FACT-CHECK: The Nobel Prize is not just for inventors

CLAIM: The Nobel Prize is just for inventors

RATING: FALSE

Twitter user Edwin Zalameda, shared a quote card  featuring the Nobel Prize medal with the question “diba ang NOBEL PRIZE ay para sa mga imbentor? (Isn’t it that the Nobel Prize is only for inventors?”)

However, the claim that the Nobel Prize is only meant to recognize inventors is FALSE.

The social media card also contained a photo of National Scientist Dr. Fe del Mundo. The card said she invented the incubator but did not receive the Nobel Prize (This is a subject of another fact check).  Ressa, on the other hand, was derided by the social media card, which called her “nag iimbento ng balita” (one who invents news) but won the Nobel Prize.

Zalameda tweeted the card with the caption “Korek!” with a laughing and peace sign emoji. The tweet has recorded 190 retweets, 33 quote tweets and 570 likes.

The Nobel Prize was established by Swedish chemist, engineer, and industrialist Alfred Nobel when he signed on Nov. 27, 1895, his third and last will bequeathing his entire remaining estate to endow “prizes to those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind”.  Nobel, in his will, identified five fields that would be recognized: Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Peace.  Nowhere in Nobel’s will did it specify that only inventors would win the prize. The website of the Nobel Prize does not mention this requirement at all.

Ressa and her 2022 Peace Prize co-winner, Dmitry Muratov Muratov, are journalists.

Mother Teresa of Calcutta, a Catholic religious missionary and founder of the Missionaries of Charity, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. Former United States President Barack Obama won the same award in 2009. Other US presidents who had won the Nobel Peace Prize were Theodore Roosevelt (1906), Woodrow Wilson (1919) and Jimmy Carter (2002).   — Rommel F. Lopez

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