BRIEF HISTORY OF

SCIENCE AND
TECHNOLOGY
IN THE PHILIPPINES

By: Kimberly Godinez

STONE AGE

 Around 50,000 years ago the modern men (homo

sapiens) first came over-land across narrow channels.
 They lived in Palawan and Batangas.
 It took 10,000 years before they have discovered how to
made simple tools or weapons.
 They also formed settlements in the major Philippine
islands.
 By about 3,000 B.C., they were producing adzes
ornaments of seashells and pottery of various designs. It
became well developed and flourished for about 2,000
years and it came into competition with 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.
 William Henry Scott in Prehispanic 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 manufact
ure of pottery, did not survive the competition with imported
cast iron from Sarawak and much later, from China.
 By the first century A.D., Filipinos were weaving cotton, smelting iro
n, making pottery
and glass ornaments and were also engaged in agriculture. Lowlan
d rice was cultivated in diked fields, and in the interior
mountain regions as in the Cordillera, in terraced fields which
utilized spring water.

 Filipinos had also learned to build boats for the coastal trade.
 By the 10th century
A.D., this had become a highly developed technology. In fact, the early
Spanish chroniclers took note of the refined plank-
built warship called caracoa. These boats were well suited for inter-
island trade raids.

 By the 10th century A.D., the inhabitants of Butuan were trading with
Champa (Vietnam); those of Ma-i (Mindoro) with China.
PRE-SPANISH PERIOD

 Even before the colonization by the Spaniards in the Philippine islands,

the natives of the archipelago already had practices linked to science
and technology. Filipinos were already aware of the medicinal and
therapeutic properties of plants and the methods of extracting
medicine from herbs. They already had an alphabet, number system, a
weighing and measuring system and a calendar. Filipinos were already
engaged in farming, shipbuilding, mining and weaving. The Banaue
Rice Terraces are among the sophisticated products of engineering by
pre-Spanish era Filipinos.[2]
SPANISH COLONIAL PERIOD
 The Spanish introduced formal education and founded scientific institution.
 Parish schools were established where religion, reading, writing, arithmetic and music was
taught.
 Later the Spanish established colleges and universities in the archipelago including
the University of Santo Tomas.
 Biology is given focus. Contributors to science in the archipelago during the 19th century
were botanists, Fr. Ignacio Mercado., Dr. Trinidad Pardo de Tavera and Dr. Leon Ma
Guerrero, chemist Anaclento del Rosario, and medicine scholars Dr. Manuel Guerrero, Dr,
Jose Montes and Dr. Elrodario Mercado.
SPANISH COLONIAL PERIOD

 TheSpanish also contributed to the field of engineering

in the islands by constructing government buildings,
churches, roads, bridges and forts.
 Tradewas given more focus by the Spaniard colonial
authorities due to the prospects of big profits.