Fish Mucus and Foot Fungus

By Krip Yuson

Gian Karlo Rosales Dapul, who turned 16 last January, did the country proud two Fridays ago by winning the International Public Speaking Competition conducted in London by the English Speaking Union.

An incoming senior at Philippine Science High School, Gian had emerged as our official representative for the annual contest after topping a field of mostly college students, aged 16 to 19, at the country finals held at UP Diliman as part of a collegiate debating tourney.

The selection process is organized yearly by the fledgling Philippines chapter of the English Speaking Union, which I helped initiate in 2002.

Flashback: On a poetry reading and lecture tour sponsored by the NCCA, Virgilio Almario (who has since been declared a National Artist for Literature), Dr. Beni Santos and I found ourselves in London in the Fall of 2001 after stops in Rome and Brussels. A luncheon hosted by then Ambassador to the Court of St. James Cesar Bautista led to a courtesy call at the English Speaking Union’s headquarters in Dartmouth House.

Ambassador Bautista tasked me to form a chapter in Manila. We started sending a student representative in 2002, and drew good fortune when then 18-year-old Patricia Evangelista of UP won the London competition in 2004. Now, only four years later, we can say that oops, we did it again.

We had a good find in Gian, to begin with. The five-minute speech he delivered at the local finals was easily the most substantive, given his science background, which fit in perfectly with this year’s contest topic, “New Frontiers.” As it turned out, the boy also had good credentials to back up his writing and speaking talents.

The fourth of six children (and youngest son) of Rosanna Rosales and Santi Dapul, Gian graduated as valedictorian from Claret Elementary School, where he was the editor in chief of The Claretian, and a frequent school representative for leadership training and various competitions.

At the PSHS, he has consistently been a dean’s list scholar and an officer of the Student Council since his first year. He is a member of the PSHS debating team and drama club.

Obviously multi-talented, he has also been an active member, since he was in third grade, of the Kilyawan Boys Choir composed of boys from ages nine to 25. Under choirmaster and conductor Mark Anthony Carpio, the world-renowned Philippine Madrigal Singers’ conductor and trainor, the KBC won gold in one category in the China World Choir Olympics in 2006. Come July, Gian travels with the choir to Austria for the 2008 World Choir Olympics. He sings Bass 1.

Gian also plays the classical guitar and writes for the PSHS newspaper, The Science Scholar. His literary skills are evident in his winning speech, which confirms anew that young Filipino speakers in English can be world-class.

In London, Gian Dapul faced off with 57 other students from 34 countries. He made it as one of a dozen finalists before bagging the top prize with his speech titled, curiously enough, “Fish Mucus and Foot Fungus.”

It was originally titled “Cite Your Sources,” but UP professor emeritus and poet Jimmy Abad pointed out that it wouldn’t be as catchy or memorable as any of the images Gian cites in the speech, which stresses the importance of scientific research. Butch Dalisay and I agreed, and helped pare down certain parts that veered dangerously close to proselytizing platitudes.

Gian’s dad Santi enhanced the speech with additional inputs when we suggested more concise arguments that rely heavily on images that the audience could visualize. But it was still Gian who wrote the sixth and final version, which is what he delivered for the preliminary heats as well as the finals in the London contest. And here it is:

Fish Mucus and Foot Fungus
By Gian Karlo Dapul

When I was in 6th grade, I hated mathematics. You would have, too, if you had my teacher. He would drop huge workbooks on our tables and croak, “30 problems, 50 minutes.” A lot of these problems seemed unsolvable, so we complained: “Sir, there are no answers to these!” But then he’d reply, “To every question there is an answer, to every problem there is a solution.”

Although I’m only 16 years old and an incoming 4th year high school student, I know that my country has more problems than any mathematics book. Strangely enough, the answers to some of our problems are fish mucus and foot fungus. These seemingly improbable items are products of what we call scientific research.

Research turns our guesses into real knowledge, serving as the sifting pan of our hypotheses. It challenges what we assume, because, as they say, if you only learn from what you ASS-UME, you make an “ass” out of “u” and “me.”

In the early 1800s, someone warned that the streets of London would be filled with horse manure due to the uncontrolled use of horse-drawn carriages. Of course, that never happened. Combustion engines, products of research and invention, replaced horses, and the manure piled up in Parliament instead.

While on the subject, few people know that the most expensive coffee in the world is taken from the droppings of the Asian Palm Civet found in the Philippines and Indonesia. The small mammal excretes the coffee berries it eats, and forest trackers recycle the fruity feces to create what is known as Kopi Luwak in Indonesia or Kape Alamid in our country. Research has led to a synthetic process that simulates the droppings’ exotic flavor and quality.

So, who’s had coffee with their breakfast? Well, soon nobody will have had coffee and breakfast if the looming global food crisis worsens. Are you all feeling fine? Well, nobody might be fine for long if some new disease creeps up on us.

Health can be enhanced and life can be extended. The nudibranch, a beautiful, soft-bodied creature unfairly called a “sea slug” — a favorite among underwater photographers for its marvelous colors and shapes — has actually been used in tumor research. Samples of fish mucus have also displayed certain antibacterial properties.

And as the Home Shopping Network would say, “Wait! There’s more.”

Certain types of infectious fungi that coat some of your toes form beneficial relationships that support plant growth. The International Rice Research Institute based in the Philippines continues to develop ways to improve rice growth and help alleviate the current food crisis.

New challenges are coming, and they will always confront us. What we need is an army of scientific researchers that will help find the solutions in advance. I want to be part of that army that would cross the new frontiers first.

If only we could make science fairs and contests as popular as the thriving “Idol” franchise — although I’m not sure if Simon Cowell’s sardonic comments will sit well with my peers. But we need the same hard-hitting passion in research and invention.

To conduct research is to be innovative, avant-garde. Researchers are like artists with test tubes and lab gowns instead of paintbrushes and smocks. When I graduate from the Philippine Science High School next year, I want to begin my “masterpiece” and apply for a university degree in biochemistry.

Sometimes I am discouraged by those who say that a researcher from a Third-World nation is like a Jesuit adhering to a vow of poverty, or worse, like a Benedictine monk observing the vow of chastity. It is indeed a challenge, but it’s also another frontier to cross, for me and many young people like me.

We Filipinos are well known for our dedication to service, in foreign homes, hospitals and hotels. (In our hotel, I found three Filipinos working at the front desk.) I want to be one of the pioneers that will make the Philippines known for its excellence in scientific research, as part of the driving force that will expand our horizons towards tomorrow. And I intend to have a lot of fun while doing it.

Going back to my math teacher, I eventually realized that, well, he was right. As he said, “To every question there is an answer, to every problem there is a solution.” We just have to go looking for the right ones. Who knows? Maybe one day we’ll be answering the questions that haven’t been asked yet.

Source: http://www.goodnewspilipinas.com/wp/?p=1964