DFA: Brain drain should be brain gain

The Philippines can actually benefit from the exodus of highly skilled workers and professionals for employment abroad, a foreign affairs official said yesterday.

Foreign affairs undersecretary for migrant workers’ affairs Jose Brillantes said the Philippines and other labor-sending countries should focus on policy options and strategic approaches to make migration orderly, humane, productive and beneficial for individuals and the rest of society.

"The Philippines should be able to turn the tables around by converting that brain drain into ‘brain gain’ through brain circulation," he said.

Brillantes, who has been appointed ambassador to Canada, added that there was a perception that migrants all over the world have long been ignored as a development resource.

He said that international migration is now increasingly recognized as an integral part of the development process of countries of origin and destination.

Citing ways by which countries of destination can help reduce the loss of highly skilled workers from countries of origin, Brillantes said there should be stricter supervision of recruitment; entering into bilateral labor agreements with countries of origin; encouraging investment in countries of origin; becoming parties to the General Agreement on Trade in Services; and orienting their aid and technical assistance to support education and training in the communities of origin.

"On the part of the Philippines as labor-sending country, it behooves us to heed the advice of the Global Commission on International Migration (GCIM) that development must begin at home," he said.

Meanwhile, one of the findings of the GCIM, which is composed of experts on global migration, is that international migration is increasingly becoming a movement of the educated and their families making the sending country lose a considerable part of its vocational elite upon emigration.

The GCIM earlier held consultative hearings held in the Philippines, Egypt, Hungary, South Africa and Mexico.

Labor Secretary Patricia Sto. Tomas disclosed the commission’s findings during a seminar on migration and development at the Asian Institute of Management that was hosted by the Embassy of Sweden in Manila and the International Organization for Migration.

Sto. Tomas, one of the 19 commissioners who participated in the five consultative hearings, said the GCIM found out that people move because of differentials between their present circumstances and a perceived better future somewhere else.

She said that the differentials occur in what the GCIM called the "three Ds" of migration: development, demographics and democracy.

The GCIM said that the world’s poorest do not migrate as much as the more educated. On the contrary, recent global migration has increasingly consisted of people with secondary education.

"But why would it cause severe problems? Unless in clear surplus, this elite may consequently create an enormous vacuum, draining the sending country of its driving force for development and well-being. This vacuum is presumably minor or temporary for such giants as China and India, and a more permanent and occasionally life-threatening one in Sub-Saharan Africa or in politically and demographically vulnerable countries such as Pakistan and Turkey," Sto. Tomas said.

The GCIM also noted that high-income countries, which have less than 20 percent of the global labor force, now host 60 percent of the world’s migrants.

"Migrants in high-income countries gain 20 to 30 times higher than they would normally earn in their respective countries. While the cost of living is usually higher in countries of destination, most migrants have the potential to earn enough to support themselves and send remittances to their families back home," Sto. Tomas said.

Citing World Bank indicators, Sto. Tomas said the global labor force will rise from three billion to 3.4 billion in the period of 2001 to 2010 with an average increase of 40 million per year.

She noted that 38 million of the 40 million new workers each year are expected to come from developing countries while the rest will come from high-income countries.

"With this trend, about 86 percent of the world’s labor force will come from developing countries. The numbers are expected to fill in the human resource gaps in industrialized countries, particularly in providing care for aging persons and in supporting the pension system," she said.

According to Sto. Tomas, the GCIM also found that the areas of democracy, governance, human rights and human security must also be taken into account because these factors play major roles in determining the future supply and demand for migrant workers.

The GCIM noted that a good number of countries experiencing unemployment, low incomes, and high rates of population growth are also countries with relatively weak democratic process, perennially challenged rule of law and inefficient public institutions.