MANILA: Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has approved ending a ban on deploying the nation’s health care workers, his labor minister said on Saturday, clearing the way for thousands of nurses to take up jobs overseas.
“The president already approved the lifting of the temporary suspension of deployment of nurses and other medical workers,” Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello told Reuters.
Bello said the spread of the novel coronavirus was slowing down in the country and conditions were improving, so the government could afford to let its health care workers leave.
The Philippines has the second-highest number of COVID-19 cases and deaths in Southeast Asia, but daily case numbers and death rates have dropped.
To ensure the Philippines has enough medical professionals to continue to fight the pandemic at home, only 5,000 health care workers will be allowed to leave every year, Bello said.
“We are starting only with a cap of 5,000 so we will not run out (of medical workers), but this may increase eventually,” Bello said.
Last year, almost 17,000 nurses signed overseas work contracts data from the Commission on Higher Education and the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration shows.
The government in April barred nurses, doctors and other medical workers from leaving, saying they were needed to fight the coronavirus crisis at home.
Thousands of health workers, who call themselves “priso-nurses,” had appealed to the government to let them take jobs abroad, Reuters reported in September. The nurses say they feel underpaid, under-appreciated and unprotected in the Philippines.
While the lifting of the travel ban was a “welcome development,” Maristela Abenojar, President of Filipino Nurses United, challenged the government to make true its commitment to give its nurses better pay and benefits if it wants them to stay.
Filipino health workers are on the front lines of the pandemic at hospitals in the United States, Europe and the Middle East as well as at home.
New coronavirus cases in the Philippines have remained below 2,000 since Nov. 10, while deaths, which totalled 8,025 as of Nov. 20 only equal 1.93% of the country’s 415,067 cases.
Hospital bed occupancy has also eased from critical levels, and the government has been gradually easing quarantine restrictions to jumpstart the coronavirus-hit economy.
Philippines ends overseas travel ban on health care workers
https://arab.news/w68r7
Philippines ends overseas travel ban on health care workers
- Improving COVID-19 situation paves way for lifting of ban
- Gov’t to allow 5,000 health care workers to leave annually
Machado seeks Pope Leo’s support for Venezuela’s transition during Vatican meeting
- Machado is touring Europe and the United States after escaping Venezuela in early 2025
- The pope called for Venezuela to remain independent following the capture of former President Nicolás Maduro by US forces
ROME: Pope Leo XIV met with Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado in a private audience at the Vatican on Monday, during which the Venezuelan leader asked him to intercede for the release of hundreds of political prisoners held in the Latin American country.
The meeting, which hadn’t been previously included in the list of Leo’s planned appointments, was later listed by the Vatican in its daily bulletin, without adding details.
Machado is touring Europe and the United States after she reemerged in December after 11 months in hiding to accept her Nobel Peace Prize in Norway.
“Today I had the blessing and honor of being able to share with His Holiness and express our gratitude for his continued support of what is happening in our country,” Machado said in a statement following the meeting.
“I also conveyed to him the strength of the Venezuelan people who remain steadfast and in prayer for the freedom of Venezuela, and I asked him to intercede for all Venezuelans who remain kidnapped and disappeared,” she added.
Machado also held talks with Vatican Secretary of State Pietro Parolin, who was Nuncio in Venezuela from 2009 to 2013.
Pope Leo has called for Venezuela to remain an independent country after US forces captured former President Nicolás Maduro in his compound in Caracas and took him to New York to face federal charges of drug-trafficking.
Leo had said he was following the developments in Venezuela with “deep concern,” and urged the protection of human and civil rights in the Latin American country.
Venezuela’s opposition, backed by consecutive Republican and Democratic administrations in the US, had vowed for years to immediately replace Maduro with one of their own and restore democracy to the oil-rich country. But US President Donald Trump delivered them a heavy blow by allowing Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, to assume control.
Meanwhile, most opposition leaders, including Machado, are in exile or prison.
After winning the 2025 Nobel Prize for Peace, Machado said she’d like to give it to or share with Trump.
Machado dedicated the prize to Trump, along with the people of Venezuela, shortly after it was announced. Trump has coveted and openly campaigned for winning the Nobel Prize himself since his return to office in January 2025.
The organization that oversees the Nobel Peace Prize — the Norwegian Nobel Institute — said, however, that once it’s announced, the prize can’t be revoked, transferred or shared with others.
“The decision is final and stands for all time,” it said in a short statement last week.
