In less than a month, three typhoons hit the Philippines, ravaging agricultural fields, destroying infrastructure and even taking lives. As we mourned last week the lives lost during typhoon “Kristine,” the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHIL), through our Bureau of Patents, launched the Green Technology Incentive or GreenTech Program which waives certain application fees for the grant of patents and registration of utility models and industrial designs, while making all these green technology our top priority.

Through this program, IPOPHL aims to plant the seeds to encourage the creation of more green technologies that can reduce our environmental footprint and conserve resources. Protecting IP rights can empower our inventors, startups and businesses to develop sustainable solutions, and with this program’s concrete support they will be further incentivized to pursue patent protection for green innovations.

The GreenTech Program marks the latest addition to IPOPHL’s green efforts which includes our annual Socially Relevant Technologies (SRT) competition. Our SRT has showcased the potential of Filipino ingenuity in protecting our environment. Past competitions had showcased sustainable packaging solutions and innovations to prevent water crises. For this year’s contest, which will be held next week, we’re excited to feature AI-driven green technologies transforming agriculture.

The competition even led to the discovery of the now globally renowned Pili Seal by engineer Mark Bantugon, who has been moving around the world and emerging as a testament to the brilliance of young Filipinos.

At IPOPHL, we have established practices to conserve energy, dispose of waste properly and reduce our paper use with our fully online filing process.

Overall, we hope to do our share in creating more livable cities, making available clean energy sources and building resilient systems that minimize the ecological impact.

IPOPHL’s efforts today may seem small. But they should also be seen as vital to inspiring others to make their own small contributions to achieve our larger collective pursuits.

As typhoons have been intensifying in frequency and strength over the decades, the Philippines needs to step up its efforts to protect itself from natural disasters. The World Risk Index ranked us first among 193 countries with the highest disaster risks from 2022 to 2024.

Through our GreenTech Program, IPOPHL hopes to send a message on the urgent need to establish an innovative ecosystem that doesn’t just count the future gains in profit and investments but also the losses to our environment and natural resources, especially when they translate to losses in jobs, incomes, homes, and lives.

It hopes to inspire others to plant the seeds for a greener tomorrow. No seed is too small or powerless because each matters to grow a bountiful harvest.