Technical skills without ethical values
The reason why nowadays, we have doctors who should be sued for a variety of professional malpractices and lawyers who should be disbarred for violating the Canons of Legal Ethics is because our society and our schools are too fixated on skills and knowledge and have ignored and neglected the need to inculcate character-building and instilling positive values. There is no more stress on good manners and right conduct, much less civic-mindedness and a sense of nationhood. Corporate social responsibility, respect for laws and authority, care for nature and the environment, and consciousness of our history and culture have long been relegated to elective, rather than compulsory subjects in our school curricula.
There is too much stress in preparing our millennials to become technical experts and technologically savvy on the pretext that they have to win over competition in a globalized business and career arena. They are taught how to study and analyze the movements of trends in the business environments, labor and career markets, and be alert for emerging opportunities and probable threats from competition. They are honed on strategic thinking and planning, organizing and controlling the multiples of variables in the global world. But, alas, they are not properly instructed on how to respect rights and be mindful of the social costs of any economic progress and national development. They were not molded in such a way that they learn how to value human dignity and how to respect human rights.
The young are pressured to become performance-driven and results-oriented and implicitly led to think that the ends justify any means. Thus they may ruin the natural environment just to achieve profits. Thus they become irresponsible miners who ravage our forests and pollute our rivers, lakes and seas, destroying marine resources and depriving subsistence fisher folks and farmers of their only means of livelihood. They become unscrupulous business moguls who cheat their workers on wages and benefits and even perpetuate their casual status by all schemes and machinations. They bribe government officials and corrupt judges. They cheat on taxes and custom duties, and focus only on their greed for money, power, and influence.
If these trends are left unabated, then our country shall be led by technocrats who are corrupt. Our hospitals shall have doctors who are focused on money-making, and our justice systems shall be controlled by unethical lawyers, graft-ridden judges, and corrupt policemen and prosecutors. It is sad to say that even today such a spectacle of corruption and incompetence has already emerged. We need to address this or we shall all go to the dogs. Sad, sad, sad.
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