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aug 2 2022

     A mere escape from summer boredom hailed two Engineering Thomasians victorious in the recent Manila Bay Cleanup competition, launched by the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) in April.

     Fourth year Electronics Communication Engineering (ECE) students John Beljoe Abao and Ariel Manalaysay had outclassed seven other competing schools with their giant dustpan-like entry, which, according to them is based on simple logic and imagination, and practically out of the boredom during the vacation.

     “Nung summer walang magawa, and opportunity din naman ‘yon,” Abao said, referring to the contest.

     With the theme “Innovative Engineering Solutions to the Manila Bay Garbage Problem,” the contest encouraged student participants to devise creative contraptions that may eventually be improved and produced by the MMDA.

     “It (the prototype) is V-shaped and it has a hole in the middle where a concrete storage is placed,” Abao said.

     With big waves in the bay, floating debris and trash will be swept into the chute and into the tank, “just merely collecting the trash into the bin.”

Competition

     The Thomasian duo took three days of brainstorming, a day to formulate the concept paper, and only a span of two hours to construct the model. But despite the short amount of time, they were “confident” about their prototype.

     “One down, one down,” Abao said when asked what did they feel when they saw other participants’ prototype. According to the duo, the edge of their prototype compared to others’ was the “feasibility to implement because of its simplicity.”

     The prototype brought to the defense is made up of only cardboard, masking tape, and illustration board while other participants’ proposals were more technical and even made use of mathematical computations.

     The real inspiration behind the innovation, according to Abao, is the fulfillment of seeing his idea being implemented to help improve the Manila Bay.

     “Kuha lang ng kuha. When the opportunity comes, grab without hesitation,” Abao and Manalaysay said, advising the Thomasian community to be ready when opportunity knocks.

     According to an article in Inquirer, Department of Public Works and Highway (DPWH) Assistant Secretary Maria Catalina Cabral said that in choosing the winning design they looked for “innovation and engineering.”

     “The concept is doable. We saw there was potential for this to be built and developed. MMDA and DOST will make more studies to develop and make more improvements on this proposal,” Cabral added in the said article.

     The duo received P25,000 cash prize along with Certificate of Recognition.

     Other participating schools included Ateneo de Manila University, University of the Philippines-Diliman, Manuel L. Quezon University and Mapua Institute of Technology.

By Mia Mallari and Romhelyn Benipayo
Photo courtesy of John Beljoe Abao

The University of the Philippines was the only Philippine university that made it in this year’s Times Higher Education world university ranking.

UP earned a spot in the 800+ bracket after getting a score of 13.5 based from the following indicators: teaching, research, citations, international outlook and industry income.

The University of Santo Tomas, Ateneo de Manila University and De La Salle University did not make the cut.

UST last appeared in the list in 2008, when it ranked in the top 500 along with La Salle.

United Kingdom’s University of Oxford topped this year’s list.

In the 2010 Asian rankings, UST shared the 101st spot with Japan’s Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology and Thailand’s Prince of Songkla University. Meanwhile, Ateneo, UP and La Salle ranked 58th, 78th, and 106th, respectively.

Earlier this year, UST and La Salle made it in the 701+ bracket in the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) world university rankings. State-run UP led the Philippine universities after bagging the 374th spot while Ateneo remained in the 501st to 550th bracket.

The Times Higher Education World University Rankings was first published in 2004 in collaboration with QS. In 2010, the annual publication partnered with mass media firm Thomson Reuters.