History of STS

• Modern man from Asian mainland first came over land on across narrow channels to live in Batangas and Palawan

  48,000 B.C.
• Settlement in the Philippines

  • Sulu
  • Davao
  • Zamboanga
  • Samar
  • Negros
  • Batangas
  • Laguna
  • Rizal
  • Bulacan
  • Cagayan
• Stone Age


  Filipinos made simple tools and weapons of stone flakes and later developed method of sawing and polishing stones around 40,000 B.C.
• Filipinos were producing adzes ornaments of seashells and pottery


  3,000 B.C.
• Iron Age


  Lasted from the third century B.C. to 11th century A.D.
• Filipinos were engaged in extraction smelting and refining of iron from ores, until the importation of cast iron from Sarawak and later from China
• Trade by Filipinos


  • Filipinos from the Butuan were trading with Champa (Vietnam)
  • Filipinos from Ma-I (Mindoro) with China (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)
• Filipinos in the pre-colonial period


  • They were already engage in activities and practices related to science forming primitive or first wave technology (e.g. making of wine, mining gold)
  • They had curative values of some plant on how to extract medicine from herbs (superstitious beliefs)
  • 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
• Colegio de San Ildefonso-Cebu established

  1595
• Colegio de San Ignacio-Manila established

  1595
• Colegio De Nuestra Senora del Rosario-Manila established


  1597
• Colegio De San Jose-Manila established

  1601
• San Juan Lazaro Hospital, the oldest in the Far East, was founded in 1578
• 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

  17th and 18th Century
• 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
• 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


  1789
• The colonial authorities issued a royal degree to reform the existing educational system

  1863
• 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


  1871
• Subjects offered in the four year nautical course for pilot of merchant marine


  • Arithmetic
  • Algebra
  • Geometry
  • Trigonometry
  • Physics
  • Hydrography
  • Meteorology
  • Navigation
  • Pilotage
• Jesuits promoted meteorological studies founding Manila observatory at the Ateneo Municipal de Manila in 1865
• Science and technology advance rapidly by the government encouragement and support
• Creation of Department of Public Instruction which offers free and compulsory elementary (600 teachers from USA taught in Philippines, Philippine Normal School, Philippine Medical School)
• Promotion of higher education in sciences and government research institution and agencies performing technical function (Liberal Arts, Veterinary medicine, law)
• Trained and qualified Filipino teachers (they were sent abroad for advanced training)
• Men and women must finished in American Colleges (Pensionados)
• Scholarships for advanced studies of a scientific or technical nature
• Produces medical doctors, engineers
• Proliferation of schools as business enterprises and no definite government policies
• Government was responsible in supervising private schools due to substandard private schools (Monroe survey)
• Creation of Bureau of Science as government research establishment and training ground of Filipino Scientist (Vaccines, dse like leprosy, tuberculosis, cholera, dengue fever, malaria and beri-beri and scientific developments)
• Promotion of scientific development for the economic development
• Expansion of public school system to accommodate all schoolchildren
• Curriculum revision (removal of Gr-7, double-single session and reducing time or dropping certain subjects in basic education)
• Reorganization and establishment of government corporation to perform development of natural resources
• The State continues its support to education at all levels
• Proliferation of schools and many of them were ill-equipped and ill-prepared to provide quality education particularly in sciences and engineering (Standards)
• UP system remains the most developed with extensive graduate and undergraduate degree programs in the sciences and engineering (half of the national budget for SUC's)
• Low enrollment rate in agriculture, medical, natural and physical sciences (low compensation of Filipino scientists)
• Engineering and science courses entail longer periods of study and been more expensive to pursue