This is despite the fact that the Philippine Space Agency will be placed under the administrative supervision of the Office of the President (OP) and not as an attached unit of the DOST as originally intended.
Under the bill, the Philippine Space Agency office and its research facilities will be housed in at least 30 hectare of land within the Clark Special Economic Zone in Pampanga and Tarlac.
The Philippines is closer to the establishment of its own space agency with Senate Bill 1983 or the Philippine Space Act now hurdling second reading in the Senate.
Although there's a just a few days left before Congress takes a break for the May 13 elections, top officials of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) are optimistic that the bill creating a national space agency would still be approved by the legislature.
