“Master of the

Rice”
Pedro B. Escuro
National Scientist (1994), NAST Academician

Expertise: Agriculture, Genetics and Plant Breeding

Dr. Pedro Escuro has made significant contributions

to rice breeding, as plant breeder, professor,
extension worker, and consultant in agricultural
projects. He provided leadership in the development,
isolation, and release of nine Seed Board rice
varieties: Milpal 4, HBD-2, Azmil 26 and C-22
(upland) and C-18, C4-63, C4-137, C-168 and C-12
(lowland).
 Pedro dreamed of becoming an engineer during
his early years of high school in Naga.
However, he changed his mind after witnessing
the horrors that were unleashed when World War II
broke out and ravaged our lands and people.
Since then, Pedro began to have further respect for what
his own father did all these years and even regarded
agriculture as a profession on the same level of prestige
and importance that the rest of the world regarded
engineering with.
 "The Father of
Nuclear Medicine in
the Philippines"
• Radioisotope Laboratory
• Medical Research Laboratory
• The first Thyroid Clinic at the
Philippine General Hospital
• First Comprehensive Community
Health Program in the country
• Founder of Medical Center Manila
and Emilio Aguinaldo College in
Manila
He developed an interest in nuclear medicine while at
Johns Hopkins, and completed a training course on the
field at Oak Ridge. Two years after his return to the
Philippines in 1958, he was named as the head of the
Department of Medicine of the University of the
Philippines, and concurrently, the head of the
department's Research Laboratories. As head of the
Department of Medicine, Campos established the first
Medical Research Laboratory in the Philippines at the
U.P. College of Medicine. The facility, considered as the
country's premier research laboratory in the 1960s[6],
furthered research in fields such as epidemiology,
physiology and biology
He built the Coconut oil-fueled
power generator to lessen the us
of electricity and to lessen the
damage caused by pollution. He
developed the Biogas System to
lessen air and water pollution too.
“Father of Philippine
Phycology”
Dr. Velasquez pioneered the intensive study
and collection of the Philippine blue-green
algal species. He studied and investigated
algal specimens in Oriental Mindoro,
Eastern Palawan, Sulu, Batangas and
Bataan such as the Euglenophyceae,
Chlorophyceae, and Myxophyceae. He was
able to produce 47 basic and 77 valuable
scientific papers on the subject.
Way back, he was a laboratory assistant in the
Department of Botany, University of the Philippines
until he became Professor in Botany in 1958. He was
selected Emeritus Professor when he stop working in
November 1967.
Among his abundant honors are Distinguished Science
Medal and Diploma of Honor from the Republic of the
Philippines (1956), the John Simon Guggenheim
Memorial Foundation Fellowship (1956-57). He is also
honored in the Men of Science, Division
of Biological Sciences in1969, World's Who's Who in
Sciences in 1970 and the Republic of the Philippines
Cultural Heritage award in 1972.
 “The Father of
Filipino Inventors”
• Benjamin Almeda invented the coconut grater,
which is used to grate coconut meat, to produce
niyog, which is dried coconut meat used to
garnish delicacies or coconut milk, which is used in
many viands like laing.
• He also invented the meat grinder, which is used
to grind meat to produce finely minced meat
which is also used in variety of dishes.
• He also invented the rice grinder, which is a
machine that grinds grains of rice into fine
powder, also used in many Filipino delicacies.
 Benjamin Almeda’s inventions helped
further and better the food industry, by
making the food processing machines
which helped many in the food industry
to have an easier method of processing
food, being fast and easy. Food
processes that before took a long time,
now was made easier and faster.
Group 4