With each bar exam, the Philippines graduates a good number of topnotchers—faces of hope, all aglow with the radiance of fresh minds. But glance around us: does this radiance find its way to our streets, our courts, our barangays, our fractured systems? It’s as if we are reaping diamonds and dumping them into the sea.
We’ve never been short of minds in this nation. From remote public schools in the mountains to UP Diliman’s echoing lecture halls, we’ve raised thinkers, inventors, writers, analysts, and dreamers—individuals whose brilliance would have bloomed anywhere else in the world. But here, their ideas too often wilt, choked by the dry air of red tape, corruption, and a maddening obsession with hierarchy over substance. The sorry irony is that all our brightest and best end up queuing up at the POEA, diploma conveniently wedged between bags, bound for a country that will happily pay them what they are worth. It’s an unspoken brain drain, a gradual draining away of the nation’s intellectual blood.
What is genius when it cannot shatter walls? What is genius and vision, bounded by a system that stifles initiative except when it promotes individual interests of the mighty? Intelligence cannot displace a culture drenched in pakikisama, utang na loob, and tokenism. Such cultural anchors are fine within close, small community settings, but as a national culture, they devour systems, promote mediocrity to the highest level, and stifle reform. Our wisest tend to be backed into a corner, their thoughts diluted to appease bosses, elders, or the establishment. Blind loyalty usually triumphs in the fight between critical thinking and blind loyalty.
And so, our technologists labor overseas creating intelligent cities for the outside world, while on our ground, traffic weaves around potholes and half-constructed bridges. Our researchers spend their days studying global climate trends for Swedish schools, while our roads flood at the prospect of a raindrop. Our economists consult for foreign banks while our nation’s inflation nibbles dinner plates off regular families’ tables. The message rings clear but soft-whispered: it’s brilliance that’s being invited here, but as ornament, not leadership.
And finally, there is the dark truth of how we choose our leaders. Ivy League degrees, global recognition, and policy expertise come in a distant second to celebrity, name recognition, and slick campaign slogans. Is it worth having a country full of intelligent people if they are led by those who do not like it, or worse, are intimidated by it? We possess technocrats. intellectuals and experts aplenty, yet they are sitting on the sidelines politely and quietly applauding second-rate leaders who can only qualify based on birth or charm. It is not just disappointing—it is a violation of the promise of education itself.
Even in day-to-day life, the Filipino genius is helpless against institutional neglect. Those with Master’s degrees barely manage to eke out their livelihood on wages that cannot even feed a family. Rural health workers understand the science of dengue and malnutrition, but have no means or budgets to implement it. We salute brains but fail to give forums and frameworks for them to be really working in the interest of the greater good. The breakdown of trust in institutions is not because people are dumb—it is because people are intelligent enough to notice the rot and the pointlessness of fighting against it.
But maybe the more profound tragedy is how such genius becomes resigned. Filipinos are not stupid; we know what is occurring. And yet, so many brilliant minds opt out to achieve personal victory rather than repair public defeat. It’s survival. And who can blame them? But when the brightest minds no longer dream for the nation, the soul of the nation loses its shine, and we are left with brilliance for itself alone. A country without a shared purpose is a lost country, no matter how many diplomas it possesses.
Yet I think there is a way out—and not in producing more brilliant minds but in creating systems where brilliance can breathe, move, and lead. We must unshackle intelligence from the ivory tower and let it flow into city halls, classrooms, rural farms, and barangay health centers. Brilliance is not quantifiable in board examination marks and Latin honors but in its ability to agitate the stagnant, deconstruct the corrupt, and elevate the masses. That, in my opinion, is the only brilliance worth celebrating.
