I was a teenager when I set my sights on a multimillion dollar life.

Thanks to a little MTV show which toured us regular folks through celebrities’ mansions, my eyes coveted the fancy sports cars, infinity pools, personal movie theaters and gyms, and five-star hotel suites that celebrities enjoyed in the comfort of their own homes.

Ah yes, the rich life. I could almost imagine myself: “Inday, yung Chedeng paki-linis lang, ah!”

To which Inday would reply: “Ma’am, alin po sa tatlo?”

And so I dreamt. Even when I wasn’t sleeping, I dreamt. This caused quite a few blanks in my school notes, which in hindsight I figure weren’t that important, since I still graduated anyway.

That time, I had envisioned myself getting rich by earning six-figure salaries in a company abroad as someone important. I hadn’t yet thought of the kind of work I wanted to do. All I believed was that I wouldn’t strike it rich earning pesos, unless I married the scion of a wealthy family. That was Plan B.

I wanted to leave the country for a better life. Not that my life here was lacking. On the contrary, my parents made sure I lacked nothing essential growing up. Yes, I was underweight for most of my younger years, but that didn’t mean our fridge wasn’t stocked with food every week. I had a good education, had nice clothes, I didn’t have to commute to get to places. Admittedly, I lived a very good life, well above what most Filipinos have to go through everyday.

It was just…I wanted more.

Needless to say, that was a very greedy ideal. I blamed MTV and media for parading the stars’ luxuries in all their technicolor glory, making my good life seem not good enough.

As I grew older, and ostensibly more mature, bits and pieces of the ‘’real life’’ hit me on the head hard enough to knock some sense into me. I realized I preferred warmer climates and speaking in Tagalog. Okay, fine, Taglish. That, and other, more important things (“After giving you the best education, would you let another country benefit from your talents?”) gave me the mindset of wanting to remain in the country. It also helped that the “brain drain” phenomenon was becoming a crucial issue in the Philippines.

BRAIN DRAIN AND APATHY

My superior once told me an interesting relationship between brain drain and apathy among the middle class.

In the Philippines, he said, there is a sizeable gap between the elite rich who run the country and the poor masses who crawl in garbage dumps. The middle class are busy trying to keep their heads above water and maintain their relatively comfortable lives, and should worse come to worst, they can always opt to seek greener pastures abroad. The middle class, according to my superior, has an escape hatch in case things don’t work out the way they had hoped it would.

I find it weird, though, that the people who both hope for a better future and have the capacity to actually turn that hope into reality are the ones busy with their own lives and leave the country.

Wait a minute, let’s run through that again. The elite rich arguably already have the best future in the Philippines, so they have no need to hope for a better one. Unless, you know, they never outgrew their greedy ideal when they were teenagers dreaming of Beemers and mansions in Beverly Hills. In that case, they haven’t matured enough to be able to transform a whole nation for the better.

On the other side of the spectrum are the masses, making up a huge chunk of the population. They hope for better lives so badly, but are unable to do much beyond taking on minimum wage jobs or worse, begging.

Now, I’m all for earning a sufficient income for my future. Let’s face it, raising a family in the modern age requires a stable income from one or both parents. And a stable income that could give a good life to a family of four or five is getting harder and harder to come by, what with economic crises and screwed-up government officials sucking the national treasury dry.

So given that we have this screwed-up government not functioning to enhance the interests of its constituents, perhaps the path to riches lies in electing good leaders next year.

No, really? Aren’t working hard and good financial sense the keys to becoming rich?

Maybe so, but if our country remains Third World, with half the population wallowing in self-pity like a jilted lover, while the elite rich remain in control of most of the country’s income and the middle class trickle out of the country, then a good head for money and diligence will not be enough to live a truly comfortable life.

If the government fails to do its job well, even a family earning enough will still have difficulties. Traffic jams, failure of disaster reduction and management programs, inefficient government services
— all of these can affect even the wealthy. It is under a strong and moral leadership that hard workers will get their just reward.

Think of the opportunities that can be available for more people if the Philippines became a First World country! Affordable quality education for every kid, numerous job opportunities that will utilize and enhance one’s skills and abilities, food sufficiency, the chance for the Philippines to be included in one of those ominous lists that enumerate the Countries to See Before You Choke on a Seed and Die.

Imagine Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie buying a house in Palawan, or Steven Spielberg filming a possible blockbuster hit in Pagudpod.

These dreams are not impossible, if only we realize that becoming rich requires more than just working hard, and doesn’t have to entail leaving the country. Remitting dollars from abroad is only a short-term response to poverty. The long-term effect demands that we get to the root of the problem. It’s harder, and will take longer, but the results are more than worth it.

Who wants to be a millionaire? I do, and that’s why I’m staying here.

Karla Pastores is currently working at the Ateneo School of Government and is one of the founders of the Kaya Natin! Movement for Good Governance and Ethical Leadership. Comments are welcome at kai.pastores@yahoo.com