Frustration

If I had a time machine, I would use it to go back five years from the present. That would bring me to 2007, when I graduated from high school.

At that time, I was already thinking of taking a course that would bring me a stable future. Of one thing I was certain: I would not take the “wrong” course. Never would I do that, for then I would be placing myself in the ranks of unemployable graduates. Instead, I would take a course that would land me a well-paying job. I would not take glamorous courses that government officials and leaders of business and industry discourage students from taking.

This is not to disappoint my teachers or insult my alma mater for the learning they imparted to me. This is not to dishearten my parents after all the sacrifices they made so that they could give me my allowance. This is not to ignore the privilege of having the full benefits of having good parents who sent their son to school. This is not to betray my classmates who were with me through struggles and hardships and with whom I had forged the commitment never to back out of our chosen course but to continue and finish it. And this is not to disregard the risk that our school guard took when he would let me in even without my school ID. Such tolerance could have resulted in the termination of his employment had school officials learned about it.

Instead this is an effort to correct myself after taking a course which has proved to have very little value in the labor market. Executives and professionals who are already in the profession I aspired to join might knock me for this. Others may get the wrong impression and say I probably lack the P elements: purpose, perseverance and patience. Or that I lack “diskarte” or that I am really stupid after all.

I beg to disagree. I have done all the things expected of me, from hand-carrying my application to various offices to surfing the Internet and posting my curriculum vitae on the web for prospective employers. But all I got was silence and not even a sign that anybody read my job application.

To be honest, years before I entered college, I was brainwashed into believing that “passion” should prevail in choosing one’s career. My high school teachers in my hometown kept reminding us that we should take courses for which we had the most passion. And my parents agreed, convincing me to prepare for a career I felt passionate about.

I did not realize the urgency of finding employment after graduation and that the longer one remains unemployed, the dimmer one’s chances of getting a job, except of course for those new graduates who have more in life and live in abundance. I did not even consider the possibility that I might become a burden to the government.

Last year, just hours before I went up the stage to receive my diploma from Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago, who was the guest speaker during our commencement exercises, I had no idea that I risked my future by taking a course that does not open the door to financial abundance and security. Months later now, my perspective has changed.

Believe me, passion can profit you nothing in the year 2011 and beyond. It will not help you get employed or better prepared to meet the demands of the labor market. Well, you might find a job but it would not be in a progressive company and in a booming industry filled with inspiring employers. And your wage will not allow you to catch up with the risings prices of food and other basic commodities.

Perhaps I should consider myself lucky that I am earning a little from some part-time jobs. But I find it quite frustrating to be outside the workplace I have wished to be inside, more than a year after my graduation. I have some friends who finished nursing who have the same predicament.

Some of my classmates are now working in call centers and other BPO firms, malls or lending companies. Some of them cannot even be said to hold regular jobs. Economists and labor experts refer to this regrettable situation as a job mismatch.

If a time machine was available in 2007 and I had the chance to travel to the future and learned that in the present year I would remain unemployed because of the course I took, I would definitely have changed it and taken a better one, something that conformed with the government’s national development plans and what most employers need. I would have changed my plans and adapted it to the economic conditions and circumstances.

If I had that time machine, who knows, I might have decided to become a boxer like Manny Pacquiao, seeing how it enabled the boxing icon to enjoy fame and a life of luxury. Or I could have convinced my parents to shun the candidates in the May 14, 2007 elections who promised to provide more jobs and employment opportunities to millions of jobless Filipinos, but have since failed to deliver anything worthwhile to Filipino workers.

Alvin P. Cardines, 20, is an AB communication graduate and a sophomore at the Leyte College’s College of Law.