The Philippine government has given the go-ahead to Filipino healthcare workers with existing overseas employment contracts to leave for their posts, ending anxious days for OFWs stranded at home at COVID-19.
Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles said Tuesday the Duterte administration was exempting those with prevailing commitments in other countries from an ongoing deployment ban.
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All Filipino healthcare workers with perfected and signed overseas employment contracts as of March 8, will be allowed to depart the country as agreed on by the government's inter-agency task force on the coronavirus response, Nograles said.
Departing healthcare workers just have to sign a declaration signifying their knowledge of the risks involved in traveling overseas, Nograles added.
The development followed complaints about a memorandum issued by the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration suspending the deployment of doctors, nurses, and healthcare workers abroad in the hope of preserving the local frontline force against the pandemic.
READ: Amid COVID, POEA sets temporary ban on PH health workers going abroad
President Rodrigo Duterte has partly blamed the United States for the shortage of medical and health workers in the country, saying Washington is persuading hundreds of Filipino nurses to work thereby easing visa requirements to help Americans fight the deadly virus.
In his late-night speech, President Duterte said despite a deployment ban against overseas Filipino health workers, hundreds of Filipino nurses were seeking higher pay and preferring to work abroad amid the coronavirus outbreak.
READ: Duterte: No end in sight for lockdown
In a related development, Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. on Tuesday said the government would allow nurses and other medical workers with existing contracts to work abroad to leave.
Locsin made the statement after the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration earlier issued a directive imposing a deployment ban on health care workers abroad amid the pandemic.
"Done. Nurses, other health workers with existing contracts of work abroad can leave," Locsin said, in a Twitter post.
"Future applications frozen until further notice provided all our 450,000+ nurses—exceeding by 250,000 ideal WHO ratio of people-to-nurses—must be given employment," the country’s top diplomat added.
READ: DFA, POEA still fight over right to travel
Duterte said he could not blame Filipino nurses for leaving the Philippines to seek better pay for their work, but requested them to stay in the country to help treat the increasing number of coronavirus cases.
According to the latest official figures, the number of confirmed cases had risen to 5,223; dead 335; and recovered 295.
The figures contrast with the number worldwide: 1,920,918 confirmed cases; 119,686 dead; and 453,289 recovered.
“This is the problem now. America is part of the problem of the Filipinos now. Because there are many of them infected by the virus, and many of them are dying, they need nurses. They are convincing Filipino medical workers and nurses to go to embassy, process their visa in one day and fly the following day,” the President said.
There was no immediately available comment from the US Embassy in Manila.
Duterte said that from the 200 COVID cases in January, the number had ballooned to—at the time the speech was delivered —4,932 cases and 315 deaths.
He said the Philippines was now second in Southeast Asia with a big number of fatalities behind Indonesia with 373 deaths; Malaysia , 76; Thailand, 40; Singapore, 8; Vietnam, 0; Brunei, 1; Cambodia, 0; Myanmar, 4; Laos, 0.
“In one day, America had death toll — about 1,000, yesterday… of 2,000 today? Yesterday? Now they need nurses,” he said.
It was not clear if Duterte approved or rejected the resolution of the Inter-Agency Task Force on the coronavirus to allow health workers with existing contracts to leave the country for work abroad.
Earlier on Monday, both Teodoro Locsin Jr. and Presidential Spokesman Salvador Panelo announced that the IATF adopted a resolution easing restrictions on the deployment ban against health workers, though this was still up for Duterte’s approval.
According to Locsin, Secretaries Salvador Panelo and Hermogenes Esperon Jr. backed the lifting of the travel ban against medical workers who have an existing valid contract to work overseas.
Locsin earlier scored the deployment ban, saying it was a violation of the rights to travel and non-impairment of contracts.
Panelo earlier said the decision to reconsider the temporary deployment ban arrived at Monday during the meeting of the IATF for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases.
Meanwhile, an official of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines said the Overseas Filipino Workers, particularly those in the medical and health sector, were the Philippines' contribution to the global fight against the pandemic.
“Those who have worked abroad and continuing because of their previous contracts are now our contribution for care, healing and cure to the world affected by this COVID-19 pandemic,” Bishop Ruperto Santos, vice chairman of the CBCP-Episcopal Commission on Migrants and Itinerant Peoples’ in an interview Monday.
He said OFWs who have existing contracts should be allowed to work in their host countries.
Santos added the temporary deployment suspension should be imposed on new health workers.
At the same time, IATF-EID has established the Sub-Task Unit for the repatriation of overseas Filipino workers amid the pandemic.
In a virtual presser on Tuesday, Cabinet secretary and IATF-EID spokesperson Karlo Nograles said the STU would be under the National Task Force Task Group on Response Operations.
He added the STU would facilitate the quarantine requirement of all repatriated OFWs, whether sea-based or land-based.
The STU will be composed of the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration as chair, and the Departments of Labor and Employment, Health, Foreign Affairs, Interior and Local Government, Tourism, and Transportation as members.
Members of the sub-task unit also include the Philippine National Police, the Philippine Coast Guard, the Bureau of Quarantine, and such other agencies as may be determined by the National Task Force against COVID-19.