Investing in R&D

A senior citizen I know has been taking two tablespoons of virgin coconut oil before breakfast every day for many years now. She tells people it gives her strength and keeps her healthy.

It must be working. She looks 10 years younger than her age and she’s healthy and looking good enough to still be flirty.

Now it turns out that those are not the only benefits that may be derived from virgin coconut oil. The Department of Science and Technology (DOST) itself has announced that it is running tests, together with foreign partners, on the efficacy of VCO against the plague of the 21st century, the coronavirus disease 2019.

That’s the good news. Also good for VCO producers: because of the frequent touting by government officials of the potential anti-COVID properties of VCO, the product is flying off the shelves, both in supermarkets and drug stores.

The bad news is that the DOST has used up nearly its entire budget for health-related research and development; the miniscule funds will be good only until the end of the month.

This is according to DOST Secretary Fortunato de la Peña, who told “The Chiefs” on Cignal TV’s One News channel last Wednesday that only 0.15 percent of the country’s gross domestic product is allocated for R&D.

The global average is 1 percent of GDP, De la Peña said. In Israel, which has one of the world’s best innovation ecosystems, the allocation for civilian R&D as of 2018 was a hefty 4.9 percent of GDP.

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Despite limited resources, our scientists are forging ahead with R&D. To ward off COVID and for quicker recovery of confirmed cases, scientists are eyeing a daily intake of three tablespoons of VCO – one after each meal – for 28 days.

For those who think this is nothing but herbolario mumbo-jumbo, De la Peña says samples of VCO lauric acid, which has anti-viral properties, have been sent abroad for in-vitro testing for efficacy in reducing levels of the COVID-causing SARS-coronavirus-2. Lauric acid accounts for 50 percent of VCO fatty acids.

VCO is currently being tested on 90 suspected or probable COVID cases at the Sta. Rosa Community Hospital in Laguna. The DOST is awaiting ethics board approval for testing on 100 moderate to severe COVID patients at the Philippine General Hospital.

Why VCO? It says a lot about our R&D capability that VCO was in fact tested two decades ago at the San Lazaro Hospital by Dr. Conrado Dayrit on HIV patients, with promising results. While the sample was small, De la Peña says that VCO tests in Argentina and a South Asian country produced similar encouraging results.

Aside from research on VCO, the DOST is also pursuing more studies on the use of the common weed tawa-tawa against dengue as well as lagundi for respiratory afflictions.

They might also want to include hagonoy (chromolaena odorata) – a wild bushy herb called Devil’s Weed or Siam Weed in other countries. A family driver I know has been taking a tablespoon of juice extracted from the arrow-shaped hagonoy leaves daily since the start of the COVID crisis in the Philippines. He did the same thing during the SARS contagion.

He says people in his Visayan hometown have been using hagonoy as traditional treatment for fever, cough, flu and general malaise, as antiseptic, and for quick healing of boils and wounds.

Hagonoy may have to wait, however, as De la Peña says they are being deluged these days with suggestions on materials including garlic that may be tested for anti-viral properties. And the DOST is fast running out of funds, so it needs to prioritize its R&D.

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Even the challenges hurled by President Duterte will have to be met mostly by the private sector, although the DOST could provide some support: to produce a local respirator, and the tougher one – to develop a vaccine versus COVID-19.

At least two private firms are working on the respirators, De la Peña told us. Their problem is that there are certain parts that need to be imported, and there’s currently a high demand for these, since so many countries are also in need of respirators for COVID patients.

A local ventilator for babies is available, and scientists are working on converting it for adult use against COVID.

Unable to join the race for a vaccine, the Philippines is instead participating in clinical trials with bilateral partners for potential vaccines or cures. Twenty-two Philippine hospitals are participating in the tests using two drugs against malaria, two for HIV, a drug cocktail of 2 HIV drugs plus autoimmune interferon, and antiviral drug Remdesivir.

On the day of our interview, De la Peña said the DOST was expecting the arrival of the Remdesivir and interferon from abroad.

The private sector will have to take up the challenge for the development of a COVID vaccine; the government has no vaccine institute. But De la Peña says the DOST is planning to revive its pharmaceutical division, which was shut down “because of evolution and rationalization.”

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The country is not lacking in scientific talent and innovation. Our scientists have won awards for lagundi research and for developing a dengue diagnostic kit. The same group developed the local “gold standard” polymerase chain reaction COVID test kit that is now being used in Marikina, although it took the Food and Drug Administration until April 3 to give the test kit the green light.

A leptospirosis diagnostic kit was being prepared for mass production before COVID came along and became the priority. Local startups developed COVID specimen collection booths that are now in use.

One upside of this terrible pandemic could be a long overdue appreciation in our country of the importance of science and innovation. Currently, R&D gets only a miniscule 0.4 percent of the annual national budget. Even better than dangling a reward for a COVID vaccine and respirator would be a significant increase in the budget for R&D.

Interest in math and science as career paths is going up. De la Peña says applications for DOST scholarships have surged from 30,000 four years ago to 112,000 in 2019, when the department accepted 9,000 scholars. There are also more students taking up post-graduate studies in mathematics and the sciences.

De la Peña says about 60 percent of his Class of 1969 batchmates at the University of the Philippines-Diliman College of Engineering left the country for jobs overseas. He decided to remain here.

“We try our best. I keep on hoping. I have been optimistic all my life here,” De la Peña told us. “I have always been optimistic that we will move forward.”