Recently, Paco, Mira and I, had a brain exercise. Might be brain training too. We had to determine BGN's USP - Unique Selling Point. Trick question? Nope.

So, we were asking ourselves, "What is BGN all about?" What makes it special?

But I guess in order for me to answer the USP question, I asked myself what made me say "yes" in joining BGN.

It was fairly simple - I was one of those growing number (I hope) of young people who wanted to work and improve the Philippines holistically. Be it socio-economics, governance, culture or politics, my dream was to see the Philippines stable and sustainable for its people. People with the likes of Paco are people I automatically gravitate to. It does not help that being an Ateneo graduate fueled that idealism and desire to serve. But really, at the end of the day, my fervent wish is to see my country and my home a better place.

On a macro-economic scale, I'd like to see people decently and fairly employed, having complete and affordable healthcare coverage, roofs over their heads (no more squatter shanties and illegal seizures of land), their children finishing their education and able to eat three times a day, our government institutions transparent and accountable to the citizens served, the fiscal deficit gone, conducive business climates for investments, a clean and preserved environment, affordable utilities, etc., etc.

The microeconomic side, on the other hand, was to have enough, decent income in order to purchase food, pay the bills - household or personal, provide income for those maintaining our house and repairing it, sending the children in our neighborhood to public schools so they can have an education, and making sure that the daily security would ensure our future security.

But aside from the microeconomic reasons which I think any average Filipino or Filipina would be preoccupied with, I was avoiding the obvious choice of going abroad. It was difficult dealing with my mother's frustration: her own children opting to stay here rather than in a foreign country, wherein we could have easily achieved whatever perks we desired in our lives and not worry about what tomorrow may bring. (My mom had several opportunities to pursue a lucrative medical career in the US.)

Perhaps this is where BGN comes in. To help me, us understand why Filipinos opt to go and stay abroad and why the rest opt to return or just stay at home - and maybe even let the ones who went abroad understand our reasons for deciding so.

The definite characteristic BGN possesses which other networking sites don't have is that it is purely driven by Filipinos for Filipinos (though we also have BGN members who are foreigners and are married to Filipinos or Filipinas. In the process they too have been considered Filipinos as they caught the love-for-the-Philippines bug).

The advocacy is clear and simple - gathering highly-educated and highly-trained Filipino professionals to use their brilliance and talent in moving the Philippines to a much more developed and mature nation.

Re-launching the BGN website to [re-]establish connections and make overseas Filipinos feel that they still are part of building a country and a people, who are just as probably as frustrated as they are, is a concrete way. But in spite of the frustration, all of us realize that we stick around because we still have love and compassion for our flawed institutions and communities.

One thing BGN can "exploit" as a medium is to rally on Filipinos abroad to empower the homebound ones in their line of work. Transforming the site into a formal channel for knowledge management prompts it again to pursue fully its mentoring program (which was part of BGN 1.0) - and remind the rest of us who chose to stay the reasons why we opted to stay put or why we decided to return.

The professional and educated ones who stayed, like myself, have probably done - and continuously strive to do - all that we can in serving our country. Part of it is getting advice from foreigners and multilateral agencies on the type of global standards we ought to work for. But the perspective of a Filipino bred on local ground and migrating to another country - or having been expatriated for a while - is entirely something different in the sense that they localize or put into context how Filipinos can adapt and implement measures, attitudes, systems, perspectives the way Filipinos OUGHT to and CAN do in their homes, communities and society. They know and believe in the capabilities of their own brothers and sisters.

Sometimes, it takes a trip out of our own comfort zones to make us appreciate and accept who we are as Filipinos. And the trip does not necessarily have to be outside our borders. Just looking at how we are as a people and learning to transform weaknesses into strengths is a philosophy BGN pushes for - and I think this is the core of it all, i.e. brain drain into BRAIN GAIN.

I don't know how much credit we give to ourselves as a race. But I would like to think that we are in the same league as the Jews and the Chinese. I'm not talking about the diaspora but our qualities, our skills, our talents, our culture, our products, our technologies - these are so rich and so precious that it can surpass (or probably even surpasses) the likes of them. Whether we are abroad or at home, we are brilliant, skilled and talented - and all of these are translated into our Filipino brands and contributions directly and indirectly to our nation.

BGN helps us unify ourselves and care for each other. It brings us together to collaborate and achieve the simple and basic dream every educated, fortunate, skilled and enlightened Filipino holds dear to his or her heart.

It seems that my musings end here - and I think I'm satisfied with my points why I think BGN is unique and special. I probably might encounter some more "Ah ha!" or light bulb moments in answering the USP question (Paco might not be satisfied with what I've written). But for now, I am quite happy with what I came up.