My Message to the Graduates

I’ve been back home just a few days when requests started to come in, asking me to speak at commencement exercises. Unfortunately, I won’t be staying long because I am bringing my whole family to the US shortly after their classes end tomorrow. My daughters are excited to return to the lives they left 2 years ago.

I have to be back in our clinic to take care of business. Working without your family nearby, regardless of the compensation is brutal. Even with Skype and inexpensive direct dialing, the sacrifice is enormous. I think of all those millions of Filipinos, stuck in the deserts of the Middle East who would look forward to a brief phone call every month or so because of the expense that could have been part of the regular remittances that their families back home had grown to rely upon.

But I would have to emphasize this to all you graduates, that all is not lost. Most of us Filipinos continue to do our duty quietly every day. We know what needs to be done, we are painfully aware of the sacrifices that have to be endured. We have to do what we have to do.

How I would personally prefer to go around the country talking to the youth, the various citizens groups just like a true, traditional politician but I wouldn’t be setting a good example to my children. I don’t want them to see me transform into one of these unproductive trapos who talk and talk and become experts in living off this abominably unfair system.

All this excitement about the economic gains that our country has achieved needs to be placed in the proper perspective. Gross domestic product is the sum of our combined personal expenditures (which accounts for 70% of the GDP), government expenditures, investments and exports minus our imports.

Since 1985, personal expenditure was estimated from the results of a survey among 50,000 families inquiring about their income and expenses. These figures would closely correlate each other until 2001 when personal expenditure estimates greatly outpaced survey results. Two possible explanations: to make our GDP look better, we fudged the numbers in the finest Filipino accounting tradition or, a more plausible explanation was that the $14.5 billion in remittances that overseas Filipinos sent last year was significantly understated.

In terms of investments, the Philippines is at the bottom of the list in attracting foreign direct investment among the 6 major economies in Southeast Asia. Singapore attracted $36.9 billion, Vietnam $11.3 billion, Thailand $10 billion, Malaysia $9.4 billion, Indonesia $5.9 billion. We got $2.5 billion.

While previous administrations had higher investments and expenditures, our economic figures are much rosier today because based on the numbers supplied by our Bureau of Customs, we are importing much less. Are we to believe that we are importing less oil, less rice, less electronic goods, less vehicles and so on? Or is it because of the phenomenon most everybody is aware of, namely rampant smuggling?

So our economy is doing better not because of the honest example and leadership of Gloria Arroyo, nor is it because of the legislative prowess of her 2 sons and brother in law. There are very few takers when it comes to investing in our country because of our reputation for unbridled corruption: the powerful can buy elections without fear and convicted plunderers are promptly pardoned. Crime and corruption pay handsomely here. Our leaders do not inspire us to become productive and industrious, law-abiding tax payers. The overseas Filipino is largely responsible for any economic growth worth mentioning.

The lesson dear graduates is one you think about every day. How to get out of this country and begin making a decent living. How to get away and begin living in a more equitable and just society. How to leave this mess behind and concretely help your family and country by remitting money.

We can easily become bogged down with dreams of a snap election or a double resignation or a mass conversion among our traditional politicians—everyone’s free to dream. The trouble with this fantasizing is that we depend on our same old tormentors to make things better for all of us.

I, myself am returning to the US in a few days. I will work hard and I will become stronger so I might come back to fight another day. In one of my favorite movies Cinema Paradiso, there is a scene where the young Salvatore leaves his hometown Giancaldo, and whereupon his blind and old mentor Alfredo throws in a final bit of advice: never to return and that holding onto the past will keep him from going forward. I am telling all of you to go and find your destiny but never forget the country you leave behind and all our unfortunate sisters and brothers who never had the chance to live their dreams. Congratulations to all you Grads!