000 hectares of mangrove remaining as against 200,000 hectares of pond. We’re in trouble,” she laments, citing how the ratio has dwindled over time.

But, she notes, there have been a number of success stories. She cites a mangrove plantation in Kalibo, Aklan that has generated income for locals since it was opened as an ecotourism destination, and the successful preservation of a natural mangrove plantation in Bais Bay.

Mangrove greenbelts

Today, she hopes to see mangrove greenbelts or buffer zones restored as they should be, as mandated by law.

“I hope to see the enforcement of greenbelt laws which mandate 100-200 meters from shorelines and along rivers. Republic Act 8550 requires fishponds to have a greenbelt, but there isn’t enough enforement. For policy makers, walang pesos and centavos. If you give those figures in black and white, maybe they will be better convinced.”

She adds, practices may be better if locals were made better aware of the function of mangrove ecosystems, not just as spawning grounds for fish and other aquatic life but as coastal protection.

Her advocacy for mangrove, she recalls, began as child’s play.

“I used to climb trees,” she recalls. “We’d eat fruits on trees. When we went into aquaculture, I realized ponds had been replaced by mangrove. I have seen meters of coastlines eroded, communities forced back by waves, because there are no greenbelts to protect them.”

Native tree species

Aside from mangrove, she has also picked up a love for native tree species as her latest advocacy.

She believes in using available native trees, specially the fast growing ones like the Molave, Yakal, Apitong and Dao to replace the exotic trees that line our highways.

Today, there is no stopping Primavera’s dream of having a better environment even in some small way. She recently bought 3 hectares of land in Iloilo City with her retirement pay for a mini-forest of native tree species.

GMA News

MANILA, Philippines — A Filipino scientist currently studying in the United States has found a new source of coherent light, like lasers, which only potentially needs lower power to operate, the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) said on Wednesday.

In a press statement, the DOST’s Science Education Institute (DOST-SEI) said Ryan Balili, together with his adviser David Snoke of University of Pittsburgh, were able to demonstrate that the transition of particles into waves could be done at higher temperature which would require lesser power to generate.

The phenomenon is called Bose-Einstein Condensation (BEC), named after Indian physicist Satyendranath Bose who worked on the statistics of monoatomic ideal gases and Albert Einstein who speculated this macroscopic coherent state.

“Einstein proposed that at very low temperatures a certain type of identical particles, now called bosons, would’collapse,’ or condense, into a single quantum mechanical wave.

“However, in Balili’s work, he was able to demonstrate the same phenomenon at higher temperatures using polaritons, an energy particle which exists only in a medium that can be polarized by an electromagnetic wave,” the statement explained.

It quoted Balili as saying that the main challenge was making the polariton transition into a BEC even if polaritons exist only for very short times, approximately a few picoseconds.

Nevertheless, Balili and his adviser were able to trap polaritons which turned into a single, spatially compact condensate of gas analogous to atomic BEC.

“One way to think of a polariton BEC is that it is a state of matter that has some of the properties of a laser and some of the properties of a superconductor,” the DOST-SEI statement said.

Balili and his group at the University of Pittsburgh said that what they were able to show is that the emitted light of the polariton BEC and its electrons are coherent, which is a property of superconductors that allows it to make electric current flow without resistance and wavelike interference of electrical signals.

He said that the most promising applications of the polaritons BEC are in optical devises which takes advantage of laser-like sources at low-power coherent light sources.

“This may be useful for signaling, switching, and amplification in optical communications,” he said.

Balili, a 2002 summa cum laude Bachelor of Science in Physics graduate of the Mindanao State University – Iligan Institute of Technology, is currently taking up his doctorate in Physics at the University of Pittsburgh where he also finished his Master of Science in Physics.

Balili was a scholar of the DOST during his undergraduate years.

Dr. Ester B. Ogena, director of the DOST-SEI, lauded Balili’s work saying his discovery is a manifestation of the caliber of scholars the DOST is getting every year.

“We are the germination box of soon-to-be great names in the science and technology world. Balili is just one of them and every year we get around 3,500 scholars who in the future would propel the Philippines into first world status,” she said in the statement.

Ogena expressed optimism that more DOST-SEI scholars would make a mark in science and technology with the implementation of the Accelerated Science and Technology Human Resource Development Program (ASTHRDP) and the Engineering Research and Development for Technology Program (ERDTP) which provides students to proceed to the MS and PhD studies as a scholar.

“We are beefing up our critical mass of scientists and engineers through the ASTHRDP and ERDTP by providing them with scholarships in our top universities,” she said.

Ogena avowed to continuously entice students to venture into science careers through promotional programs and scholarship grants.

“We shall be at the forefront of science and technology human resources development and create the necessary critical mass of scientists and engineers the Philippines needs,” she said.

Philippine Daily Inquirer

MANILA, Philippines — Mac, the Filipino-made explosives disposal robot, has just succeeded in first mission.

The one-armed, night-seeing robot developed by students from the Mapua Institute of Technology won the top prize in the recently held First World Cup of Computer-Implemented Inventions in Shanghai, China, said Senior Supt. Gilbert Cruz, Makati City police chief.

“We have prepared a hero’s welcome for Mac and the team,” Cruz said over the phone Wednesday.

According to Cruz, Mac beat entries from 84 countries which joined the event.

He said Mac — short for mechanical anti-terrorist concept — and his team of creators from Mapua led by John Judilla–arrived Tuesday night via Philippine Air Lines.

Cruz himself commissioned the development of the robot to help members of the city’s Bomb Disposal Unit handle bomb threats that business establishments in Makati receive every week.

The robot was unveiled in Makati’s business district last week.

Philippine Daily Inquirer

ILOILO CITY, Philippines—“It’s not for me. It’s for the mangroves.”

As always, Jurgenne Primavera thought about her advocacy first before her achievements.

The retired Iloilo-based scientist has been featured by Time magazine in its Oct. 6 special issue on “Heroes of the Environment.” She was among 30 activists, scientists, celebrities, innovators and financiers all over the world who were cited for their contribution to environmental protection.

What they have in common is the passion and resourcefulness to confront environmental threats, Time said.

“They cannot solve climate change alone or save endangered species single-handedly. But by their example, by their willingness to dedicate themselves to what too many still dismiss as a hopeless case, these heroes of the environment provide light in the darkness.”

Primavera, 61, was lauded for her “groundbreaking studies” on the life cycle of tiger prawns in the country which “helped galvanize an aquaculture revolution.”

The magazine cited her campaign for sustainable fish-farming in order to protect the mangrove forests that act as a fish nursery and a crucial buffer zone between land and sea which help block floods and tsunamis.

Recognition

Primavera, who has already received various awards, honors and citations from the academe and scientific community, including an honorary doctorate from the Stockholm University in 2004, said she was happy to be among Time’s choices because this would bring her campaign to a wider audience.

“It’s not I and my peers who will ultimately save the environment. It’s the laymen, the common folk, who will,” she said.

She also hopes that the fame will inspire young people to take up marine biology and focus on mangroves. She stressed the importance of educating children about environmental issues and preservation efforts.

“Start with the children because the values they learn will stay with them for a lifetime, the same way my experiences shaped my beliefs,” she said.

She remembered growing up surrounded by native trees in her hometown in Buenavista, Agusan del Norte. She would spend hours with her siblings climbing mango, avocado and other tropical trees in their backyard.

But she also recalled the yearly floods caused by rampant logging that denuded forests in her province and often made roads impassable.

And on the day she took a scholarship examination of the National Science Development Board in 1961, floodwaters damaged or destroyed many bridges in Agusan del Norte, forcing her and her father to cross rivers on coconut trunks or bamboo poles to get to the testing center.

Her fondness for nature and experiences helped develop her interest on sciences and the environment. She eventually took zoology at the University of the Philippines in Diliman under an NSDB scholarship and graduated cum laude in 1966.

Primavera said her college life was mostly field trips for her course. “I was surprised that I couldn’t find a photo of me in a party. They were all taken in the field,” she said, laughing.

After graduating, she decided to go back to Mindanao and teach biology at the Mindanao State University in Marawi City until 1975. She enjoyed her work and going back to her roots and a pristine environment, and bringing her students to field trips.

“Teaching was a high point in my life,” Primavera said.

She developed her awareness of the environmental impact of development projects, especially those in Lake Lanao.

Passion

Her passion was also greatly reinforced by her participation in the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm in 1972.

But the intensifying armed conflict between government troops and Moro rebels in the 1970s prompted her and several other scientists in Mindanao to relocate to Iloilo and join the Southeast Asian Fisheries and Development Center (Seafdec).

She spent her early years in the center back in its field station in Leganes town, spending hours on fishponds to work on brood stocks and study mangroves.

A few years later, she obtained a master’s degree in zoology at the Indiana University.

In 1990, she was granted a scholarship for her doctorate studies by the Philippine Council for Aquatic and Marine Research and Development. Her thesis at UP Diliman focused on the impact of aquaculture on mangroves which also shaped her lifetime commitment to the preservation of mangroves.

While working on her thesis, she spent two years researching on Guimaras Island, which has one the richest varieties of mangrove species in the country.

After her studies, Primavera returned to research work at Seafdec, focusing on environment aquaculture.

She spoke out on threats of the booming shrimp and prawn industry on mangroves, and pointed at the destruction of mangrove areas or their conversion to fishponds.

She also expressed concern over the adverse impact of fishponds on municipal fishing, the means of livelihood of the majority of fishermen.

At a time when aquaculture was booming, Primavera rang warning bells on the perils of unregulated shrimp farming.

She has pushed for the maintenance of a health balance between areas developed for aquaculture and those preserved for mangroves. For every unit area developed for ponds, there should be at least four unit areas for mangroves (1:4) to help protect the environment.

She admits being ostracized in aquaculture circles for her advocacy but she was later vindicated by the impact of the boom-and-bust nature of the shrimp industry that brought long-term damage to the environment.

Her work on mangroves was given a significant boost in 2004 with the publication of the “Handbook of Mangroves in the Philippines-Panay,” which she coauthored with other scientists and mangrove specialists. The manual was released to help students, nongovernment organizations and environmentalists better appreciate the country’s mangrove resources.

“We wanted people to look at mangroves through our eyes,” Primavera said.

Active in retirement

Now a grandmother of two, she remains one of the most active advocates of the protection of mangroves and the conservation of natural resources.

She cited the alarming state of mangroves, with only a fifth remaining from the 500,000 hectares at the turn of the 20th century. On the other hand, brackish water ponds have increased almost fourfold, from 61,000 ha in 1940 to 230,000 ha.

In between giving lectures and speeches, attending conferences here and abroad, and joining causes, Primavera tends to a nursery of native trees she has started to developed.

But she said bringing environmental issues to the common folk can be challenging. “People would always say at first that the issues we advocate are ‘indi makaon’ (not edible) and that economic and immediate needs should be prioritized.”

People would, however, easily make the connections between the environment and its impact on their lives when they attend workshops.

“The real challenge lies in changing the mind-set of policymakers and politicians,” Primavera said.

With the recent destruction brought by natural calamities, discussing the importance of taking care of the environment has become easier, she said. But she fears that the increase in awareness may not keep pace with the escalation of degradation.

“We need a few well-placed fearless fighters for our environment,” Primavera said.

Philippine Daily Inquirer

MANILA, Philippnes — While the Philippines is hoping to win a medal at the Beijing Olympics, one Filipino already took home his but for a different competition.

Luis Benesa won a silver medal in the Microsoft Xbox 360 game “Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock” at the World Cyber Games Asian Championships held in Singapore August 8-10.

Benesa beat China, Vietnam and Korea to reach the semi-finals. He was beaten by New Zealand for the top spot.

The 18-year old Ateneo De Manila University student is the first Filipino player to win a silver medal in an international competition of WCG, and the second overall to win a medal. The first medal the Philippines garnered was a bronze by the five-man team “Flow” playing Warcraft III: Defense of the Ancients (DotA ) in last year’s WCG Asian Championships.

This is also the first time Benesa competed in an international gaming competition. He was second place in the WCG Philippines competition after Rafael Formoso, who will compete in the WCG Finals in Germany in November.

The rest of the Filipino contingent to this year’s WCG Asian Championships did not make it to the final rounds. The contingent is composed of players for Virtua Fighter 5, FIFA 08 and DotA.

Mike Vinluan, general manager for WCG Philippines organizer eSports, said the group is proud yet surprised that a young player for a new game that they introduced would take home a silver medal.

“This is a step closer to a gold medal,” he said. “Hopefully, we will win one either in this year’s WCG Finals or next year.”