Cavite 4th district (Dasmariñas City) Rep. Elpidio Barzaga Jr. has slammed Commission on Higher Education (CHED) chairman Prospero "Popoy" De Vera III for what the solon described as the "stonewalling" of his year-old request for the agency to lift its 11-year ban on new nursing programs in the country.
This, as CHED reportedly refused to act on his request to allow the newly established Kolehiyo ng Lungsod ng Dasmariñas to open a nursing program that aims to expand the country's workforce in the face of the still ongoing Covid-19 pandemic as well as future health emergencies.
"It's high time that CHED lifted the 11-year-old ban on nursing programs. We're still in a pandemic and we've seen how badly we need more nurses and health workers as we continue to battle Covid-19. The CHED's stubbornness is hurting the country; this is unthinkable," said the lawmaker.
As De Vera's appointment is set to end on July 21, Barzaga urged President-elect Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. to appoint someone who has "a firm grasp of the real situation on the ground, something that he (De Vera) sorely lacks".
He said the CHED is doing the country a great disservice by continuing to ban new nursing programs, especially since the students of Kolehiyo ng Lungsod ng Dasmariñas do not pay any fee.
The public college was established and being maintained with the funds of the city government of Dasmariñas. It is primarily intended to provide educational opportunities to poor but intelligent students in the city.
"We cannot surrender the future of the country's nursing workforce to the whims and caprices of some individuals. The country needs a CHED chairman who takes time to study and understand the real situation on the ground," Barzaga said.
President Duterte appointed De Vera to head the CHED in October 2018. Prior to that, De Vera had served as commissioner since Sept. 13, 2016 and was designated Officer-in-Charge (OIC) on January 24, 2018 when former Chairperson Patricia Licuanan resigned.
The commission, in Memorandum Order 32 dated Sept. 30, 2010, stopped the opening of all undergraduate and graduate programs in business administration, nursing, teacher education, hotel and restaurant management and information technology education beginning in School Year 2011-2012.
The moratorium was issued on the ground that the proliferation of the programs would cause "the deterioration of the quality of graduates of these five higher education programs".
It cited the "gradual decline in the performance of teacher and nursing education graduates, indicating the worsening state of the programs".
In his Jan. 13, 2021 letter to De Vera, Barzaga warned that "the present acute and dramatic escalation of shortage of nurses may worsen in the future both at a national and global level".
"In fact, the World Health Organization (WHO) report State of the World's Nursing 2020 projects that without action, there will be a shortfall of 4.6 million nurses worldwide by 2030. In the country, the projected shortfall of nurses is expected to be 249,843 by 2030. In the City of Dasmariñas alone based on a survey made in March 2022, among seven (7) public and private health facilities, there is a shortage of 266 nurses," the lawmaker noted.
Adding to this problem, Barzaga noted, "is the ever-persistent poverty that keeps Filipino families from sending their children to college".
He cited the latest data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) which showed that educational attainment "had the highest incidence of deprivation among families of 59.3 percent in 2016 and 49.4 percent in 2017 with two out of five senior high school graduates unable to pursue tertiary education".