Sentosa owner Ben Philipson speaks

[pinoy_guy]

philippine news agency inquirer (inquirer.net) interviewed sentosa owner ben philipson on the sentosa 27+ case.

let me point out the obvious bias, based on the lead line alone:

sentosa warns nurses: 'they will know what slavery means'

i wonder how much was filtered out, and what this alleged reporter focused on to create this biased article.

"when all this is over, we will file slander cases against them, and they will know what slavery means. we will garnish their property."

fair warning, given all the grief sentosa had gone through, just because these nurses wanted to squirm away from $25,000 they committed to should they break their contracts.

now they must be regretting their their ill-made decisions.

i hope other nurses learn from this case.

the painful thing for the nurses is that they thought they got away from the case...but this statement of intent to file slander cases, and intent to garnish their property...means the nurses are not working for themselves at this time--all the money and property they worked for will come to naught when they are garnished.

philipson also belied the most recent charge of alleged slavery filed by the so-called sentosa 27+ against him and his company in the united states.

he contended that, except for the last one, the various charges filed by the sentosa 27+ both here in the philippines and in the us have all been dropped, and that he will use the results of these cases in the slander case he will file against them.

the nurses are running out of bullets, and had now charged sentosa with slavery.

reminds me of the saying "cooked in their own fat."

philipson, who is in the country recruiting more nurses for facilities in sentosa's network, said he is simply waiting for the decision of the courts on the breach of contract case he has filed against them before filing the slander case.

now this is the bit of good news.

i had received some emails from my students in the philippines saying they couldn't find any agency willing to recruit filipino nurses...at least sentosa is still recruiting there, despite all this mess.

if you watch the video, though...the new nurses will have to sign more stringent contracts because of the actions of those who went before them.

in the breach of contract case, which is still pending in the us, he said they are asking the court to compel the sentosa 27+ to pay the cost the company shouldered for getting them to the us.

"we will make them pay what they owe us," he said.

so the bill the nurses will have to pay includes the immigration fees.

i wonder how they'll pay for everything when their property will be garnished?

"they've done our work for us. they have made our case for us. this is the nail in the coffin against them and their organizations," he said.

the shotgun approach and forum shopping have backfired on the nurses.

then he referred to the organizations who joined the bandwagon without studying the case.

not quite a nail in their coffins, but egg on their faces.

now for the video.

i think they should stop with their lies and come clean... and move on with their lives.

do to themselves justice and to everybody justice.

i think there's been enough lies. enough damage done. mainly to themselves and to their fellow filipinos.

time has come to put it behind them, and move on.

spending hours and money--i don't know how much money they're spending with lawyers and other stuff--trying to defend their lies . . and it hasn't gotten them anywhere.

look back, they've lost every single motion they brought, in any of these forum, whether, here in the philippines, or in the united states, they've lost every single case because it's all based on lies.

i think they need to stop that, they need to put that behind them and move on and be responsible, take responsibility for their actions.

as far as hurting other filipinos . . . i go back to the retrogression that's currently in effect, that was in effect in 2005, that was in effect when these nurses came over, thanks to our lobbying efforts and our help that we had with the various government officials such as senator schumer, we were able to help get the retrogression lifted at that time and bring them over.

had this situation not happened i'm sure they would have done the same thing again. instead, we have thousands, or tens of thousands of filipino nurses, waiting in the philippines, to come to america and were unable to come because of retrogression.

interesting that he implied that the politicians are not acting to lift the current retrogression because of the sentosa case.

we're looking at other countries, not just because of this experience, but it's always good to have various options open for yourself.

another loss for the other filipino nurses.

we were not too strict with our documentation . . . we are a lot stricter now.

any nurse who now resigns and walks off without fulfilling the contract, we can just walk into court, and get an order, and we have a confession of judgment against them already before they even come.

unfortunate that we have to do that, because we learnt our lesson the hard way.

the fallout for nurses who sign up with sentosa in the future.

i think other agencies will be taking the same actions to avoid having the same problems.

nurses stuck in the philippines have a lot to thank these sentosa 27+ for.

[suzanne4, RN]

The retrogression has existed for many years at times and has nothing to do with the politicians but the fact that there are more applicants than there are visas and it is only going to get worse for many, and not better.

Look at PI, they have over 950,000 enrolled in nursing schools and there are no paying jobs there available now for them when they finish and when there are only less than 10,000 visas under the EB-3 category available per year, and that includes children and spouses, you do the math.

And it is going to get even more difficult as more states are requiring the local license here as are many foreign countries as well. And we are expecting the government here to require experience to use a weeding out tool just like they did when CGFNS was required by all, and also required the local license.

Reputations are made, and are hard to repair when damaged.

[pinoy_guy]

i was just surprised by his statement that they helped lobby for the lifting of the previous retrogression.

look at pi, they have over 950,000 enrolled in nursing schools and there are no paying jobs there available now for them when they finish and when there are only less than 10,000 visas under the eb-3 category available per year, and that includes children and spouses, you do the math.

this is the sad part.

and reading some of their posts in various internet fora, clamoring for their right to get an immigrant visa just because they passed the nclex...

a lot of them are going to be very disappointed.

and it is going to get even more difficult as more states are requiring the local license here as are many foreign countries as well. and we are expecting the government here to require experience to use a weeding out tool just like they did when cgfns was required by all, and also required the local license.

what's worse is that the real nurses (those who went into nursing because they like helping people...and not just after the dollars) will find it harder to get to the us too.

reputations are made, and are hard to repair when damaged.

exactly.

[bebotwaiting]

Maybe or maybe your are right, madam. I feel they had a hand in the lobbying because about 3 or 4 months before the retrogression was lifted they already knew that the lifting of retrogression was going to be approved.

I know that for a fact because they were already roaming the southern part of the Philippines and recruiting more nurses and informing them about this. Moreover, they were already asking for the ds230 of most of the nurses they have recruited. They were so sure of it that they assured it. This is according to my friends recruited by them.

[gemini_star, BSN, RN]

It's true that Sentosa is still recruiting. This really made an impact on the reputation of Filipino nurses. Sentosa nurses involved in the case has to start preparing when the counterpart start garnishing their properties. Poor nurses and especially to the future RNs. What will happen to the nurses stuck here? A lot of dreams will be shattered or stanched for a very long time.

[suzanne4, RN]

Maybe or maybe your are right, madam. I feel they had a hand in the lobbying because about 3 or 4 months before the retrogression was lifted they already knew that the lifting of retrogression was going to be approved.

I know that for a fact because they were already roaming the southern part of the Philippines and recruiting more nurses and informing them about this. Moreover, they were already asking for the ds230 of most of the nurses they have recruited. They were so sure of it that they assured it. This is according to my friends recruited by them.

Sorry that you think that way, but one company does not change the US and what it wants to do. The only reason that things opened up was the fact that more visas were found from unused visas and nothing more than that. There were no new visas created in addition to those that come out every year.

And they could have asked for the DS-230 but that makes no difference because the US does not even accept it until they have approved the I-140 and have sent the visa bill out and it has been paid.

They do not issue visas, and they never will be issuing visas. And look at what has happened to those that came over.

Not a good thing to be wishing for.