Wow...Philippines!

Dreams - these drive men to live, move forward and be happy. Do I have one? Nope. I don’t have one – I have a dozen of them stuck in my head. I remember my first dream. It was 20 years ago when somebody gave me one. It is what we call the “when-I-grow-up” dream, the dream we had to spurt out to move on from being a preparatory student to an elementary student. I wanted to be a doctor back then without even knowing the real responsibilities of being one. Now that I am older and hopefully wiser, I have not reached even the first step of being a doctor. But I have developed dreams on my own or at least dreams of my own formula. Sometimes, the fear of not achieving my dreams clouds my head. But I just flip the idea and think of finding, clearing and walking the path to those dreams.

I am currently working in a family retail bookstore and I have talked to a lot of our customers to this date. And among high school students, majority of them dreams of becoming a nurse or a caregiver. Their claims for the said profession are not about how interesting it is for them or beneficial it is for the country, but they choose and aim for the profession’s enormous monetary gains in the long run. The more striking idea here is that these future leaders’ dreams are spoon-fed - pre-formulated dreams that have no personal connection to the dreamer. Their parents, or the party who will pay for their studies, force them to take up these highly in-demand courses abroad. Quite a lot of elementary students on the other hand, are well trained in dancing and singing skills. Their parents enthusiastically show off their children’s skills to us impromptu. From the sexy “Spaghetti” tune to the slow-rock theme song of “Panday”, these children happily oblige to their parents requests for amusement. The parents will then take all the glory for having such wonderful and talented kids from us, the audience. It is not bad to teach our children how to dance and sing, or to preach about the greener pasture outside, but Filipino parents tend to overemphasize these to their children and ignore the value of intellectual competency and national stability. This is very alarming. If this trend continues, then the Philippines will be the nursing and entertainment supplier of the world. The country’s economy will be in big trouble. There will be shortage or a zero number of skilled workers for manufacturing, retail businesses, science and technology. There will also be a lesser number of entrepreneurs who will help provide opportunities for the remaining skilled workers. Currently, a number of middle managers are also being pirated by foreign countries thus leaving company operations in slow-mo situation. But what disturbs me most is the fact that majority of Filipino youth are not given the chance to live their own dreams, their own dream formula. Without these dreams, they’ll end up unmotivated, unsatisfied and stubborn citizens of this country.

This is not my Filipino dream. I do not see myself dying in an old world country. I am dreaming of a Garci-free Philippines. A full-grown economic tiger Philippines is also a great idea where Filipinos won’t have to leave and live in other civilizations. And I dream of other nationals working here in our country instead. Definitely, a 100% literateP hilippines is one great dream I have for this “little sleeping giant”. With great intellectuals in the country, we won’t have to depend that much on other countries for technology and advancement. We can’t just leave Nationalism behind. We need this social-hormone activated before working on our projects. Nationalism will keep us Filipinos determined in living up our dreams without sacrificing our country’s own. Whew! These are quite a lot of dreams for me. And don’t fret, there’s more in my mind. These dreams keep me motivated. We Filipinos must have our own dreams. Filipino dreams coupled with nationalism will not only satisfy our personal goals and aspirations but will also sustain our country’s development and progress. Someday I hope of seeing our dreams fulfilled no matter how crazy these dreams are. Just hoping to see them is 1% short of achieving them. We may never realize it, but while we are busy doing our jobs and working on our dreams, these seem to be just an arms length away. We need to keep these dreams coming, dreams that aren’t pre-formulated but personalized ones. The more dreams we have (dreams that are backed by nationalism), the more hopes we have for this country. The Philippines is a gifted country. We have all the necessary resources from fruits to gold. We have our annual rainy season that allows us to grow rice. We live in a tropical country where we don’t have to save and plan for the cold winter. Filipinos are given all the necessary elements to live and progress, but there is one thing that we can’t dream of but we all have to give – sipag or hard work. If we all dream and work hard for this country, we can be one of the world’s best. Yes. I dream.