MANILA, Philippines — The 5,000 cap per year on the overseas deployment of nurses will only cover new hires and will not be a permanent policy, Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III said Tuesday.
“The cap does not cover the balik-manggagawa (returning workers), it only covers the new hires. The new applicants,” Bello said in an interview over ABS-CBN News Channel.
Earlier, Bello said President Rodrigo Duterte allowed the overseas deployment of health workers spread of coronavirus infections was improving, with a limit of 5,000 each year.
But the government’s decision to put a cap on the number of health workers allowed to leave for employment abroad per year was criticized.
However, Bello said the cap is “not a permanent thing.”
“Yung (The) cap, it covers only new hires, it does not cover yung mga balik-manggagawa (returning workers). Itong (This) cap is not a permanent thing,” he said.
“We just have to make a cap, put up a cap, in order to ensure that if this pandemic situation worsens, will we have enough nurses to attend to the medical needs of our own countrymen,” he added.