QC solon still worries over migration of Pinoy nurses out of PH
Quezon City 4th district Rep. Marvin Rillo has renewed his call for Congress to invest in more compensation funding to retain Filipino nurses in public hospitals and to discourage some of them from leaving the country.

This, as the neophyte congressman noted that a total of 18,617 nursing graduates from the Philippines took the United States (US) licensure examination for the first time in 2022, in hopes of practicing their profession in America.
“The number of Philippine nursing graduates taking the NCLEX for the first time is a reliable indicator as to how many of them are eagerly looking for employment in America,” Rillo said in a statement Sunday, Jan. 29
“In 2022, we had the highest number of Philippine-educated nurses taking the NCLEX in 14 years, in terms of first-time takers,” Rillo said, citing figures from the US National Council of State Boards of Nursing Inc. (USNCSBN).
The USNCSBN administers the National Council Licensure Examination, or the NCLEX, for registered nurses in America.
The 18,617 represents a surge of 90 percent when compared to the 9,788 Filipino nursing graduates that took the NCLEX for the first time in 2021, without counting repeaters, according to solon.
Rillo, a vice chairman of the House Committee on Higher and Technical Education, has been batting for the passage of House Bill (HB) No. 5276, which seeks to boost by 75 percent – from P36,619 to P63,997 – the lowest base of nurses employed by the government.
Under the bill, the minimum base pay of nurses in public health institutions would be raised by six notches to Salary Grade 21 prescribed under the Salary Standardization Law of 2019.