On
April 26, the last batch of graduates received their diplomas
and certificates from the University of the Philippines (UP).
Traditionally, UP is the last to hold its rites. All the other
schools send off their graduates a month earlier.
What lies ahead for the university
graduate at this time of global economic and financial crises?
This year 900,000 young people graduated from universities
and colleges. While a number of them will prepare for the
licensure examinations or go on to higher studies and graduate
school, most will likely look for jobs.
During the Recognition Day rites of
the College of Social Science and Philosophy (CSSP) of UP,
I asked the graduating class if there is a role for them at
this time. The CSSP is the largest college in the university.
It includes the disciplines of philosophy, political science,
history, sociology, anthropology, geography, linguistics and
population studies. What kinds of jobs await the eager social
scientist and iskolar ng bayan?
The government has been announcing
thousands of job openings. It has held job fairs all over
the country. The President herself has been circumnavigating
the globe, purportedly to negotiate contracts which will create
jobs for our unemployed.
The biggest increase in budgetary allotments
for 2009 is for the Department of Public Works and Highways.
This is for an additional increase of P20 billion worth of
job-creating infrastructure projects for 2009 on top of last
year’s budget.
The President has reported that there
are 500,000 job openings, mainly for construction workers
in the Middle East. The Comprehensive Livelihood and Emergency
Employment Program is for the building of roads, irrigation
systems and school buildings. The Department of Agriculture
expects to generate 53,000 jobs for the construction of at
least 2,000 kilometers of farm-to-market roads. The Philippine
National Police is recruiting 7,000 new cops. And the Armed
Forces of the Philippines intends to recruit 6,700 personnel.
The government also plans to field
50,000 “green-collar workers” to do “regreening”
tasks. They will regenerate mangrove forests, clean up coastal
areas, plant jatropha and coconut seedlings, retrofit jeepneys
and tricycles and build bicycle lanes.
True, jobs are desperately needed at
this time. Every job which is created is welcome. However,
what is noticeable is that these jobs, noble as they are,
require skills other than those of a university graduate.
The university graduate who wants to go into welding, carpentry
and operation of heavy equipment needs more training. I jokingly
remarked to the graduating social-science students that if
they want to get a job shoveling gravel, they should practice
lifting heavy shovels and hammers instead of spending time
at the gym.
In January 2009, 18.3 percent of the
unemployed were college graduates. Obviously, available jobs
do not match the supply of professional skills.
Does it mean that there is no place
in the job market for the trained social scientist at a time
of great crisis? There is a great deal of work to do in the
country and the rest of the world, but not enough jobs. The
Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the Pacific reports
that the region is in the grip of a triple crisis—economic
and financial, food and fuel prices, and climate change. I
say we also have a political and governance crisis.
We need those trained in the social
sciences to help us understand the roots of these crises.
The social sciences can help explain the nature of greed,
which drives individuals and societies to self-destruction.
Many questions cannot be answered by principles of finance
but by studies on history, sociology and even anthropology.
The present economic crisis is not
only a question of crafting stimulus packages. Social scientists
can help us understand the human, as well as societal, dimensions
of this terrible disaster. Our food shortages cannot be solved
by technology alone. We need to understand why more Filipinos
refuse to grow food and prefer that it be just imported.
As for graft and corruption, it is
not a mere question of implementing laws, of which we have
too many. It is also a question of why and how corruption
occurs, and what solutions will work in our society.
It is our tragedy as a country that
at a time we need them, we don’t have room for social
scientists. Time for them to learn welding and construction.
