Nobel 2007

Every time the world rejoices at the winners of the Nobel Prize for the year, I get a little frustrated because no Filipino has ever won it.

Cory Aquino was close to getting the Peace prize, I was told, but she didn't make it. Not one of our home grown scientists and writers and economists have earned the award either.

To see a Filipino win a Nobel is to bring the Philippines back on the map. But more than that, it will affirm that the Filipino is not merely a spectator, watching other powerful countries play the game in the international arena. A Filipino winning the Nobel is proof that the Filipino is, in fact, actively involved in human affairs, propelling this world to change, and to change for the better.

I'd like to see that happen in my lifetime, inasmuch as I'd like to rejoice over a Filipino grabbing an Olympic gold. But when?



Here are this year's notable Nobel Prize winners:

for Peace: Al Gore and the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, for their work to alert the world to the threat of global warming.

for Physiology and Medicine: the three scientists who discovered the principles for introducing specific gene modifications in mice by the use of embryonic stem cells.

for Physics: the two scientists who discovered Giant Magnetoresistance, the basis for technologies like hard drives.

You can view the rest of the winners at the Nobel Prize website.