PUP unveils mural hailing Filipino ‘science revolutionaries’

by Kevin Alabaso, ABS-CBN News | MANILA – The Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP) unveiled on Monday a gigantic campus mural, showing Filipino scientists Leonard Co, Maria Y. Orosa, and Eduardo Quisumbing for their contributions in the country’s scientific reputation.

The mural, titled “Mga Rebolusyonaryo,” gave the three figures with their own descriptive, naming Co as “Bayani Ko,” Orosa as “Tagapagligtas,” and Quisumbing as “Muhon ng Bayan.”

Co was a globally renowned botanist whose work was so influential, a flower discovered in 2008 in the Philippines was named after him, the Rafflesia leonardii.

He was killed  in 2010 after the military opened fire on Co and his colleagues while they were conducting biological research in Leyte for the Energy Development Corporation.

Orosa was a pioneer food scientist who invented banana ketchup, the palayok oven, and the soybean powder Soyalac. She was also a guerilla officer during the Japanese Occupation.

Quisumbing is the author of over 129 scientific papers, including the epic “Medicinal Plants in the Philippines.”

The orchid Saccolabium quisumbingii was named after him. When he was the director of the National Musem, Quisumbing rebuilt the country’s herbarium after it was destroyed during World War II.

 

“We stand on the shoulders of giants in the scientific community. Scientists who lead in their fields are heroes as much as those who resisted foreign occupation and domestic oppression. It’s time we consider Filipinos who have helped make life flourish as revolutionaries, too,” said Constantino Foundation president Renato Redentor Constantino, who was joined by his mother, Lourdes “Dudi” Constantino, writer, activist, and wife of RC Constantino, previous head of the foundation who passed away April this year.

The public mural was commissioned by the Constantino Foundation, a non-profit organization backing PUP’s Ylang-Ylang Prize with a cash award for nominated students, employess,  and faculty of PUP judged to have enhanced the school’s reputation through scholarly or literary work and recognition, or exemplary public service.

The foundation is also providing the same for the Bagras Prize, which aims to recognize “those who advance the rights of the elderly and persons with disability, and those who promote tolerance.”

The Bagras Prize was named after the Eucalyptus deglupta, commonly known as the Rainbow Eucalypt, is a native tree and the only eucalyptus species found above the equator.

“We hope the Bagras tree is embraced by the queer community in PUP as its own, because queers are as native to the country as the Rainbow Eucalypt,” Constantino said.

The unveiling of the mural was led by PUP President Manuel Muhi and was attended by Co’s widow and daughter, along with members of the Philippine Native Plants Conservation Society, a group Co founded.