DAVAO CENTRAL COLLEGE, INC.

Juan dela Cruz Street, Toril, Davao City

Landline No. (082) 291 1882
Accredited by ACSCU-ACI

Week 4 SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND SOCIETY

Unit 1: Science, Technology and Nation-Building

Topic: Brief Historical Background of Science and technology in
the Philippines

Learning Outcomes:
1. Discuss the role of science and technology in the
Philippine nation-building;
2. Make a comparative analysis on each period and its
significant contribution to the field of science and
technology.

Concept Digest (Discussion)

STONE AGE

Around 50,000 years These modern men lived

ago the modern men in Palawan and
(homo sapiens) first Batangas.
came over-land across
narrow channels.

They also formed It took 10,000

settlements in years before they
the major have discovered
Philippine how to made simple
islands. tools or weapons.

By about 3,000 It became well

B.C., they were developed and
producing adzes flourished for
ornaments of about 2,000 years
seashells and and it came into
pottery of various competition with
designs. imported Chinese
porcelain.

IRON AGE
The early Filipinos learned to make metal tools
and implements—copper, gold, bronze and later
iron. Considered to have lasted from the second
or third century B.C. to the tenth century A.D.

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 DAVAO CENTRAL COLLEGE, INC.
Juan dela Cruz Street, Toril, Davao City
Landline No. (082) 291 1882
Accredited by ACSCU-ACI

William Henry Scott in Pre hispanic Source Materials

for the Study of Philippine History (Rev. ed.;
Quezon City: New Day Publishers, 1984), points out
questionable documents which have been the basis for
information about this period and which were
popularized in Philippines History textbooks, that
Filipinos during this period engaged in the actual
extraction of iron from ore, smelting and refining.
But it appears that the iron industry, like the
manufacture of pottery, did not survive the
competition with imported cast iron from Sarawak and
much later, from China.

They learn to weave cotton, make

glass ornaments, and cultivate
lowland rice and dike fields of
terraced fields utilizing spring
water in mountain regions.

They also learned to build boats for

trading purposes. Spanish chronicles
noted refined plank-built warships
called caracoa suited for interisland
trade raids.

10TH CENTURY A.D.

Filipinos from the Butuan were trading with
Champa (Vietnam) and those from Ma-I
(Mindoro) with China as noted in Chinese
records containing several references to
the Philippines. These archaeological
findings indicated that regular trade
relations between the Philippines, China
and Vietnam had been well established from
the 10th century to the 15th century A.D.

TRADING

The People of Ma-I and San-Hsu (Palawan) traded bee

wax, cotton, pearls, coconut heart mats, tortoise
shell and medicinal betel nuts, panie cloth for
porcelain, leads fishnets sinker, colored glass
beads, iron pots, iron needles and tin.

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 DAVAO CENTRAL COLLEGE, INC.
Juan dela Cruz Street, Toril, Davao City
Landline No. (082) 291 1882
Accredited by ACSCU-ACI

PRE-SPANISH PERIOD
Filipinos were already engaged
in activities and practices
related to science forming
primitive or first wave
technology. They were curative
values of some plant on how to
extract medicine from herbs.
They had an alphabet, a system
of writing, a method of
counting and weights and
measure. They had no calendar
but counted the years by the
period of the moon and from
one harvest to another.
SPANISH COLONIAL PERIOD
 16th Century: (1) Development of schools

Colegio de San Colegio de Colegio De Colegio De

Ildefonso-Cebu- San Ignacio- Nuestra Senora San Jose-
1595 del Rosario-
Manila-1595 Manila-1601
Manila-1597

(2) Development of Hospitals

San Juan Lazaro Hospital the oldest

in the Far East was founded in 1578.

 17th and 18th Century

Successive shipwrecks of and attacks of

pirates on the galleons led to declining
profits from the trade that led to economic
depression in Manila during the later part of
the 17th century.

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 DAVAO CENTRAL COLLEGE, INC.
Juan dela Cruz Street, Toril, Davao City
Landline No. (082) 291 1882
Accredited by ACSCU-ACI

The Real Sociedad

Economica de los
Amigos Del Pais de
Filipinas founded by
Governador Jose Basco
y Vargas in 1780
encouraged research in
agriculture and
industry. The society
promoted cultivation
of indigo, cotton,
cinnamon, and silk
industry. In 1789
Manila was opened to
Asian shipping,
inaugurating an era of
increase in export of
rice, hemp, tobacco,
sugar, and indigo, and
imports of
manufacturing goods.
The 19th Century
In 1863 the colonial
authorities issued a
royal degree to reform
the existing
educational system. In
1871 the school of
medicine and pharmacy
were opened to UST,
after 15 years it had
granted the degree of
Licenciado en Medicina
to 62 graduates.

The licentiate degree equivalent to

a Master degree was granted
Bachelor’s degree in pharmacy to its
1st six graduates who included Leon
Ma. Guerrero considered was the
father of Philippine Pharmacy due to
his works on Medicinal Plants of the
Philippines.
There were no school for engineering
but they offered nautical four-year
course for pilot of merchant marine
that includes the subject:
Arithmetic, Algebra, Geometry,
Trigonometry, Physics, Hydrography,
Meteorology, Navigation, and
Pilotage.

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 DAVAO CENTRAL COLLEGE, INC.
Juan dela Cruz Street, Toril, Davao City
Landline No. (082) 291 1882
Accredited by ACSCU-ACI

Higher education was generally viewed with suspicion as

encouraging rebellion among native Filipinos and thus only few
daring students were able to undertake higher studies.

The expanded world trade and commerce in the later part of the
19th century led to the rapid development of Manila as
cosmopolitan center. Modern amenities such as steam tramways,
waterworks, newspaper, electric lights, banking system were
introduce in 19th century.

Jesuits promoted meteorological studies founding Manila

observatory at the Ateneo Municipal de Manila in 1865.

AMERICAN COLONIAL PERIOD

 Americans established he public education system.

 Improved he engineering works and he health conditions of
the people.
 Americans established a modern research university
(University of the Philippines)
 the mineral resources of the country were also explored and
exploited.
 Transportation and communication systems were improved.
 Science education focuses on nature studies and science and
sanitation until I became a subject formally known as
“science”.
 He teaching of science in higher education has greatly
improved and modernized.
 Researchers were done to control malaria, cholera, and
tuberculosis and other tropical disease.

References:

Serafica, J.P.J., et al. (2018). Science, technology, and Society. Quezon Ciy: Rex
Printing Company, Inc.

Jayoma, J. (2018). Brief history of science and technology of the Philippines. Retrieved
on September 24, 2020 from https://www.slideshare.net/jetherjorim/brief-history-of-
science-and-technology-of-the-philippines.

Despi, L. (2014). Brief history of science, and technology. Retrieved on September 24,
2020 from https://www.slideshare.net/leizeldespi/brief-history-of-science-and-
technology.
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