By Jack Madrid

Time does fly. I remember writing my last column at the beach last June in the middle of my sabbatical, when I spent most of my time running, playing with my kids and contemplating my next career adventure. It’s now late October, and on my second month as country manager of Yahoo! Philippines. It feels like so much has happened since that balmy June day. Not just to me, but to all of us living in the Philippines.

In the aftermath of Ondoy and the super-typhoons that continue to beset our country, each of us, in our own way, are still mourning the precious lives lost, finding ways to help the suffering and homeless, or just healing our personal wounds and moving on.

It feels unfair and it has been humbling for most of us. Aside from being humbled, it is also important to acknowledge how unprepared the citizens of Manila were. This is an understatement, as everybody was caught off guard: PAGASA, national and local government units, the army, navy and all of us whose job is to be ready to mobilize resources during emergencies. It was the Philippines at its most unorganized self. What made Ondoy different was that this time, it was happening in Manila.

Not Bicol. Not a province in Mindanao or a far-flung area we’ve never been to. It happened in our own backyard, in front of our very eyes. That is probably why it feels different, painful, and more humbling than any calamity in recent memory.
The absence of leadership and accountability from our country’s managers is not a problem that will be solved anytime soon. Our problems are way too big and way too deep. Despite the credentials, track record, legacy and brainpower of the 2010 “presidentiables,” I feel that our issues are more deep-rooted and cultural, for any one person, no matter how competent, honest or well-meaning, to lead us out of.
So the question remains: what do we do about it? Unfortunately, we may not have the answers. What we can attempt to do is to ask some questions, so all of us, leaders and citizens alike, can begin having relevant conversations.

Let’s get back to basics. For starters, let’s consider education. While everyone running for office have said they will “focus on” or “fix” our crumbling education system, nothing substantial gets done. And as the years go by, the competitiveness of Filipinos to vie for both local and global jobs on the higher end of the food chain continues to slip. Even in the BPO arena, one of the economy’s promising sectors in the past decade, the shortage of, and inability to provide the required talent versus demand has placed a cap on growth. Industry sources estimate the talent shortfall to be as much as one million in the next two years. We’re already aware of the key issues: declining English and technical skills. What does that spell? EDUCATION.

What is equally worrisome, and less talked about, is the shortage of management talent, not just in BPO, but in other sectors as well. The flight of talent overseas may partially explain this, but we all know that Filipinos have been limited to mostly entry level, non-executive jobs. Nothing new there.

Another fundamental flaw of our education system is the number of years of schooling of the average Filipino student relative to the rest of the world. While most of the world’s youth attends primary and secondary school for 12 years before university, Filipino students only get 10, or at most, 11 years. One does not even need to have read Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers to know how big a deal this is. The factors involved here, sadly, are mostly economic, given that many parents are pressured to have their children complete schooling as fast as possible, to enable them to get jobs and help support the family financially. As if that was not bad enough, there is also the issue of curriculum quality and teacher accreditation. But those are topics for another day.

On a brighter note, our country’s recent troubles have brought out the strength and resilience of Filipinos.

The Pinoys’ innate kindness, empathy, and incomparable Bayanihan spirit have been in abundance for the world to admire. Even on the grayest of days, we make yellow streaks of sunshine come out. Such is the essence of Filipino optimism and our faith in the future. We try to find a way to overcome our constraints, both natural and self-inflicted. I am proud to be Pinoy.

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