ARROYO: Make Professionals Stay 2 years and work in the Philippines!!

[Hoss]

Philippine Nurses to work 2 years before leaving the country?

Sunday, August 24, 2008

SPECIAL REPORT : OFW DEPLOYMENT ISSUES

Contrary to Malacañang claims most OFWs are still laborers

Arroyo bill to detain professionals attacked

The Philippine Nurses Association's President Dr. Leah Samaco Paquiz on Saturday expressed concern over the bill filed by Rep. Ignacio Arroyo to keep professionals, including nurses and doctors, from leaving for jobs abroad without first working in the Philippines for at least two years.

Did he file the bill because of government claims that Filipino professionals have become the bigger component of OFW deployments? If so, then he is wrong. The bigger segment is still laborers and unskilled workers.

The Philippine Medical Association expressed opposition but its vice-president did not elaborate because the PMA still had to actually learn from Arroyo what he really wants and what his proposed bill says.

The Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) opposed Arroyo's House Bill 4580.

"We consider the bill absolutely unfair and highly discriminatory, because it singles out registered professionals," said former senator and TUCP secretary-general Ernesto Herrera.

Negros Oriental's Rep. Arroyo, the President's brother-in-law, authored the bill with the aim of discouraging Filipino professionals from leaving the country. He expressed concern that the health and education sector may end up not having enough teachers and professionals if RP graduates continue to go abroad to work for high pay.

His proposed law covers doctors, nurses, pharmacists, midwives, medical technologists, physical therapists, engineers, teachers, sailors, accountants, interior designers, nutritionists and criminologists, librarians, guidance counselors and master plumbers. These are all in the Professional Regulatory Commission's category of "registered professionals."

Herrera questioned the government's authority to restrain professionals from leaving.

He was joined by human rights lawyers interviewed by The Manila Times. They told us people couldn't be prevented to leave the country if they want to.

Herrera has submitted his, the TUCP's, position paper to the House and the Senate, petitioning the House Committee on Labor and Employment to reject Arroyo's bill.

"We have a huge glut of professionals in many sectors. In the case of nurses, the main reason they are leaving the country is because wages here are grossly inadequate. And the pay is meager, precisely because of the massive surplus of nurses. This is the law of supply and demand at work," Herrera said.

The TUCP official said preventing nurses from leaving the country would further create a huge surplus and lower their wages to a minimum.

Herrera said that nurses comprise the biggest group of professionals leaving the country. Every year, more than 21,000 Filipino nurses seek employment in the US alone.

He added that the Philippines has been producing more than 132,000 nurses every year.

Nurses' salary increase law

Dr. Paquis explained that nurses, doctors and other professionals would not leave the country is they were paid properly.

Since 2002, she said, because of, Republic Act 9173, also known as the Nursing Act of 2002, the salaries of nurses should have been not lower than the government's salary grade 15. "This is clear in Section 32 that 'in order to enhance the general welfare, commitment to service and professionalism of nurses, the minimum base pay of nurses working in public health institution shall not be lower than salary grade 15,' " she pointed out.

"It has been six years since the law was enacted. It has not been implemented," she complained.

"Under the law, a nurse in the government should be receiving a monthly salary of P16,093, but many nurses are still receiving way below this legal monthly salary. Some are receiving less than P10,000 monthly income. How do we expect these nurses to remain in government service with this kind of salary?" asked Paquiz. She points out that while salary is not the only reason why nurses serve, she recognizes that the foreign employment conditions are much better than here."

CONTINUE:

http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2008/aug/24/yehey/top_stories/20080824top1.html

[oneproudigorot, MSN, RN]

they should not only lobby for nurses' salary in the government owned hospitals... they should include those private hospitals... i am currently working in a private hospital owned by a religious group and i only receive a meager 5 thousand pesos (about 100 US dollars) a month...

if they want nurses and other medical and allied health professionals to stay then they should start giving what is due to us...

[lenjoy03, RN]

I do agree with this. Letting professionals serve the country first before living. BUT...... If one gets lower payment for what they work for and there are no work available, how can they give that 2 year work experience? The solution? Work abroad! Its a matter of what will give you an opportunity. So I dont think a 2 year work experience should be compulsary because of our country's present econimic and political situation. Because professionals wont live the country if they are well paid and being compensated well. Just my opinion!

[potatomasher]

If this bill passes and becomes a law, it will be a big blow for nurses. I think the best solution to the vast migration of nurses (and doctors), is to give them a decent pay. Why not go to the root of the problem and find a solution there? It's just easy for our lawmakers make this and that bill without ever thinking and considering the implication and the complications as well.

Bottom line: Give nurses better pay and we'll stay! :-)

[bebotwaiting]

Our government is an idiot!! Why dont they just increase our salaries first before they say that.. then maybe they might not be so idiotic after all.....

[gorgeous77, LPN, LVN]

even if the new nurses stayed before leaving for abroad, there are not enough hospitals to accomodate them..is this what is actually happening now in our country..lots of nurses, no local jobs.

[Pedi-Gree, BSN, RN]

It probably would be sensible to improve pay and working conditions before resorting to forcing people to stay and work where they feel they aren't valued.

There are precedents for return-of-service requirements, but I'm not sure they're legislated. I received a scholarship while in nursing school and by accepting it I was also accepting the condition that I work in the province for two years after graduation. That was no problem for me, and I'd likely still be there if after 8 years of working there I hadn't been offered a really great opportunity for career advancement in another province. There are other similar arrangements for people who are educated by the military training program for example. They will pay for your schooling and you agree to work for them for X # years afterward. Having said that, does the government in the Philippines subsidize your education, by funding schools, by dictating the amount of tuition a school can charge, or by direct support to students, for example? They may then use that as their rationale for legislating some sort of commitment.

[lawrence01]

Their are already dozens of such bills through out the years and expect more to come still but not one has even gotten to first base of the whole process of becoming a law. After it has been introduced, it basically stays that way. The issue that defeats it has always been basic human rights.

The only way they can have some clout is if these persons studied on a subsidized program from say a Gov't-run school or something similar.

They can't tell persons what to do or how to run their lives if they paid for 100% of their education out of their own pockets.

[pinat]

This bill is a "feel good" and "political" bill to have the citizens feel good about the politicians. It has no basis in reality....look up the definition of grandstanding..you might see this politician's name as one who has popularized the term.

[warhead92100]

what else to expect? he is an arroyo. all they know is how to make the people suffer.

[woknblues]

HA! 10,000 a month. I have not met a single staff nurse who made that much. Why? Because the hospitals are nearly completely staffed by unpaid volunteers or paying for the privilege themselves nurses. A well known private hospital in N.Luzon that I know pays their staff 3,000 per month. That's a hundred pesos a day to live on. Jeepney? Nah, they have to walk. I have friends who are "volunteering" at the local Tertiary hospital who paid thousands of pesos JUST TO WORK THERE.

Sickening.

I hope the 100,000+ graduating nurses every year start voting people like her and her kind out, and soon. The opportunity for the quick buck abroad is nearly tapped out with the freezes in the US and Western Europe, and there are gonna be hundreds of thousands of out of work nurses piling up faster and faster until enrollment slows down, which it has in some places already. I can only imagine the hustle and charlatans to get new students into their empty seats in the expanded glut of nursing schools and review centers when we cross the 5 year mark for freezing out work visas. World economies are not doing well, and this bodes poorly for the would be nurse in the Philippines.

[SuesquatchRN, BSN, RN]

Well, that will immediately correct any nurse "surplus" you have, if my understanding is that many Pinay become RN's precisely because they can get visas and find comparatively high-paying work abroad and send money back to help their families is correct.

You can't legislate satisfaction.