AS I was recovering from a nasty viral infection last week, I was desperately looking for some good news.

After all, we have been awash in stories about the terrible weather that has inundated the Luzon and Metro Manila areas over the past 30 days. And while the specter of a possible implosion of the ruling Lakas-Kampi-CMD Party makes for interesting spectator sport, the election is a long way away.

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No, I wanted some really good news. And I found it.

Three Filipino students recently won silver and gold medals at the International Earth Science Olympiad in Taiwan. The students, all from the Philippine Science High School, were competing against other 46 scholars from 17 countries, including the United States, United Kingdom, Japan, South Korea and India.

The Science Education Institute of the Philippine Department of Science and Technology deserves a lot of credit for the performance of the Filipino students. This is a major improvement over last year’s Olympiad, where the Philippine team won four bronze medals.

As SEI Director Ester Ogena said the Philippines needs more geologists and geodetic engineers because of the country’s vulnerability to typhoons and earthquakes.

But that wasn’t the only good news about students from the Philippines.

Fourteen students from 10 schools in the Philippines obtained the highest possible honors in the recently concluded Australian Mathematics Competition.

The students received the AMC Medal for Outstanding Performance. The medals go to students who finished in the top 1 percent of the competitors.

In addition to the 14 medal winners, another 43 Filipino students from various schools throughout the country won High Distinction honors, which means they finished in the top 2 percent of the competition.

The Australian Mathematics Competition is administered by the Mathematics Trainer’s Guild and the Australian Mathematics Trust. It is open to competitors from throughout the world. The competition is designed to highlight the importance of mathematics as part of a school curriculum and also is aimed at discovering students who have a talent in mathematics.

There is no question that education is the key to the future success of the Philippines. The country needs to heavily invest in a variety of disciplines, with an emphasis on mathematics and science, but also in agricultural sciences, business, English, and the arts.

But it just isn’t enough to invest in education…the country’s leaders also must make sure there is a thriving job market with excellent wages available for our talent students when they graduate from college.

It is tragic that so much young talent leaves the Philippines every year to find better paying jobs overseas.

One way the government could reverse this process is to create a group of government and privately funded consortiums in the research and development arena. The consortiums would benefit from seed money for research from the Philippine government and then private companies would add their investment money to convert the research into new products and processes.

The consortium concept has been a major reason behind Japan’s economic success over the past 30 years and the South Koreans have copied their approach.

We are already seeing signs that the Philippine Congress might be willing to get the ball rolling. Senator Edgardo Angara filed a bill in February 2009 that would make the research and development costs and the purchase of stocks in biotechnology companies tax deductible. The bill would also offer incentives to the biotech industry to build a biotechnology center for research in the Philippines.

And recently the Secretary of Agriculture in the United States, Tom Vilasek, said the American government is seeking a partnership with the Philippines in the area of biofuel research.

The US Government isn’t going to take this step without having strong confidence in Filipino researchers. And, of course, the Philippines is already the world’s second largest user of geothermal energy, something the Americans are trying to embrace now.

“We are looking at a relationship and partnership with the Philippines in terms of research on biofuels,” Vilasek said. “We recognize and appreciate that you’re faced with the same challenges we’re faced with in the United States. We don’t want to be reliant on one form of energy, energy that you don’t necessarily control.”

Now, if we really want to have good news on a daily basis here in the Philippines, all we have to do is invest in these bright youngsters, or as someone once said, “Just sprinkle some water on talented minds, give them some fuel in the form of encouragement, and watch them grow.”