Exodus of the best

As that controversial ad on a bus in London has declared, we are proud of our nurses. They give their best; they are the best.

Combined with skills learned in nursing school is the innate tender loving care of the typical Filipino. This is no I-love-my-own exaggeration. I’ve been to many public places overseas that employ citizens of different countries. Always, without fail, the Filipinos stood out in terms of TLC.

What we shouldn’t be proud of is that circumstances in our country are forcing our best and brightest to leave.

We’re not giving the world our best. We simply can’t stop them from leaving to find work in other countries. There are an estimated 200,000 nurses currently in the country but who would rather not work in Philippine hospitals because of the low pay.

With the deployment ban now lifted, they may finally get the jobs they want – overseas. And the new batches may no longer remit their substantial earnings to the folks back home. Several top destinations for our nurses are now allowing migrant health professionals to bring their families with them, with resident alien benefits extended even to the family members.

The recruitment is not just for health professionals. Last week Information and Technology Secretary Ivan Uy told us on One News’ “The Chiefs” that as part of the shift to e-governance and digitalization, government agencies need techies to protect their data from hackers. But the government cannot compete with the rates for such skilled workers in other countries.

For some time now, we’ve also been losing air traffic controllers, meteorologists and various types of engineers to employers abroad. Many industries have reported difficulty in finding employees with the required training or skills in our country, from professionals to blue collar workers.

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The only people who aren’t leaving our country are politicians, lawyers, military and other uniformed personnel and entertainment stars.

And why should they leave? The other day, I touched base for the first time since the lockdowns with a member of a clan that has retired from politics. The person, whose father and brother were murdered, with the rival clan as the lone suspect, told me that members of the rival clan now occupy all the key positions in their province – from congressman to governor to mayor, vice mayor and on down to the local councils.

This situation, which short-circuits the system of checks and balances crucial for a strong democracy, is rapidly becoming the norm rather than the exception across the country.

Such clans control economic activities in their turfs, along with political patronage using public funds – now strengthened by the bigger share of local governments in national revenues under the Mandanas ruling.

Such clans also control every aspect of the criminal justice system in their fiefdoms, allowing them to get away with criminal activities including jueteng, smuggling, drug trafficking and the murder of political opponents and critical journalists.

If Negros Oriental governor Roel Degamo had not been a supporter of the Bongbong Marcos-Sara Duterte tandem, you wonder if the government would have gone after his murderers with the same admirable zeal.

If accused slay brains Arnolfo Teves Jr. had backed BBM in last year’s race instead of Manny Pacquiao, could Teves have gotten away with murder? Would that brazen attack have been written off as a to-whom-it-may-concern raid by the New People’s Army?

With that kind of control over their turf, the clans also have endorsement power. They can recommend supporters, regardless of qualification, to positions in government, often easing out the more qualified. This is one of the reasons why we have so much inefficiency, incompetence and corruption in government.

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Little wonder then that Filipinos are leaving the country in droves. This exodus started during the first Marcos administration, with construction personnel and other blue-collar workers going to the Middle East.

Women later learned that there was a big demand for domestic helpers in affluent economies; they constituted the next wave. Even teachers, lured by better pay, went abroad to work as maids.

We’ve had nurses, doctors and other health professionals going overseas for better pay for decades now, but the brain drain has grown exponentially in recent years, and the pandemic caused a spike in global demand for healthcare workers that has not eased.

Today we are seeing an exodus of IT experts and young people hoping to land jobs in business process outsourcing operations. BPOs were supposed to encourage our youths to work in their own country, but now they are seeing that their skills are also in demand elsewhere, with better pay.

The remittances of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) have fueled our consumer-driven economic growth and allowed the economy to stay afloat even during global downturns.

But this has also lulled the political leadership into complacency when it comes to implementing difficult but necessary reforms in many aspects of life. As long as the economy is growing, the leadership can argue that nothing needs fixing, or the status quo can’t be all that rotten.

The social costs of families where a parent or both parents are working overseas have also been pointed out even by Pope Francis.

Many of our migrant workers are from the middle class – the segment that pays the taxes and government fees used to finance the long list of subsidies and ayuda for the poor. What happens when many in the middle class are gone, with no plans of returning since they already have their families with them?

Migrant Workers Secretary Susan Ople at least recognizes that the OFW phenomenon is fueled by the lack of opportunities in the Philippines.

A country cannot become progressive on the back of the mass exodus of its people for greener pastures overseas.