PHILIPPINE PHYSICS SOCIETY (PPS)
INFORMATION AND TRADITIONSby: DR. VICENTA C. MAXINO
PPS National Secretary
Web: www.philippinephysicssociety.org
I. NATURE AND COMPOSITION
The Philippine Physics Society (PPS) is an organization of physicists, physics professionals, physics teachers, physics students and physics enthusiasts. It is a national organization based in the southern part of the Philippines and focused to the south. Thus, its activities have been initially concentrated in the Visayas and Mindanao.
During the International Conference on Physics Education for Development held in Manila on December 1-5, 1992, about 150 conference participants coming from Luzon sought membership in PPS. They were consequently admitted to the society.After a decade of having initial activities in Northern Luzon (Vigan City in 1990 and Bangued, Abra in 1999), the PPS, in 2002, has extended its service to underserved areas in Luzon, as well. The main concern of the PPS is the improvement of its members in their respective fields of research and teaching and the advancement of Physics and Physics Education.
II. BRIEF HISTORY
The Philippine Physics Society (PPS) was born in Cebu City in 1974 from an awareness of a need for an organization of physics people as a vehicle for pooled resources, efforts and concerns by a group of less than 10 young physics graduates from the University of San Carlos. It had its initial meetings at the National Science Development Board (NSDB) Regional Office. It was subsequently admitted as a member of the Science and Technology Forum, an association of scientific and technological organizations in Cebu and Region VII.Professor Gerardo Maxino, its founder, was designated as the Chairman of the Society.
Later on, in 1979, the word “Southern” in parentheses was attached to its name to underline the focus of its interest. In 1987, the members voted to remove "(Southern)" and retain simply Philippine Physics Society.
Although the founding members originally intended the PPS to be exclusively for physics professionals, it was decided during the first convention in 1979 to open the membership to all those interested in physics. The PPS has been admitted as member of the Philippine Science and Mathematics Council.
The PPS intended originally to focus its attention to the Visayas and Mindanao, which it considered as underserved areas. This explains why its activities were mainly in these two geographical divisions during its first 25 years of existence. At the closing years of the MIllenium, however, incontrovertible evidence convince the PPS that there were many areas in Luzon, even sectors in Metro Manila, that were underserved too. Thus, PPS has taken since the Year 2000 the entire Philippines as its area of service. For the Philippine Physics Society is an embodiment of the ideal of service to physics and peoples.