What are we best at?
We constantly hear about how we as a country are the worst, or near the worst, in things like the education performance of our schoolchildren, incidence of child malnutrition and stunting, attractiveness to foreign investments, quality of infrastructure, cost of doing business, source of plastic pollution, proneness to disasters, and many more. But I thought I’d take a respite from all the negativity and depressing talk, especially on how our governance and politics have become rotten to the core, and, at least for a moment, try to look at the bright side. So, for a bit of a morale boost, I asked ChatGPT a straightforward question: “In what things is the Philippines the best in the world?”
It gave me a mix of “serious strengths” and “fun distinctions that show Filipino cultural influence.” Of the former, the top item was how Filipinos are the world’s best in nursing and caregiving talent, with our country ranked as the largest source of foreign nurses worldwide. An estimated 321,000 Filipino nurses were working overseas in 2021, slightly more than half (51 percent) of all licensed Filipino nurses then. Beyond numbers, we also often hear of how our nurses are widely appreciated for the genuine care and concern they give their patients. My only disappointment about this item coming up on top in ChatGPT’s list—not to downplay the vital role our nurses play, and our pride in their dedicated service—is that it wasn’t on higher-level professions like, say, information technology professionals or even medical doctors, who in the past had also been cited as top-notch in the world. Does this imply that our experts in those fields have been overshadowed by others, losing the international preeminence they once enjoyed?
The second item that came up in the “serious strengths” list was our maritime workforce. Our country is cited as the single largest supplier of seafarers in global shipping, making up roughly 20–25 percent of the world’s merchant marine crews. Like our nurses, our seafarers are said to be appreciated for the quality of their work, with a strong reputation for discipline and reliability. The downside is that, rarely, if at all, have we heard of ship captains and higher-level ship officers who are Filipinos. Our compatriots are almost all in the lower-level jobs on the ship, including cooks and janitors.
And then there are our business process outsourcing workers, where we top voice-based customer service worldwide, and are in the top 2 to 3 in the overall BPO sector. Again, it’s not just in the numbers, but in the quality of the workers, where their “neutral English accent and high empathy” are cited as an advantage. Beyond voice, our BPO providers are also higher up the value chain, in finance and accounting, legal processes, health-care information management, and creative services, including game development. The question is how much longer these industries and occupations can flourish in the face of United States President Donald Trump’s professed goal to “bring those jobs back home,” while artificial intelligence also threatens to take over much of those jobs.
Shipbuilding is an industry wherein the Philippines reportedly ranks among the top 4 in the world by tonnage, with China, South Korea, and Japan having somewhat recovered from the closure of the large Hanjin shipyard in 2019. Our competitive strengths here include superior welding skills, low labor cost for highly manual ship construction, and a strong seafaring workforce feeding the ecosystem.
On the “fun distinctions,” topping the list is how we have been the world’s “most social media-active” nation for many years; Filipinos spend more time on social media every day than any other nationality. Before the smartphone era, we were known as the world’s texting capital, with Filipinos sending more text messages than Americans and Europeans combined. Our peculiar SMS culture (featuring unli-text, load retailing, and “pasaload”) supposedly became a globally studied phenomenon.
The Philippines is also described as the “most successful beauty pageant powerhouse of the 21st century,” with multiple wins in the Miss Universe, Miss International, Miss World, and Miss Earth competitions. We are cited as the first country to achieve the rare feat of getting into the Miss Universe semifinals for 10 straight years (2010–2019). And Filipino pageant training camps (I didn’t even know we had them) are now described as the “gold standard,” training contestants from other countries as well. There’s a longer list of other things, like the “world’s leading karaoke/videoke culture,” “world champion in niche sports (e.g., billiards, boxing, e-sports like Mobile Legends: Bang Bang), and skills (e.g., welding).
I started out thinking I’d get a lift from knowing the things we are best at. But now I’m not too sure, given a lot more meaningful and impactful lists I’d rather see ourselves topping.
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cielito.habito@gmail.com
