History has shown time and again how important nationalistic fervor is through the Philippines’ past struggles. In the nation’s battle for freedom for example, it was nationalism that encouraged its people to fight for independence (Nigos, B2+). It was also this same phenomenon that pushed them to ask for reforms as with the case of the Ilustrados and the Propaganda Movement of 1872, as well as of Bonifacio and the KKK in year 1892. This fervor, however, isn’t as strong as it was in the past. In this day and age, waning nationalism is apparent in the general actions and predilections of Filipinos and more importantly, it proves to be detrimental to the state of life in the Philippines. This research paper, therefore, aims to prove that such a problem is being experienced in the Philippines, as well as show the probable causes of this problem. What is nationalism? Nationalism, John …show more content…
As previously mentioned, a lack of nationalism causes more Filipinos – including laborers and workers – to leave the country. This occurrence is felt greatest in the health care and medicine departments. In a span of 5 years, from 2002-2007, more than 200 hospitals were forced to shut down operations because of the deficiency of doctors since most of them left for higher-paying jobs abroad. Another research states that, in recent years, more than 1/10 of the 2,500 (refer to Figure 4) hospitals in the Philippines were compelled to close because of this same problem (Purgill, 2010). Figure 4. Moreover, since more than 2,000 Filipino doctors leave the country each year, the doctor-patient ratio rose to 1:28,000 and over 120 municipalities are left without doctors (Purgill, 2010). Shockingly, the doctor-patient ratio in the countries that these Filipino doctors fly to such as the United States and the United Kingdom already have a doctor-patient ratio of on average 1:450 (Weigley, et al., 2012) and 1:400 (Parry, 2014)