BY BORDI JAEN
WESLEY So, the Filipino chess prodigy, has finally gotten his green card.
Truth be told, I am quite happy for him. He is able to find greener pastures where he could better cultivate his talents.
However, we shouldn’t be easing ourselves with thinking like, “There will always be more chess prodigies”. The Wesley So story is symptom of a much larger problem. It only takes a sip of the soup to know it’s spoiled.
The phenomenon of brain drain is not new. As they say, the biggest dream of a Filipino is leaving the Philippines. How many of us have heard other people say they wish to be employed abroad someday? How many of us have wished ourselves to find greener pastures?
It is lamentable but it is the cold hard truth that the socioeconomic situation in the Philippines is difficult. How long can we allow our best and brightest to contribute to the future of other nations? How long can the motherland ache and see her children being nourished by others?
If only the leaders of our land can see the tremendous need for change in the country. If only our leaders can step up and improve our despondent situation. We say, “blame the Filipinos who elect inept officials!” There need not be blame games but accountability. Such a mantra transfers the blame from the people who need guiding to the people tasked with guiding. This culture of unaccountability will continue to yield disasters because the people who need to step up do not.
When students try their best to learn and yet a majority of the class fails, the blame is set upon the teacher who fails to teach well. The ones who set the socioeconomic changes are not the people but the leaders of the land. I am not implying that people should have no hand in the country’s development. Quite the contrary, the people are the only ones who can lead to this country’s progress, if only our leaders ferment the necessary conditions for social mobility.
Leaders ferment change that is followed by the people. Singapore was poor when Lee Kuan Yew took over. It had decrepit housing, underdeveloped education, and unemployment was very high, not to mention how poor Singapore was in terms of natural resources. However, thanks to Lee Kuan Yew’s foresight, iron-fisted leadership, and his ability to maneuver Singapore’s strengths and weaknesses. These made Singapore the advanced and wealthy nation that it is today.
Peter the Great turned Russia from a poor and backward nation whose capital’s streets were reinforced with big and heavy logs rather than stone to a great power that brought Sweden and the Ottomans to their knees while advancing the sciences and Russian culture.
The first Roman Emperor Augustus famously boasted that he found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble.
The point of these examples is that leaders are the ones who spearhead a country and make it great. A people can never be great if its leaders do not step up. The best firearm is rendered inutile in the hands of an amateur.
Nobody really wants to go abroad forever. If you listen to the tales of many, they’d prefer staying in the Philippines if only the circumstances permit them to. Nobody wants to stay in a land where they have few friends and family members; where they are discriminated and even driven to depression and abuse in the hands of tyrannical people, like Flor Contemplacion and Jeanelyn Villavende.
It is not the Philippines that they cannot stand but rather the situation the Philippines is in. I appeal to the leaders of our country, and I do not just mean the President, but to the whole leadership of the land, from the ranks of the barangay captains to the big man himself, to be accountable to their positions and create the necessary conditions that will make the Philippines the Asian Tigress that she truly is.
To the many Filipinos who strive for a better Philippines and better living conditions for their families, know that your sacrifices are not in vain. Continue to be the assets of our society that you are. The motherland cherishes the sacrifices of all her children. She weeps when they weep and laugh when they laugh. Like Wesley So, you may not be in the Philippines, but you continue to honor her.
In the words of the great columnist, broadcaster and economist Solita “Winnie” Monsod, “You’re going to be as good and as honorable as you should be. You are going to stay in the Philippines. And if you leave the Philippines, you are at least going to try to pay back.”/PN
