In Kishore Mahbubani’s book, The New Asian Hemisphere, he writes that there are two historical epochs taking place now in the 21st century: One, the end of Western domination. Mahbubani was not the first guy to say this. Roger Cohen of the International Herald Tribune noted it early this year with his article: The end of the era of the white man.
But there is another wave taking place today according to the Singaporean-Indian sage: THE RENAISSANCE OF ASIAN SOCIETIES. It is now the age of “Incredible India,” “Sparkling Korea” and “Malaysia truly Asia.”By 2010, he said, 90% of Phd holding scientists all over the world will now all be in Asia.
And the Philippines?
In the 1950s, the Philippines was the most dynamic economy in Asia - hailed by the World Bank as a future powerhouse. Half a century later the country is, in the words of Rommel Banlaoi, a political-science professor at the National Defense College, "the sick man of Asia“.
A Filipino resident in Singapore reveals that in the National University of Singapore, they are already teaching what the role is of the Philippines in the international community. It is not to produce scientists like India, nor to produce cars like Japan, nor to produce Olympians like China, but to produce DOMESTIC HELPERS for the world.
880,000 Filipinos leave the country every year in pursuit of more gainful employment abroad. They're laying pipelines in Siberia, mining diamonds in Angola and sailing ships in all the world's oceans. They clean thousands of homes a day from Hong Kong to Dubai to London; Bahrain's prime minister employs some 50 Filipinos in his own household (Philippines: Workers for the World, Newsweek, Oct.4, 2006)
• The Philippines is currently the world’s leading exporter of nurses, with 164,000 or 85% of the country’s trained nurses are working abroad, with doctors becoming nurses.
Nowhere is this emerging problem more pressing than in the medical sector. Dr Jaime Galvez-Tan, professor of the University of the Philippines' College of Medicine and a former secretary of the government's Department of Health (DOH), says the Philippines is currently the world's leading exporter of nurses. About 164,000 nurses, or 85% of the country's trained total, are working outside the Philippines. Out of this number, about 100,000 have left the Philippines in the past 10 years.
• About 200 hospitals have recently closed down across the country because of a lack of doctors and nurses with another 800 hospitals considered to be “partially closed” due to the lack of qualified health personnel
• The Filipino youth and students are uneducated, indebted, and hungry:
1 in 10 Filipinos has never gone to school (6.8 million)
1 in 6 Filipinos is not functionally literate (9.6 million)
4.1 million are illiterate
11.6 million youth are out-of-school
51% of Filipinos had at most elementary education
(The State of the Philippine Education, Freedom from Debt Coalition, July 25, 2006)
• Last 2006, the National Career Assessment Examination showed that out of the 1.3 million examinees, only 3.7%, or 49,066 students, are fit to enter college.
• The Philippines is No. 41 in Science and No. 42 in Mathematics among 45 countries.
Until we come to terms with who we are, our identity, our roots and heritage…the rise of Asia will never include the Philippines.
Sources:
Philippines: Workers for the World, Newsweek, Oct.4, 2006
The State of the Philippine Education, Freedom from Debt Coalition, July 25, 2006
Sick Man of Asia, Asia Times Online
Brain Drain Saps the Economy, Asia Times Online
High-school grads advised: Go tech-voc, www.manilatimes.net
Philippine Public Education – A Situationer, Independent Media Center Continue...
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