MANILA: The Philippine Government is expected to enact the ‘Balik Scientist Act’ next month, which would provide more incentives to returning Filipino experts, scientists, inventors, and engineers.
The Balik Scientist Act seeks to institutionalise the Balik Scientist Program (BSP) of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST), which encourages Filipino scientists, technologists, and experts to return to the country and share their expertise in order to promote scientific, agro-industrial, and economic development and address development gaps in the Philippines. The BSP also aims to support and strengthen the scientific and technological human resources in the Philippines.
According to the bill the Balik-Scientist Program will prioritise experts in the fields of space, technology, artificial intelligence, biomedical engineering, energy agriculture and food technology—biotechnology, information and communications technology, pharmaceutical, disaster mitigation and management, environment and natural resources, electronics, genomics, health, manufacturing, nanotechnology, cyber security and semiconductors.
A Balik Scientist is a science and technology expert who is a Filipino citizen or a foreigner of Filipino descent, residing abroad and contracted by the Government to return and work in the Philippines along his/her field of expertise.
The Act, also known as Senate Bill 1533, was approved in the third and final reading at the Senate and House of Representatives during the Bicameral Conference on 06 March 2018 at Senate of the Philippines in Pasay City.
Under this bill, the incentives available to a scientist returning to Philippines include: tax and duty exemptions to importation of professional equipment and materials, free medical and accident insurance covering the award period, reimbursement of expenses for baggage related to scientific projects, and exemption from “renouncing their oath of allegiance to the country where they took the oath.”
