Before Aisa Mijeno, another Pinoy developed a saltwater lamp

MANILA, Philippines - Aisa Mijeno may have won the support of US President Barack Obama, but a low-key Filipino engineer may have preceded her in developing light fueled by saltwater with the generous backing of a pair of Asian billionaires.

Stevenson Rejuso, 54, said he does not resent the breaks coming the way of Mijeno after her Sustainable Alternative Lighting (SALt) lamp attracted the interest of Obama during the recent Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders’ Summit in Manila.

“I‘m happy for her. At least, it is also a Filipino inventor that is getting credit for a good invention,” Rejuso told The STAR.

“I’m even open to collaborate with her, maybe we can share insights on how to further develop the technology,” Rejuso said.

The Filipino Inventors Society Producer Cooperative (FISPC) said that Rejuso had actually been the first to develop a saltwater powered lamp, with his “Tubig Power” lamp as early as 2008.

Francisco Pagayon, FISPC president, said that the FISPC had brought Rejuso and his Tubig Power lamp to the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) in 2012 for support but were sadly ignored.

While Science Secretary Mario Montejo was impressed and highly encouraging of Rejuso, his order for DOST officials to help Rejuso in developing his invention had not been followed through by the DOST rank and file.

Rejuso said that his experience with the DOST scientists and engineers was a far cry from the support that came from his low-key Singaporean billionaire financier, who had given him unlimited financial support to pursue his various research and development projects on various electrical gadgets and invention ideas since 2005.

“I just text him that I need an amount of money and he will send me the money,” Rejuso said.

The Singaporean billionaire, he said, had introduced him to a Malaysian billionaire who also provides him financial support and even funded the mass production of an early prototype of his Tubig Power lamp.

Rejuso said that he met the Singaporean billionaire in 2005 at an electronics trade fair in Philtrade.

“He got interested in an energy saving gadget I was showing then. He came up to me and invited me to his hotel where he wanted me to give him a presentation,” Rejuso said.

The presentation at the Heritage Hotel, Rejuso said that he poured his heart out, talking about all the simmering ideas in his brain of possible R&D projects that he would love to pursue.

“He told me, you can go to Singapore and I will help you do all that,” Rejuso recalled.

Rejuso, an electrical engineering graduate of Adamson University, said that the billionaire had also introduced him to Singaporean scientists and researchers who collaborated with him in his R&D activities.

Rejuso said that the Singaporean scientists are also very brilliant engineers and are helpful and generous with their ideas on how he can develop things he is working on.

He said that he found this sad, especially when he remembered the DOST scientists and engineers he encountered in 2012.

“That’s another problem with the DOST. When you come to them for help, they will already think you want money. That time, I just wanted them to help me maybe with collaboration of their scientists and engineers,” Rejuso said.

In the 1990s, Rejuso worked for five years in a Guam power plant. After coming home, he worked for several years in some factories in the industrial zones in Laguna.

In early 2000s, he said he made his first invention, a system to help a calamay rice cake factory in Cainta, Rizal to stop spewing out black smoke.

The money he made from this, Rejuso said, allowed him to do other R&D projects, such as the energy saver exhibited at the 2005 Philtrade fair.