PhilRice, The Philippine Rice Research Institute, has the capability to become the APEC and ASEAN training center for genetic resources, agricultural biotechnology and intellectual property rights (IPR), a representative from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) said following a visit to the Institute together with other delegates of the 10th Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Agricultural Technical Working Group (ATWG) Research, Development and Extension on Agricultural Biotechnology (RDEAB).

The delegates came to the Philippines earlier this month to attend a weeklong workshop on "Global Status and Regulations of Agricultural Biotechnologies and Opportunities for Technical Cooperation", which was held in Manila.
The workshop tackled emerging issues on agricultural biotechnology in the Asia Pacific region whereby representatives of some member-economies presented agricultural developments and situations in their countries.

The second part of the workshop was a two-day capability building session exclusively handled by PhilRice. The first day was a visit of the delegates to PhilRice followed by workshop hands-on and discussion on genetic resources, agricultural biotechnology, intellectual property rights, and prior art on the second day.

Atty. Ronilo A. Beronio, Deputy Executive Director of PhilRice and Director of its Intellectual Property Management Office (IPMO), said the capability building session tackled issues on genetics resources, agricultural biotechnology, and IPR and how these influence the conduct of biotechnology product commercialization and research and development activities.

The visit provided the delegates an opportunity to see how PhilRice is actually handling these issues. According to Beronio, "PhilRice is being recognized for its ability to deal with these issues at the public institution level".

During the visit, PhilRice researchers introduced the Institute's research activities. Dr. Gabriel Romero, a rice geneticist, shared how PhilRice maintains its genetic resources. He said the collection is carefully maintained to provide rice genetic needs in the future. The genebank can store seeds up to 100 years.

PhilRice Plant Breeding and Biotechnology Division chief Dr. Antonio Alfonso presented PhilRice's initiatives in rice biotechnology. He told the delegates that PhilRice's strong capability in rice biotechnology was acquired through generous support from the government and several international donors.

PhilRice's active participation in the Golden Rice Network and Pro-Vitamin Rice Consortium, he said, illustrates the complexity of IP-related concerns surrounding a given technology and highlights the potential public benefits from a biotechnological breakthrough.

While radical developments in agricultural biotechnology take place, the country also needs to provide adequate and effective protection and management of its IP. Ms. Jane Payumo, PhilRice's Intellectual Property Management Office shared PhilRice's experiences in building its capacity on IPR management and other related developments, its IP rights portfolio and its management thrusts.

Mr. Jerry Serapion, Senior Science Research Specialist taught the delegates how to use the Internet to access patent documents and technology information from around the world. The technique allows researchers in effectively dealing with freedom to operate issues attached to borrowed technology.

The APEC-AWTG-RDEAB Workshop was participated in by delegates from Chile, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, Papua New Guinea, People's Republic of China, Peru, Thailand, The Russian Federation and Vietnam.

The workshop aimed to provide a forum that would facilitate the exchange of information and knowledge among countries, formation of concerted efforts and forging commitments in building capacities and resource sharing of APEC economies on emerging research, extension and development issues and technologies in agricultural biotechnology.