Topic: Ang DIWATA, A True Story (Read 599 times)

congratulations to the success of diwata's flight!

photos are gorgeous!

visit sa japan tapos walang habas na gastos kasi nga hindi nila pinag hirapan yung pera dapat dyan binibitay! joke
kaya walang mga new technologies na iinvent dito sa pinas na sumisikat dahil hindi pinopondohan ng gobyerno puro papogi sana sa term ni digong maraming magsilabasan na scientist  yung mga pro-environment para mabawasan naman ang pollution sa mundo .

True, but let's not forget that it's not only the research and science department that doesn't get enough support from the government - there are the athletes, too.

Basically what I'm trying to say is that the government is filled with people only thinking about personal interests.

This DIWATA issue is just one of the proofs of how disappointing the government can be.

Basta si sir bitwarrior nagpost asahan na naten na magugulat tayo. Dapat kahit pangalan lang nila icredit sa kanila makasarili pala yang DOST parang  Erudite ng Divergent.

Hindi lang sa maibulsa, ang credit ng projec kahit pangalan nila kung maikabit man lang. Siyempre,ang recognition naman sa mga scientist natin.Laking tuwa nila na ma ackowledge ang mga ginawa nila.Kaso sila ang gumawa, pero sa balita ni anino nila di mabanggit dahil estudyante ang category ata nila.So di ma credit o ma mention sila.

Tama bro dapat png mabroadcast muna bago nila suportahan panahon pa ata ni quezon di ako sure pero yung flourecent lamp pinoy inventor non perodahil d nga sinusuportahan ng gobyerno kaya ayun binili ng amerikano yung patent nun.

Ang gobyerno basta may maibubulsa ibubulsa ,kaya hindi umunlad bansa natin para sa mga ngttrabaho na yan satin ng maayos tpos ibubulsa pa.kailangan na talaga natin ng pagbabago.

Sorry namali yung pagkakaintindi ko sa title kala ko story talaga ng diwata, as in fairy. lol. 
Yep grabe nga yan. Mga walang puso yung talaga yung gobyerno eh. pati ba naman yun binulsa nila na para sa mga scientist. hays

mga walang puso, mas matimbang talaga nila bulsa nila kesa sa ikauunlad ng Pilipinas dapat dyan sa mga kumawawa sa kanila sistensyahan ni duterte ng pagkakakulong
may 3 years pa silang magtratrabaho ng libre, nagpapakahirap sila para sa bayan.

Nabasa ko rin yan sir, nakakaawa ang ating mga scientist. Credit lang namana ng hinihingi nila pero pinupulitika pa rin. Buti na lang may matapang na nagsalita at naglabas ng kanilang hinanakit.

Diwata-1 builder hits DOST for lack of compensation

MANILA, Philippines – Trouble seems to be brewing at the Department of Science & Technology (DOST)’s microsatellite project – not with Diwata-1 that has been successfully transported to the International Space Station, but with the group of Filipino engineers now in Japan building Diwata-2.

One of the nine engineers and scientists in Japan’s Tohoku University and Hokkaido University, Juan Paolo Espiritu, came out on social media last Friday to make public the predicament of members of the group over their lack of compensation and acknowledgment for their efforts in building microsatellites for the country.

In his Facebook post, Espiritu, 23, a graduate of electronics and communications engineering from the University of the Philippines’ Diliman campus, bared that they have worked on Diwata-1 and are now working on Diwata-2 without employment contracts that officially designated them as engineers and laying down their compensation for working on microsatellites.

He claimed the DOST was only recognizing them as “students” on government scholarships to earn graduate degrees – MS in Aerospace Engineering in Tohoku University and MS in Mechanical and Space Engineering and Cosmosciences from Hokkaido University – while at the same time joining the microsatellite building program and working on the actual design, fabrication and assembly of the Diwata microsatellites.

Of nine Filipino engineers sent by the DOST to Japan as scholars-microsatellite builders, seven are mainly scholars and are not employed by the DOST as engineers. They are Espiritu, Ariston Gonzalez, Julian Marvick Oliveros, John Leur Labrador; Kaye Kristine Vergel and Benjamin Jonah Magallon.

Two others, Gerwin Guba and Harold Bryan Paler, deployed sometime last year, were engineers of the DOST’s Advanced Science and Technology Institute assigned as senior science research specialists.

Espiritu, Gonzalez, Oliveros, Labrador, Guba and Paler are in Tohoku University; Magallon, Mitchao and Vergel are at Hokkaido University.

“They call us ‘students,’ yet normal students go in at 9 a.m. and leave at 5 p.m. Normal students attend class all the time. Normal students are almost finished on their individual thesis projects. Normal students have personal time on the weekends. Normal students enjoy holidays. But no. We are not just students. We go in at 9 a.m. and leave at 1 a.m. Most of the days, we have no choice but to skip our classes to work on the microsatellite. We have no chance to work on our thesis projects. We go to the lab on Saturdays. We go to the lab on Sundays. We go to the lab on holidays. We go to the lab during Christmas. So no. We are not just students,” Espiritu said.

Espiritu said that a contract they signed with DOST had only stated that they were government scholars who are to pursue space technology-related masteral courses at the two prestigious Japanese universities, but did not officially recognize them as engineers working on the microsatellites.

“All the contract entailed was for us to receive a scholarship to study Aerospace Engineering in exchange for years of return service. Of course to build the satellite, we would have to study the technology behind it, and so we expected that the scholarship was a given part of the project. But according to the contract, that was it. Nothing more followed. According to the contract, we are to build the satellite without pay, with four years of return service. On paper, we were just students. On paper, we weren’t part of the project. On paper, we were not engineers,” Espiritu said.

Espiritu said that before signing this unsatisfactory contract, they had tried to get a revised one with the DOST, citing the silence on their recognition as engineers and also on their compensation as engineers.

“But instead, we were given a promise – a promise that a more suitable contract will be made, stating our clear involvement and responsibilities for the project and, most importantly, our rights as engineers. In their words, ‘take it in good faith, that you will be taken care of.’ As we had high respect and trust for DOST and the leaders of the project, we agreed to sign the papers, thinking that this mission of building the satellite is above any of us,” Espiritu said.

Espiritu said that their shabby treatment was more humiliating when they see DOST officials and officers making regular expensive visits to Japan, apparently with no worries over expenses and salary, and service bonds.

“It just really baffles me, how DOST can afford all these visits, the airfare, the accommodation and the fancy food, but when it comes to the engineers, merely staying in Japan to work on the microsatellite is taken against them, with the 7-year service bond (three more added to the original four). This PHL-MICROSAT project is a billion-peso project, and despite being an engineering project, the engineers aren’t included in the project,” Espiritu said.

Diwata-1 was successfully transported to the International Space Station last March 23 with the successful launch of an Orbital ATK Cygnus spacecraft and its reaching the ISS.

This April, Diwata-1 is set to be deployed into orbit from ISS.

Carlos Primo David, executive director of the DOST’s Philippine Council for Industry, Energy and Emerging Technology, said they will issue an official statement regarding Espiritu’s complaint today.

http://www.philstar.com/headlines/2016/04/04/1569226/diwata-1-builder-hits-dost-lack-compensation