CHEd allocates P1.763B to scientific researches

Commission on Higher Education (CHEd)

The Commission on Higher Education (CHEd) has allocated P1.763 billion, or more than 60 per cent of its budget next year, to a group headed by Filipino Silicon Valley entrepreneur Dado Banatao for scientific researches by select American and Filipino scientists.

The newly-organized Philippine-California Advanced Research Institutes (PCARI) has been pre-selected as the sole recipient of CHEd’s entire P1.7 billion funding for “research and scholarship projects” for next year.

This represents 62 per cent of CHEd’s total P2.78 billion proposed budget for next year.

The grants will be controlled by PCARI and given to selected faculty of the University of California Berkeley (UCB), where Banatao and his wife sit in advisory bodies, and UC San Francisco (UCSF) and their counterpart Filipino scientists from top universities and research institutions here.

Banatao serves as managing partner at Tallwood VC, a California-based venture capital firm that invests in IT start-ups. He also currently chairs the non-profit organization Philippine Development Foundation (PhilDev).

Banatao serves as chairman of the College of Engineering Advisory Board and is a member of  the UC Berkeley Chancellor’s Executive Advisory Council. HIs wife Maria is a trustee for the UC Berkeley Foundation.