Filipinos have been hearing the word “resilience” for a long time, to the point that something that is supposed to be inspirational has come to represent institutional excuses for not providing regular citizens with proper infrastructure for basic survival. Department of Science and Technology (DOST) Secretary Renato Solidum wants to change this.

Before he was DOST Secretary, Solidum was an Undersecretary for Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation at DOST. He was also Officer-in-Charge of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (PHIVOLCS), where his research with the United States Geological Service was instrumental in the evacuation alert before the Mt. Pinatubo eruption. As a scientist and academic, Solidum has on-the-ground experience on what it takes to rise after a setback, and it isn’t thoughts and prayers, but through having the skills and resources needed to weather the uncertain.

“Resilience should be viewed not merely as surviving, but really thriving… Our mindset should be changed, such that our approach… is not focused only on personal survival, but on infusing other core aspects of achieving resilience,” Solidum said. “Everyone wants to live longer and enjoy a good quality of life, right?”

First is the promotion of human well-being by addressing basic needs such as health, literacy, livelihood, and environment. “We need energy and mobility innovations and quality science and technology education.”

Next, “We need to foster wealth creation, but… this economic development… is greatly affected by large-scale disasters,” Solidum said. “In tandem with fostering wealth creation, we need to strengthen what I call wealth protection… we can work while making sure that the risk that we face is minimized.”

Sustainability is important. “Managing and protecting the environment is critical to our economic development. To do that, we need to promote a circular economy. We need to promote the use of renewable sources, focus on things that we can get value from, but also make sure that these resources are available for the next generation,” he said.

“But the other meaning of sustainability for us is simply this: imagine you have achieved a [good] quality life. You live longer. You get enough income. You have a wealthy life. And despite natural hazards… and other threats like global logistics supply… these are all attained. That means that… the safe life that we have achieved must endure across generations and administrations.”

Given these, the DOST has been developing and implementing strategic programs that focus on disaster and climate resilience. These can be seen during the annual Handa Pilipinas exhibit, an “exhibition of technologies that are available, combined with lectures and launching of programs and agreements to ensure that we look at the stakeholders that we need to partner with.”

Finding the right stakeholder partners is important. “...we need to pursue the people, the partners, the organizations that we think we can work with and create impact on enterprises, on people's lives, on communities. If we are proactive and we pursue the right partners, then we can transform their lives… for the better.”

In agriculture, for example, DOST identified key commodities that directly affect inflation such as, “rice, yellow corn, sugar, dairy, poultry, fish, and then electricity and energy” and develop and/or support technologies aimed at increasing production on different levels, from fertilizers and pest management to AI and robotics to storage and value addition, usually in terms of “providing seed money for them to procure technology.”

Much of the DOST’s support comes in the form of funding, such as grants aid for research, university-run Technology Business Incubation Hubs, and start-up grant funds. These, Solidum said, are not enough, and steps have been taken to fill in the gaps.

The Innovation Hub (iHub) “will entertain any idea from anyone.” If the idea is feasible, the individual will be introduced to the proper DOST program for guidance, research, funding, or implementation.

For national and global application, “Program PROPEL envisions the acceleration of technology, utilization at the production level, and propel the innovation from the Philippines to other countries.”

Investors are also needed. “Together with CHED, we developed the Philippine Technology Evaluation and Standards for Testing (PHITEST) platform where universities will be testing [these technologies],” Solidum said. “Gather data. Show it to investors so that they can decide… if they want to invest. We want to push ideation to impact.”

Solidum envisions a Philippines where resilience goes beyond basic survival. “Our goal is to be a catalyst for this change and develop partnerships across the various players… Once we show that we can create impact, then more people will be able to believe that through science and technology innovation, they can get income,” he said. “We provide solutions and we also open opportunities. That's really our effort in whatever fields we are into.”