Biting reality

There have been stories regarding brain drain for decades, if not longer. There is a trend among Filipino professionals to leave the country in search of better pastures in other countries. Engineers, architects, and a variety of other professionals are among them. Our teachers and nurses, on the other hand, are known to frequent embassies and seek aid from various employment agencies. And why are these people at risk of leaving the country in search of work abroad?

One of the most significant obstacles the Philippines must overcome is brain drain, which is a measure of a country's productive capability based on knowledge and diversity.

The Philippines has struggled to keep its talented labor from fleeing to brighter pastures abroad. Our domestic capability is eroding because our most valuable export is our people. It is estimated that at least 10 million Filipinos labor abroad, mostly because job prospects in the Philippines are rare or not lucrative enough to support a family.

It is a general knowledge that these areas are frequently overlooked in terms of compensation and benefits when compared to their Asian equivalents, and even more so when compared to European countries. Nurses in particular, even though we desperately need their services here due to the pandemic, the government cannot keep them. We lag considerably behind what other countries have to offer. This is a worry about rational priority and equity, not so much with the emotive urge for nationalism and patriotism.

One major source of concern has been that the best-qualified and best-trained doctors and nurses frequently depart. International demand, on the other hand, has pushed up domestic standards. Their sharp minds and unwavering work ethics are being put to good use in a distant place. The international community's preference for our experienced nurses has resulted in increased training and development costs for new, local graduates, with Western countries often requiring two to three years of prior experience.

The real issue is that money isn't being spent to ensure that medical human resources are distributed evenly throughout this archipelago nation. Isolated places lack not only physicians and nurses, but also hospitals and clinics—a perennial problem.

The scenario described above is comparable to that of the basic school sector. Our teachers, on the other hand, have been asking for equitable recompense for a long time. Furthermore, access to education in far-flung locations remains a difficult battle among our brothers and sisters in those areas. I also don't blame our teachers for continuing to teach students from other nations whom they have never met and to whom they have no personal attachment.

Administration after administration has made promises to improve teacher working conditions, but none of them has been kept. When can we genuinely say that these two groups are treated equally in terms of keeping the current generation's body and mind healthy and sound?

Consider the chilling potential that our finest teachers and health care providers are returning home from other countries to mold minds and care for people with whom they have no shared vision of the country's good. They return to the Philippines for retirement after decades of working in other countries, but this time they are unable to help their country, where their best minds, talents, and abilities were supposedly shared for the benefit of fellow Filipinos.