Does freedom mean leaving the Philippines?

(Note: I first wrote this on June 2, 2006, but for some reason, this article seems to be relevant every single year. You be the judge...)
 
In 2005, when I wrote something about our “Independence Day,” I began with a stanza of a song that I learned from the streets during the martial law days entitled, “Huwad Na Kalayaan.” That paragraph asked if there really was freedom in our country when it continues to suffer from economic hardship, where the people, especially the peasants, are at the mercy of what each day brings to them.

Another year has passed. But instead of reaching the goal of escaping from the bondage of poverty, our nation seems to be going further south. Not to mention that the country continues to deal with corruption that saw charges being filed against some of its leaders, and the unending threats of a coup.

The past year also highlighted the mass exodus of our highly-skilled workers and professionals, including nurses and doctors, and when we learned that the latter were also regressing – for the lack of a better word – to become nurses by undergoing another round of medical studies (say, what?) that will enable them to work in the U.S. We all know that Uncle Sam is the number one destination for nurses, but doesn’t readily accept doctors from abroad unless they undergo a series of residency medical studies, or meet a certain criteria, such as working in remote areas where doctors are scarce. So, Filipino doctors do what to many was unthinkable.

Speaking of doctors, the latest survey said they are the number one breadwinners in the U.S., with salaries as much as $181,000 per year or about $15,000 a month. Compare that to about $300 to $800 wage of government doctors in the Philippines, and perhaps double or even triple that amount for doctors in private hospitals. What lures them to become nurses and work in the U.S.? Well, nurses here earn from $6,000 to as much as $10,000 a month. They may have taken an oath to serve the sick and injured, but charity begins at home – not in their homeland but in their own being. They didn’t become doctors to suffer the same fate as the rest of the other Filipino professionals now face.

While the nurses’ salary may not buy them maid service like what they might enjoy in the Philippines, the environment alone forces them to leave for the U.S. Even my colleagues who were supposed to be having a fun time working in the media (journalists enjoy or used to enjoy what the privileged people are accorded with), they also try to use all the means to go and work abroad, and even stay there permanently if allowed (and this author is one of the many who have left the country...for good).

Can we blame them (us)? Or, those who are on the forefront who are supposed to be the vanguard of truth behind the political, social and economic issues? Those who talk directly to the sources who know what’s the real score, what the economic indices portray, and what these same sources are about to launch in the case of destabilizing the government? Sometimes, they know too much that they end up not in a different country, but six feet under the ground as journalists are being gunned down for speaking or writing too much so politicians can maintain status quo – where the wealth of the nation is in the control of chosen few.  

For someone who saw the transition from a dictatorship and the post Marcos period, many, myself included, had hoped that civil liberties will be restored in the Philippines. Newspapers sprouted, radio columnists grew in number and were bolder, and radio stations expanded and established more stations, hence, more journalists were born overnight.

Then came the reality of a transitory government. There have been more political upheavals that followed suit coupled by natural calamities that at first excited most of us in the media. But then covering news became a difficult chore, even for the objective reporters who had to bear endless events of reporting on people’s suffering. It was news all right, but most of the time at the expense of the poor, the hungry and the uneducated.  Freedom is won, I once read...it’s taken, not to be given on a silver platter. 

The “bloodless uprising” of the 1986 EDSA seemed unbelievable at that time as the Marcos period was characterized as a fascist regime, where summary executions were abound, and detention of political enemies were the order of the day. But I have seen more people getting killed in a single event like in the Honasan-led coup in 1987. Many civilians were shot to death because they were snooping (uzi-sero) to find out what the commotion was all about.

And while we try to celebrate the “spirit of EDSA” every February, albeit in dwindling numbers with some of the role players perennially absent, more EDSAs had come and went. Which EDSA would be historical will only be known in the years to come. Hopefully, that year will not be too far away. Not during the time when most of our nurses, doctors, highly-skilled workers and professionals have already gone.(RFL)