Filipino Inventions

Karaoke

Roberto del Rosario, a Filipino is claiming the right for the invention of the Sing-Along-System (SAS) that eventually led to the development of Karaoke, a Japanese term for "singing without accompaniment". Among del Rosario's other inventions were the Trebel Voice Color Code (VCC), the piano tuner's guide, the piano keyboard stressing device, the voice color tape, and the one-man-band (OMB). The OMB was later developed as the Sing-Along-System (SAS).

Incubator

Fe del Mundo, the first Asian to have entered the prestigious Harvard University's School of Medicine, is also credited for her studies that led to the invention of incubator and jaundice relieving device. Del Mundo, an International Pediatric Association (IPA) awardee, is an alumna of the University of the Philippines (UP) College of Medicine. Since 1941, she has contributed more than 100 articles to medical journals in the U.S., Philippines and India. In 1966, she received the Elizabeth Blackwell Award, for her "outstanding service to mankind". In 1977, she was bestowed the Ramon Magsaysay Award for outstanding public service.

Water-Powered Car

For more than three decades now, Daniel Dingel has been claiming that his car can run with water as fuel. An article from the Philippine Daily Inquirer said that Dingle built his engine as early as 1969. Dingel built a car reactor that uses electricity from a 12-volt car battery to split the ordinary tap water into hydrogen and oxygen components. The hydrogen can then be used to power the car engine. 

Dingel said that a number of foreign car companies have expressed interest in his invention. The officials of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) have dismissed Dingel's water-powered car as a hoax. In return, Dingel accused them of conspiring with oil producing countries. Dingel, however, was the not the only man on earth who is testing water as an alternative fuel. American inventors Rudolf Gunnerman and Stanley Meyer and the researchers of the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory have been pursuing similar experiments.

Fluorescent Lamp

Many Filipinos acknowledge Agapito Flores as the inventor of the fluorescent lamp, which is the most widely used source of lighting in the world today. The fluorescent lamp reportedly got its name from Flores. Written articles about Flores said he was born in Bantayan Island in Cebu. The fluorescent lamp, however, was not invented in a particular year. It was the product of 79 years of the development of the lighting method that began with the invention of the electric light bulb by Thomas Edison.

Among the other inventors who claimed credit for developing the fluorescent lamp were French physicist A. E. Becquerel (1867), Nikola Tesla, Albert Hall (1927), Mark Winsor and Edmund Germer. French inventor Andre Claude was recognized for developing the fluorescent tubular lighting systems. Yet, he was not officially recognized as the inventor of fluorescent lamp. It was reported that the General Electric and Westinghouse obtained Claude's patent rights and developed the fluorescent lamp that we know today.

According to Filipino scientists, fluorescent lamp was not named after Flores. The term fluorescence first cropped up as early as 1852 when English mathematician-physicist George Gabriel Stokes discovered a luminous material called "fluorspar", which he coined with "escence". The National Academy of Science and Technology also dismissed Flores being the inventor of fluorescent lamp as a myth. "No scientific report, no valid statement, no rigorous documents can be used to credit Flores for the discovery of the fluorescent lamp. We have tried to correct this misconception, but the media (for one) and our textbooks (for another) keep using the Flores example," a Filipino scientist wrote in her column at the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

The fluorescent lamps were introduced into the U.S. market in 1938. Still, Filipinos recognize Agapito Flores as the inventor of the product that illuminated the world.