‘John, who used to be enrolled in Ateneo but had to stop when his OFW father retired prematurely and returned home, told me he felt that in the Philippines it was not enough to work hard to succeed.’
WAS chatting with a Gen-Z’er yesterday and I was struck by a statement he made: the Philippines is for the well-off.
“This is a great country if you have the means to enjoy all that it offers,” my friend, John, intoned. “But it can be a challenge for ordinary people who have to worry about surviving day to day.”
I have recently been able to connect more with a generation young enough to be my kids, and it has been an interesting experience. Admittedly, I was born in a world so different from the world today, and that alone is the reason why our points of view can at times be so divergent. But the differences are also a source of enlightenment both ways and in the process, their perspective of the world is as enriched as mine is.
We both laughed at a meme I saw recently which compared our generations. His is the generation to whom parents say, “If you stop crying, I will give you a reward,” while mine was a generation where parents said, “If you don’t stop crying, I will give you a reason to keep doing so.”
John, who used to be enrolled in Ateneo but had to stop when his OFW father retired prematurely and returned home, told me he felt that in the Philippines it was not enough to work hard to succeed. So many other factors come into play, including family background and connections. In contrast, he is of the belief that in the Middle Eastern country where he lived for a while with his parents, working hard was good enough to succeed once you’ve been identified as a high-potential employee. He thinks there’s more “politics” even in the Philippine corporate environment and without the proper “backing,” hard work is not good enough.
He sees the collective nature of Filipino families as both a positive and a negative, with the negative being more evident the less well-off a family is.
In his mind, certain professions give you a better chance to become well-off: doctors, lawyers, management graduates and engineers. Of course, where you earn your diploma also matters as much. He said it’s the top three schools as Ateneo and UP (interchangeably, he says, depending on the program), then La Salle and UST. In his eyes, going to these schools helps build connections as well as provide their students better training.
Because he was born when his dad was already in his 40s, John is facing challenges his siblings didn’t face as they had been born when their parents were in the prime of their earning capacity and life was good abroad. But he remains hopeful about the future: “I no longer take things for granted” he says, referring to the drastic change in financial circumstances brought about by the retirement of his parents. “I work hard and I know what I want.”
Before we parted, he told me; “You’re right. In the Philippines, it pays to be well-connected, whatever your status is in life. I will keep that in mind.
“The Philippines,” he intoned as he left, “is for the well-connected!”