Senator Joel Villanueva on Tuesday appealed to the executive department to clarify its policy on the deployment ban for healthcare workers to avoid confusion among concerned stakeholders.
(Senate of the Philippines / MANILA BULLETIN FILE PHOTO)
The chairperson of the Senate labor committee issued the appeal following the reported offloading of Filipino nurses bound for United Kingdom on Sunday night.
A report by Rappler on Monday said the Bureau of Immigration (BI) prevented seven Filipino nurses from departing the country despite securing their contracts before March 8, although their visas were only issued in July and August because of the lockdowns.
The government suspended last month the deployment of the medical and allied health workers to other countries in an effort to boost the number of medical workforce responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Exemptions were imposed for health workers with perfected and signed work contracts as of March 8, as well as for "Balik-Manggagawa" workers, or those who have been working abroad but are only in the country on vacation.
Villanueva, however, said the BI's recent move "highlights how disjointed this policy is, to the detriment of our own people."
"It is clear that the current policy allows healthcare workers with contracts perfected as of March 8. The date when the visa was issued is not part of the discussion,” he said in a statement.
"The BI’s interpretation of the deployment ban is clearly wrong as seen in its memo issued on Aug. 20, which states that healthcare workers whose visas were issued after March 8 are not allowed outbound travel," he added.
He said the Department of Labor and Employment must "immediately sort out the misunderstanding so that no other healthcare worker suffers the trouble caused by the wrong interpretation of government policies."
Villanueva reiterated his appeal to lift the deployment ban as he explained that most of the affected workers are their families’ breadwinners, or left their jobs to pursue overseas employment, or already spent considerable time and money to train and prepare for deployment.
He also recalled that during the August 25 labor committee hearing, a Department of Health (DOH) official said they projected that country would need 16,500 healthcare workers.
However, only a budget for 10,468 health workers were approved for the emergency hiring program, of which 7,850 slots have been filled up.
“What DOH should do is to make the terms of employment enticing enough for our healthcare workers to consider working for the government. Aside from the low pay and unclear guidelines on the grant of hazard pay, the employment under the emergency hiring program lasts only three months. I don’t think this pandemic will end in the next three months, that’s why the terms should be longer,” Villanueva repeated.