I am just
new to the Romblon Yahoo group Mailing List, but one of the very interesting
topics that have surfaced is the brain drain or brain deluge issue.
I can't name all of the writers in the list group who have eloquently
expounded on this subject matter whether their ideas do not necessarily
agree 100% with others. And to name some will be grossly unfair.
Brain drain has
been an old predicament that has either plagued or graced our country.
Brain drain shows
that we have a lot of intellectual elite members in our country that
have chosen to emigrate to other countries to find themselves a nice
place in the sun and consequently to assist the countries' pursuit
for economic and technological development. This may initially show
that we are draining our elite to the detriment of our country, and
that our institutions of higher learning may appear to have been non-stop
in the production of such intellectual groups of people with an ironical
twist. In doing so, and the fact that many chose to leave the country,
may indicate a sad commentary that our educational insitutions are
not able to be rewarded with their efforts and to place those graduates
for the betterment of the Philippines.
I have previously
compared this state of affair to a woman giving birth to a child only
to put him/her up for adoption because she and her family are unable
to provide for when the child grows up.
Of course we can't
lay the blame on those who chose to emigrate. Many of our e-mailers
have correctly and logically countered that unless our country and
business institutions can provide them with commensurate employment,
they have the right to seek for their own pursuit of happiness.
One eminent member
of our group, and we can call him a venerable member not only because
of his age but his intellectual acumen despite his age, avers that
it is not brain drain but brain deluge. This may show a definite contradiction
in analysing our situation, but after laboriously pondering on this,
I found out that brain drain and brain surplus (my substitute term
for brain deluge) are indeed complimentary and therefore not necessarily
contradictory.
The fact that
we are producing continuously our intellectual group shows that we
have brain surplus. And it is this surplus which enable our country
to export our brain power to many countries, especially Western countries,
who are looking for it. The emigration phenomenom does not drain our
intellectual community but they continue to fill the void caused by
the drainage as the graduates move to other countries.
This in itself
gets the schools busy and therefore makes them stay in business which
have become more lucrative over the years. The appearance of brain
drain as the graduates found new place in the sun in foreign countries
do not really drain our economy as they remit lots of money back to
the country in terms of their support for their loved ones and friends.
As one e-mail member eloquently states, we live not only in a local
but a global economy: Ergo and in quoting her, "why let your
talent and skills not be fully exploited for mankind. I assume that
there are not enough job openings in the Philippines to make full
use of ...(our peoples' technological) training."
But sending money
is not the only means to contribute back to the Philippines economically
speaking. We do have lots of Kababayans who visit the country to do
various types of volunteer work which are very much needed. We also
have those who send books to our institutions of learnings and to
their families. We also have Kababayans who retire or have retired
in the Philippines from abroad and therefore using their much valued
or appreciated foreign currencies to spend their money and live comfortably
in the Philippines.
In short, if we
speak of the movement our intellectual members to other countries
and the beneficial results to our country in terms of remittance and
others, the concept of brain drain is not necessarily a contradiction
of brain surplus. We may not even even want to use these terms anymore.
Even if we want to continue using them, their impact to our country
is again very beneficial. The emigration exodus has then graced and
uplifted our country and not a downgrade.
