A FEW days ago, a former graduate student contacted me. His message should have been a source of encouragement.
For many years, I had urged him to pursue doctoral studies. He was among the brightest students I encountered in my teaching career: intelligent, hardworking, articulate, and deeply curious about the world. Yet like many talented Filipinos, his path did not immediately lead to academia.
Before the Covid-19 pandemic, he worked abroad in the entertainment industry, including positions in Hong Kong and Singapore. Through those experiences, he gained firsthand exposure to societies where public services functioned efficiently, institutions appeared predictable, and rules were generally enforced. He could have continued building a successful international career.
Instead, he chose to return.
To my surprise and admiration, he went back to graduate school during the difficult years of the pandemic. He immersed himself in research, completed his doctoral degree, and eventually joined the ranks of university educators.
His decision represented something every developing country hopes to encourage: the return and cultivation of talent. At a time when many skilled Filipinos seek opportunities abroad, he chose to invest his future here.
That is why his words caught me off-guard.
“Professor,” he told me, “I am beginning to give up on this country. If I find a good opportunity abroad, I think I will leave.”
I sat quietly after our conversation ended. I remembered that he had been among those who enthusiastically supported the tandem of Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Sara Duterte during the May 2022 elections. Like many Filipinos, he hoped that the new administration would bring stability, direction and solutions to some of the country’s longstanding challenges.
Yet the political developments that followed — including continuing controversies involving governance, accountability, corruption allegations, political conflicts and institutional disputes — left him increasingly uncertain about the nation’s future.
His disappointment was not unique.
In recent months, I have encountered similar sentiments from ordinary citizens. Community members speak anxiously about public safety. Taxi and ride-hailing drivers share stories of robberies, scams, drug-related activities, and violence that they believe are becoming more common. Others express concern about political conflicts, corruption allegations, and growing divisions among national leaders.
Whether all these perceptions are fully supported by official statistics is an important question for researchers. Social scientists have an obligation to distinguish between perception and empirical reality.
Yet perceptions themselves matter.
People act on what they believe. When citizens feel unsafe, they become more cautious. When they lose confidence in institutions, they become more cynical. When they begin doubting whether public officials are acting in the public interest, trust weakens. And when trust weakens, hope becomes fragile.
The issue, therefore, is not simply whether crime has increased or whether one political group is more responsible than another. It is whether citizens continue to believe that institutions are functioning fairly, competently and independently.
Trust is one of the least visible but most important foundations of development. Roads, bridges, airports and buildings matter, but they cannot substitute for public confidence in institutions.
Citizens must believe that laws apply equally to everyone. They must believe that public resources are used responsibly and that government agencies, courts, legislatures, and local institutions serve the public rather than particular interests.
Most importantly, they must believe that problems can be addressed through lawful and democratic processes. When confidence in these assumptions weakens, something fundamental begins to erode.
The consequences are not always immediately visible. Some citizens withdraw from public life. Others retreat into cynicism. Still others look for opportunities elsewhere. The result is not merely brain drain. It is a gradual weakening of the collective belief that the country’s future can be better than its present.
As an educator, this is what concerns me most.
Every society depends on talented young people willing to invest their knowledge, energy and creativity in the common good. My former student had already experienced life abroad. He knew that other opportunities existed. Yet he chose to return, pursue advanced education, and contribute through teaching and scholarship.
If individuals like him begin questioning whether their efforts matter, we should pay attention.
The challenge before us is, therefore, larger than any single controversy, administration, or political dispute. It is a question of trust.
How do we rebuild confidence in institutions? How do we strengthen the belief that public service still matters? How do we convince citizens that integrity, competence and accountability remain possible?
These are not questions that can be answered with slogans or political rhetoric. Trust is rebuilt slowly. It grows when institutions demonstrate fairness, transparency and consistency. It grows when leaders place the public interest above partisan interests. It grows when citizens see evidence that rules apply equally to the powerful and the powerless alike.
Ultimately, nations are not sustained by fear, nor are they sustained by blind loyalty. They are sustained by trust.
My former student’s words remain with me because they capture a question that many Filipinos may be quietly asking today: not whether the country faces problems — we know that it does — but whether our institutions still possess the capacity to correct those problems and justify the confidence that citizens place in them.
The answer to that question may determine not only whether talented Filipinos stay or leave. It may determine the future of the nation itself.