Why?

When the once angry young men and women of the First Quarter Storm get together, we talk mostly of two things: our aches, pains, and maintenance meds and secondly, why our country was left behind during our watch.

There is resignation over the first topic because nature is just taking its course and there’s little we can do to stop the clock. On the second topic, there are still many of us who dream of seeing a country better than that we were born into.

The reaction to my column on competitiveness last week reminded me of my senior citizen conversations. There is this air of frustration, some amount of anger, and a lot of hope that all is not lost.

Inevitably, the question is raised: Why?

Why were we overtaken by Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and a city state, Singapore? We were so well ahead of them when ASEAN was organized 50 years ago. Now, Vietnam has moved ahead of us in many areas.

Why? Why did our generation allow our country to go to the dogs? We were cowed by the Marcos dictatorship into silence and acquiescence.

We allowed Mr. Marcos and his cronies to plunder the country while Lee Kuan Yew and Mahathir Mohammad were building up Singapore and Malaysia. Many of us just left to work and live abroad. I think about half my high school class left for foreign shores.

And then we allowed the ruling elite to just have a changing of the guards after Marcos and that made us fall back even more. I inevitably hear in my conversations, could that American writer be right about our damaged culture?

Why did we lose our competitiveness? Can we get it back?

A statistician among my Facebook friends gave this observation:

“Whether in the global competitiveness index or in the innovation index we rank fifth in ASEAN... it is because we have few people in charge with systems background i.e. scientists or engineers.

“We have 18,000 research scientists and engineers per 100 million people and 40,000 lawyers per 100 million people. While we need lawyers, having too many of them may have contributed to the lack of systemic approaches to problem solving. Lawyers are trained to control, to protect their clients, while scientists and engineers solve problems.

“In contrast look at all leaders of China — they have training in science and engineering... and note they made massive investments in human capital. They asked the US for 5000 scholarships in science and engineering in 1979.

“Five years later, the number of scholars in science and engineering in the US from China ballooned to 100,000. We, on the other hand, wait for crumbs from USAID, AUSAID and EU for all scholarships.”

Another commented: “Yes we need scientists, technology, inventors and innovators. I am a lawyer, pero masyado ng madami.”

Dr. Greg Tangonan, who leads Ateneo’s technology and innovations programs, gave this comment in that thread:

“Competitive in science and technology after two generations of ‘capacity building’ in our one National University (UP)? Not even close. Now, we are in our third generation of capacity building with new science and engineering buildings and labs and several billions of pesos (ERDT, PICARI, STRIDE) in new capacity building/ research/innovation grants spent mostly in one campus (UPD).”

Retired business executive Rufo Colayco reacted:

“Boo Chanco, the comparative ratio of the number of lawyers vs. engineers are similar in the US and Philippines, lawyers outnumber engineers by about two to one. In contrast, the ratios in Germany and Japan are similar to each other, the engineers outnumber the lawyers by far. In our case, the ratio may be even more lopsided than it appears. That’s because we’ve exported many of our engineers. We can’t export those blankety-blank lawyers!”

A physician, Dr. Juan Maria Pablo Nanagas: “It’s a vicious cycle. People in science don’t earn enough here, so fewer opt for the sciences. We glorify crooks, politicians, showbiz people so we have become a nation of dancers, singers, beauty queens. God help this country.”

Is there hope? I am not sure, but I hope so. A reader, however, related to me how DICT was trying to recruit his son, a highly trained IT professional. Here is my reader’s story:

“I simply have to share this with you because it shows a lot about the kind of system we have in government. As you know, my son went to his interview today. Among other things, he was asked if he could get along without a salary for six months. My son was turned off and so was I when he shared this with me.

“To think that DICT has very ambitious plans and their screening seems to be designed to identify the best people. This is what they wanted my son to do:

“1. Create a powerpoint presentation about yourself. In no more than 10 slides, please tell us your life story, including:

“- Your most proud accomplishment / biggest challenge to date.

“- What you hope to achieve in the next five, 10 and 20 years.

“2. Create an Excel spreadsheet to estimate the cost needed to provide 100 Mbps internet to every school and barangay hall in the country.

“3. Answer the question, if President Duterte names you Secretary of the Department of Information and Communications Technology tomorrow, what would be your 10-point agenda plan to fix the internet in the Philippines?”

“Cheers,

“DICT SG Team

“So much bluster and pomposity relative to what they are offering.”

What can I say? Government is ready to pay Mocha Uson P120,000 a month, plus all those travel and other perks. But it is asking a trained IT professional to serve for six months without pay while they process his appointment. He will likely end up abroad.

I think this system answers the question, Why?

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @boochanco.