Filipino inventors seek market niche

MANILA, Philippines - The Filipino inventors’ showroom in a middle-class Quezon City district appears low-key and indistinguishable from adjacent commercial establishments. Nonetheless, it puts on public display many useful local inventions in a virtual show of Filipino ingenuity and entrepreneurship.

The showroom houses many invention products to cover a wide range of human activity, which includes fuel and energy conservation, environmental protection, water purification, alternative medicine, personal care, and recreation.

It showcases the Filipino genius as it contains inventions on police patrol weaponry, car care, home protection, agriculture, food and health supplement, and many others that cannot be found elsewhere.

Popoy Pagayon, head of the Filipino Investors’ Society (FIS), the country’s premier organization of inventors, said the showroom is the offshoot of the Filipino inventors’ decision to demonstrate their sense of creativity, ingenuity, and expediency to meet the country’s needs and challenges.

It seeks to answer the lack of government support and official indifference to the plight of many inventors, who have been frustrated by their inability to find a niche in the local market and obtain commercial success for their inventions.

“The common notion that Filipinos merely imitate but hardly invent or innovate is untrue,” Pagayon said. “We are equally capable of inventing and innovating like any other race or nationality in the world and compete with them.”

The list of interesting and useful Filipino inventions is quite long to the bewilderment of ordinary Filipinos, who hardly understand the local inventors’ capability to come out with useful inventions, he said.

“We are essentially a creative and resilient people,” Pagayon said with an air of conviction.

Pagayon, an inventor, who has mass-produced the multipurpose Probaton truncheon for Filipino police personnel and barangay tanods, expressed regret over what he claimed the lack of state support and even indifference to Filipino inventors.

“While inventors in other countries are held in awe and respect by their governments to obtain state support and patronage, Filipino inventors have to live with the frustration for the lack of support,” Pagayon said. “They hardly enjoy state subsidy, tax or credit incentives, and patronage for their inventions.”

But Pagayon refused to live with the indifference and frustration, opting to find ways to alleviate the plight of many inventors. His answer: entrepreneurship.

Pagayon recently led the creation of the Filipino Inventors’ Society Producer Cooperative (FISPC), a business enterprise that seeks to market the Filipino invention products.

As the virtual business arm of the FIS, the FISPC operates the showroom as the veritable one-stop shop of those inventions and market them to interested parties, Pagayon said.      

Pagayon said the investor’s showroom showcases the hottest Filipino ingenuity, indigenous technologies and intellectual property products proudly epitomized by its banner slogan: “Galing ng Pinoy, Handog sa Mundo, Ipagmalaki!”

Among the Filipino invention products at the FISPC showroom at the corner of West Avenue and Quezon Avenue include the solar-powered postharvest facilities and converters for Filipino farmers, the multipurpose Anos firetrucks for narrow streets in major cities, water-fueled flashlights, and green oil products that reduce gasoline consumption by half and carbon emission by 80 percent.

One of the great innovation being displayed in the showroom is the Green Oil and Fuel Enhancer, a superior oil additive that enhances the motor oil and serves as a metal protector which significantly increases engine efficiency and performance to an unprecedented level.

Known as IC Green, it acts as sealant for gas leaks, thus increasing the compression ratio of your car engine. It has a unique static additive compound that allows full lubrication even at cold cranking.

IC green inventor Dennis Alvarez said the superior benefits of his invention are it saves on fuel up to 45 percent, reduces carbon emission by 80 percent, and reduces engine noise by 50 percent.

You can also avail yourself in the inventor’s showroom of the first and only real organic cleaning solution, called Plantex. Plantex Biozyme, a revolutionary cleansing solution, reduces the volume of biodegradable waste rapidly in just seven to 15 days and converts it into soil enhancer or fertilizer. It also contains nitrogen-fixing bacteria that make soil more fertile.

Another famous invention is the SeedGrowth, a re-invented fertilizer that does not compete with nature. It is an aggressive but long gentle, long-term and permanent highly productive agricultural and ecological solution.Inventor Glenn Castillo said SeedGrowth is purely natural.

Other products include Filipino-invented games like MindPulse and Game 21, various herbal and food supplements, massage pillows, and various health products.