No such thing as a brain drain

Whenever a senior Filipino professional leaves to work abroad, alarms bells ring out and panic reigns here in the Philippines. There goes the talent, woe unto us! people cry out.
The debate here about a brain drain has been around for decades. OMG, what are we going to do, Dr. Somebody has abandoned us! goes the cry. In the meantime, millions of other professionals stay, but people panic all the same. It’s like the brain drain will gobble us all up like some kind of mysterious blob.
When dictator Ferdinand Marcos finally gave up and opted for a helicopter ride out of Malacanang and ushered in the Cory Aquino era in 1986, I was living in the United States. The good news rang out all over the world (I went to Africa around that time and when I introduced myself as from the Philippines, people instantly chanted, “Cory, Cory, Cory”!).
At work, a senior colleague from India who had been a mentor to me came to my office. “I know what you’re thinking, young man,” my friend Sundaram Sankaran started. “You want to rush home to help your countrymen rebuild your nation,” he said understandingly. “No need to do that,” he continued, “there are a lot of capable people there to do it.”
Of course, he was right. There were a lot of capable people to do it.
That’s exactly the point here, there’s another way of looking at the so-called brain drain. Today, people are lamenting the departure for greener pastures of senior weather forecasters at Pagasa, the national weather bureau. In the past, it was doctors, pilots, air traffic controllers, and other senior professionals.
Instead of panicking and feeling abandoned, we should be feeling happy for those who are given an opportunity to practice their craft abroad, get paid well and live prosperous lives. Isn’t that the goal of every professional, to be able to be really good at one’s career and be paid well for it? Why begrudge those who are able to reach their personal peak of success and enjoy the fruits of their labor?
Instead of worrying about the loss of such professionals, we should look at their passage as an opportunity to train others to attain the same elevated status and give them their turn to be useful to the country. If the departing executives and specialists have become experts, then others, too, can be equally successful and, in turn, be leaders in their respective fields.
There is no reason to rue the departure of senior specialists because there are many others waiting in the wings to take their places. Thousands of professionals come out of universities every year, chomping at the bit to practice what they’ve learned and contribute to nation-building. They should be given a chance to prove their worth and to play their part.
There seems to be a sense here in the Philippines that those who leave for greener pastures are traitors to the nation. That by going abroad, they’re abandoning the country. I don’t know where this notion comes from but I hope it’s not something that shared by many.
Professionals must grow in their careers. And when they’ve attained a certain degree of success, they need to move up, they need to move on. To move up and on, they must, like water, find their own level. And where is that? If it’s not within the country, then find it elsewhere.
Professionals should be given all the opportunity they need to improve themselves, to attain a certain level of prosperity and comfort, and be the best that they can be. Nothing and no one should stand in their way.
Except, of course, in times when their particular expertise is sorely needed by the country. That is a given.
But, as it stands today, the country has a plentiful supply, an oversupply really, of professionals from various fields. Doctors, nurses, accountants, teachers, you name it. Why not let them be successful where that is possible?
What we should be doing is improving further the levels of instruction at our schools in order to produce outstanding graduates. So that if they graduate as teachers, they should be hired as teachers and not as domestic helpers. If they’re accountants, engineers, doctors or lawyers, they should be hired as such here or in whatever part of the world they may want to go.
Then-President Gloria Arroyo made the startling statement that we should train our womenfolk who go abroad so that they can be “supermaids.” That was a bizarre and insulting statement. Why not train them instead to be super teachers, accountants, engineers, and so on and so forth?
We shouldn’t mind being a country from where people with super skills live and work abroad. The British, Germans, Americans, Dutch, French, Australians, Indians, and other people from various countries are all over the world. They are the “expats” in our midst and in many other countries. They practice their craft abroad and yet they’re not considered as deserters or traitors in their home countries. They’re not seen as draining the talent or skills pool of their nations.
We have a surplus of skilled people. Let’s not waste it by discouraging our countrymen from practicing their professions abroad and getting paid well for it. Let’s not look at Filipinos going abroad as a loss; let’s look at them as a plus instead of a minus.
Frankly, when we say there’s a brain drain, we insult those who’ve either stayed or come back home.