Replaying Frank Lynch
Replaying Frank Lynch
Posted 00:52am (Mla time) Jan 21, 2005
By Michael Tan
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A15 of the January 21, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
BRAIN drain. Folk Catholicism. "Big and little people." Fiestas. Family planning and the Catholic Church. These are some of the topics in "Philippine Society and the Individual," a collection of essays by Fr. Frank Lynch and his colleagues at the Ateneo Institute of Philippine Culture (IPC), many of which were written in the 1960s and 1970s.
Yet, the anthology, edited by Aram Yengoyan and Perla Makil, with an introduction by Mary Racelis, reminds us that "burning issues" aren't necessarily current events; in fact, the most pressing of these burning issues often need retrospectives such as those that we can derive from "Philippine Society and the Individual."
I'll demonstrate this by focusing on the insights generated in the book around two particular issues-brain drain and family planning-which continue to be among our most urgent concerns as a nation.
Brain drain
The essay on brain drain was written by Walden Bello, Frank Lynch and Perla Makil and first appeared as an IPC paper in 1969, mainly to summarize a "Philippine Brain Drain Survey." Brain drain is described as "a ubiquitous thorn in the relations between the privileged nations and the underprivileged..." with an amazing reference to a noted British scientist, Lord Bowden, describing the repercussions this way: "It is beginning to be a fact that fields in India will remain uncultivated in order that America may put a man on the moon."
Lord Bowden was referring to India's brain drain but we, too, were also suffering in the Philippines. We learn that as early as 1966, there were 2,474 Filipino resident doctors in the United States, constituting a fourth of foreign residents in American hospitals ... while back home, even in Manila, our physician-population ratio was 1:671 and in rural areas it was 1 doctor for nearly 5,000 people.
Bello, Lynch and Makil warned us, that early, that the brain drain would affect the way we would develop. They were using an older framework of development as a "take-off" process, and felt that brain drain would prevent us from even taking off.
The essay goes into lengthy discussions of US and Philippine foreign policy as well as development strategies but what struck me was the data the researchers gathered around our educational system and brain drain.
We learn that of all Filipinos who graduated from Philippine colleges, about 7 percent eventually took up permanent residence abroad. Now that's real brain drain. And who contributed most to this brain drain? Adamson University, Ateneo de Naga, University of Santo Tomas, University of the Philippines and De La Salle. Schools with "medium emigration ratios" were Mapua, Ateneo de Manila, College of the Holy Spirit, San Beda and St. Theresa's.
That early, our government planners and educators should have seriously looked into what it was in our educational system, especially in those high emigration ratio schools, and especially at UP, that produced Filipinos for export. Remember the brain drain then was literal because the ones who left were professionals, many scientists and health professionals who could have spelled a difference in our development trajectory.
One could argue that these schools produced Filipinos for export because they were excellent schools. Sure, but we could have looked too at other good schools named in the essay as having low emigration ratios, including for example Maryknoll, Far Eastern University, Philippine Women's University and Silliman to see if their curricula were factors that encouraged graduates to stay and serve the Philippines.
The IPC paper described the brain drain then as "moderately serious," and noted optimistically that among the most academically gifted Filipinos, "the tendency to return is most pronounced." I leave it to readers to decide if this happened.
Family planning
Another essay in the anthology was written by Father Lynch with the intriguing title, "The Catholic Church: Philippines' Silent Partner in Population Control." Let me say I dislike that term "population control" but the essay was written in 1976, before people began to wonder if we were really after population control or family planning.
What's important though is that Father Lynch cites several surveys done in 1967, 1970 and 1971 to show that disapproval of family planning was not really tied to "closeness" to the Catholic Church (measured by such indicators as attendance at a Catholic school, attendance at Sunday Mass, etc.) In the 1970 survey, involving 897 Catholics, 65 percent approved of family planning and again the differences in views were not connected to "closeness" to the church as described above.
In the 1972 survey, involving 649 Catholics, 76 percent approved of family planning, with additional indicators used here, specifically an "orthodox-morality scale," meaning views about a mother's failure to have her infant baptized, eating meat on a Friday in Lent (a mortal sin, if I remember right, at that time!), etc. Again, there was no difference in moral orthodoxy between those who approved and disapproved of family planning.
Again, I suspect the past is present, that if we replicated these studies we would have similar figures today. Certainly, more recent public opinion surveys from Pulse Asia and Social Weather Stations show that Filipino Catholics are following their personal conscience about family planning. The problem though is that conservative Catholic leaders do pressure politicians to distance themselves from family planning.
Interestingly enough, Father Lynch felt that the high approval rates for family planning among Filipino Catholics at that time was due to the Catholic Church's position being one of laissez-faire, meaning letting things be, rather than actively campaigning against family planning. Even more astounding was his recommendation that Catholic bishops and priests should "speak out openly and often against the false morality of those who extol large families and abandonment to Divine Providence as prima facie evidence of supreme virtue."
We know what happened since then, a triumph of that false morality that Father Lynch spoke against. Alas, too often, brilliant minds like Father Lynch were prophets in the wilderness.
I've given only a small sample of what's in "Philippine Society and the Individual" and hope readers will pick up their own copies or order one for their company or school library. And if you do get a copy, read Father Lynch's essay on intellectuals, whom he defines as people who would be "reasonable, truth-hungry, open to new ideas and capable of integrating them with the old, concerned about the things that will always matter to man, including the right use of power and wealth but not his own amassing of them."
That was Father Lynch's definition of a "true intellectual," in an essay written in 1966. Yet the definition has become even more relevant to the country in the 21st century. I hope, for our country's sake, that intellectuals are not doomed to become lonely voices in the desert.
Posted 00:52am (Mla time) Jan 21, 2005
By Michael Tan
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A15 of the January 21, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
BRAIN drain. Folk Catholicism. "Big and little people." Fiestas. Family planning and the Catholic Church. These are some of the topics in "Philippine Society and the Individual," a collection of essays by Fr. Frank Lynch and his colleagues at the Ateneo Institute of Philippine Culture (IPC), many of which were written in the 1960s and 1970s.
Yet, the anthology, edited by Aram Yengoyan and Perla Makil, with an introduction by Mary Racelis, reminds us that "burning issues" aren't necessarily current events; in fact, the most pressing of these burning issues often need retrospectives such as those that we can derive from "Philippine Society and the Individual."
I'll demonstrate this by focusing on the insights generated in the book around two particular issues-brain drain and family planning-which continue to be among our most urgent concerns as a nation.
Brain drain
The essay on brain drain was written by Walden Bello, Frank Lynch and Perla Makil and first appeared as an IPC paper in 1969, mainly to summarize a "Philippine Brain Drain Survey." Brain drain is described as "a ubiquitous thorn in the relations between the privileged nations and the underprivileged..." with an amazing reference to a noted British scientist, Lord Bowden, describing the repercussions this way: "It is beginning to be a fact that fields in India will remain uncultivated in order that America may put a man on the moon."
Lord Bowden was referring to India's brain drain but we, too, were also suffering in the Philippines. We learn that as early as 1966, there were 2,474 Filipino resident doctors in the United States, constituting a fourth of foreign residents in American hospitals ... while back home, even in Manila, our physician-population ratio was 1:671 and in rural areas it was 1 doctor for nearly 5,000 people.
Bello, Lynch and Makil warned us, that early, that the brain drain would affect the way we would develop. They were using an older framework of development as a "take-off" process, and felt that brain drain would prevent us from even taking off.
The essay goes into lengthy discussions of US and Philippine foreign policy as well as development strategies but what struck me was the data the researchers gathered around our educational system and brain drain.
We learn that of all Filipinos who graduated from Philippine colleges, about 7 percent eventually took up permanent residence abroad. Now that's real brain drain. And who contributed most to this brain drain? Adamson University, Ateneo de Naga, University of Santo Tomas, University of the Philippines and De La Salle. Schools with "medium emigration ratios" were Mapua, Ateneo de Manila, College of the Holy Spirit, San Beda and St. Theresa's.
That early, our government planners and educators should have seriously looked into what it was in our educational system, especially in those high emigration ratio schools, and especially at UP, that produced Filipinos for export. Remember the brain drain then was literal because the ones who left were professionals, many scientists and health professionals who could have spelled a difference in our development trajectory.
One could argue that these schools produced Filipinos for export because they were excellent schools. Sure, but we could have looked too at other good schools named in the essay as having low emigration ratios, including for example Maryknoll, Far Eastern University, Philippine Women's University and Silliman to see if their curricula were factors that encouraged graduates to stay and serve the Philippines.
The IPC paper described the brain drain then as "moderately serious," and noted optimistically that among the most academically gifted Filipinos, "the tendency to return is most pronounced." I leave it to readers to decide if this happened.
Family planning
Another essay in the anthology was written by Father Lynch with the intriguing title, "The Catholic Church: Philippines' Silent Partner in Population Control." Let me say I dislike that term "population control" but the essay was written in 1976, before people began to wonder if we were really after population control or family planning.
What's important though is that Father Lynch cites several surveys done in 1967, 1970 and 1971 to show that disapproval of family planning was not really tied to "closeness" to the Catholic Church (measured by such indicators as attendance at a Catholic school, attendance at Sunday Mass, etc.) In the 1970 survey, involving 897 Catholics, 65 percent approved of family planning and again the differences in views were not connected to "closeness" to the church as described above.
In the 1972 survey, involving 649 Catholics, 76 percent approved of family planning, with additional indicators used here, specifically an "orthodox-morality scale," meaning views about a mother's failure to have her infant baptized, eating meat on a Friday in Lent (a mortal sin, if I remember right, at that time!), etc. Again, there was no difference in moral orthodoxy between those who approved and disapproved of family planning.
Again, I suspect the past is present, that if we replicated these studies we would have similar figures today. Certainly, more recent public opinion surveys from Pulse Asia and Social Weather Stations show that Filipino Catholics are following their personal conscience about family planning. The problem though is that conservative Catholic leaders do pressure politicians to distance themselves from family planning.
Interestingly enough, Father Lynch felt that the high approval rates for family planning among Filipino Catholics at that time was due to the Catholic Church's position being one of laissez-faire, meaning letting things be, rather than actively campaigning against family planning. Even more astounding was his recommendation that Catholic bishops and priests should "speak out openly and often against the false morality of those who extol large families and abandonment to Divine Providence as prima facie evidence of supreme virtue."
We know what happened since then, a triumph of that false morality that Father Lynch spoke against. Alas, too often, brilliant minds like Father Lynch were prophets in the wilderness.
I've given only a small sample of what's in "Philippine Society and the Individual" and hope readers will pick up their own copies or order one for their company or school library. And if you do get a copy, read Father Lynch's essay on intellectuals, whom he defines as people who would be "reasonable, truth-hungry, open to new ideas and capable of integrating them with the old, concerned about the things that will always matter to man, including the right use of power and wealth but not his own amassing of them."
That was Father Lynch's definition of a "true intellectual," in an essay written in 1966. Yet the definition has become even more relevant to the country in the 21st century. I hope, for our country's sake, that intellectuals are not doomed to become lonely voices in the desert.
posted by Dante at 12:52 AM
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