Worthwhile Filipino invention, mikey?
Sure...
Every year, Filipino inventors come up with something cool. But it seems our inventivenes lies in adaptation/modification of existing technology and concepts. That's often better than coming up with something new but undeveloped and as-yet inapplicable to help humanity.
I'm talking about developing bus and I/O architecture, improving voltage regulators, better fertilizers and pesicides, fully-developed pharmaceuticals from local flora and fauna, ---those are the things that make a huge impact today ---but as the patents are often sold to the large MNC's who can make something of the inventions, we never hear of the Filipino origins.
Here's one:
McDonald's uses carageenan (from
Laurencia seaweed) as a fat substitute in some of its burgers, making them juicier but healthier. The idea was pitched to them by Filipino marine biologists at UP MSI, and made us a bundle in exports until other countries farmed seaweed more efficiently and inexorably ate up our market share. Sayang.
Until our government makes local investment less than a gargantuan barricade of taxes, fees, and endless paper-chasing, all the good ideas will be sold to countries that treat entrepreneurs with respect and care ---and our country will be left with fewer and fewer inventors and investors. We can already see that government, rather than expanding the tax base, is relying on squeezing an obscene amount of redundant taxes from what little, shrinking tax base remains.
Hayayay.
Papa Allegra
As for balisong ---the pied-du-roy was designed with a tongs/pliers-style single pivot and the two familiar handles. It was demonstrably popular with French and Spanish sailors --France and Spain were for a long time either united under the Bourbon House of kings or else briefly under common Napoleonic rule. (There is supposedly an old print advertisement selling the folding knives here for 6 pesos apiece, imported from Coruna, in the late 1800's). In contrast, the earliest balisong ever recorded (or even claimed) as made here in da Feelipeens dates only to the early 20th century ---prior to that, and tellingly, no historical records mention such a formidable (and flashy) weapon made here.
The Philippine balisong uses two pivots, one for each handle and fixed to the blade hilt --simpler to produce, and very, very fast to deploy, unlike the French and Spanish imports.
We didn't invent the folding knife with two handles.
We did adapt it into a beautiful, frighteningly fast weapon,
from its Leatherman/SwissKnife-slow, utilitarian French original.
So yeah, the swift-and-wicked balisong is truly ours.
