Months from now, the Philippines is projected to reach its healthcare workers overseas deployment limit for the year, prompting discussions whether or not to expand the ceiling.

Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) Administrator Bernard Olalia bared Wednesday, March 24, that the country was able to deploy almost 3,000 healthcare workers (HCWs) to foreign countries since January 2021.

If this trend continues, the country will soon reach its 5,000 deployment ceiling of HCWs for the year.

“Kung titingnan natin yung ating data, January to February, mahigit dalawang libo na, umpisa pa lang ng taon ‘yan. So itong first quarter natin malamang ito aabot talaga ng tatlong libo ang made-deploy nating HCWs at halos aabutin na natin ang ceiling (If we look at the data, from January to February, almost 2,000 were deployed and that’s just early in the year. So, we are expecting that we will hit 3,000 deployment of HCWs within the first quarter and will almost reach the ceiling),” Olalia said during a virtual press briefing.

“So our projection is by second quarter, we will already reach the 5,000 ceiling and this would call for a recommendation from the IATF (interagency task force) if we will be allowed to deploy above the ceiling of 5000 HCWs,” Olalia added.

According to the POEA chief, they have already presented the data to the IATF and are waiting for the body’s decision.

Olalia also clarified that they are not preventing the process of deployment in terms of issuing Overseas Employment Certificate (OEC). However, once the deployment ceiling is reached, the issuance of EOC “will automatically be halted.”

“Magpapatuloy ang deployment until after ma-reach yung ceiling at hintayin yung instruction from IATF (The deployment will continue until we reach the ceiling and we will wait for the instruction of the IATF),” he assured.