Keeping our own

Recently, the Filipino community in Tsukuba, Japan tendered several despedida parties for a Filipino physicist leaving for the United States. Together with their beautiful daughter, he and his wife have stayed for many years in Japan long after they had completed their doctorate degrees in Physics.

During the despedida, the conversation shifted to the topic of what is needed back in our country to retain our very qualified professionals and labor. The same litany familiar to many Filipinos were articulated, some of which included lack of support, concern for family survival, budget constraints for education and research and so on.

Much as many Filipino scholars who go for higher studies abroad desire to return and serve our country, reasons such as the ones just enumerated stop them from immediately returning to serve our country. They certainly dream of retiring back, hopefully comfortably and more securely, in the Philippines in the future.

This was also the sentiment of two other Filipino friends who had very stable jobs in Japan but decided, with their two sons, to transfer to New Zealand where they pray they will have not only good-paying jobs but more importantly jobs that will bring out the best of their Phd expertise in their fields. Also, they prefer their kids to grow up in a culturally, linguistically, and religious atmosphere a little closer to that of the Philippines, a sentiment shared by another Filipino friend who will leave Japan soon to check out if the rest of his family back in Japan can join him in Canada later..

Recently, in the news, the whole country was caught by surprise with the exodus of pilots, and earlier on of geologists. Even Pag-asa was not spared their weather specialists who had left for abroad, for sure, not only for higher pay, but more for the sake of ensuring security for their family, especially their children.

While it is good news to know that recent survey results show that more Filipinos believe life will be better under the P.Noy administration and less of our people are thinking of migrating because of the new government, there is so much more we all need to do as a whole nation to keep our very own talented, precious Filipinos at home where they can serve our country and where they can be together with their loved ones.

How can we stop the exodus of our precious Filipinos - the nurses, the caregivers, the doctors, other professionals and our Filipino workers ?

Among the difficulty but initial steps, there is a need for us to rethink the very framework of our society. Inequality will have to be challenged, with everyone willing to share what little or more they have with those without anything beyond their breath.

It comes as an inspiration to hear the good news about the Bernido couple from Jagna, Bohol who were honored with the prestigious 2010 Ramon Magsaysay Awards, Asia's equivalent of the Nobel Prize.

Their "privileged" family background as well as their Phd degrees in Physics could have easily pushed Christopher Bernido and M.Victoria Carpio-Bernido to stay abroad but the young couple decided to share their God-given gifts to take over the old, struggling high school-the Central Visayan Institute Foundation (CVIF)- and introduced a revolutionary but highly inspiring model of teaching science and nonscience subjects which they called "CVIF Dynamic Learning Program (DLP)." Their technique allowed the CVIF students to bloom and take off literally, showing off unexpected high performance on national scholastic aptitude and university admission tests. The Bernido couple added to this DLP their "Learning Physics as One Nation" project, to address the problem of severe shortage of qualified physics teachers.

Their example is worth spreading around to all our people, in and out of the Philippines. The Bernidos shared their gifts, especially to the poor and needy, and in return, the Philippines is richer with more inspired young students, who, we all hope, will also, in turn, share their gifts with our people and our country later. Pay forward scheme always works. Do a kind deed, the recipient does a kind deed in turn to another and so on.

When we, as a nation and as a people, realize that we need to work together to produce sustainably from what we have within ourselves and our nation, once we realize that we need to prioritize our own people far more than just a few wealthy with their foreign investors, traders, and partners, then maybe, we can finally keep our own precious people at home, here in our beloved country, the Philippines.

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