Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III said Wednesday the government could exempt the United Kingdom (UK) from its deployment cap for healthcare workers (HCW).
In an online press briefing, Bello said he already recommended to the concerned technical working group of the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) to allow the UK to hire over 5,000 Filipino HCWs per year.
The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) imposed the deployment cap last January to ensure the country will not run out of HCWs during the pandemic.
“The technical working group will study my proposal then present it to the interagency task force. It is the task force, which will come up with the recommendation to the Office of the President,” Bello said.
His main basis for the recommendation is that the country has sufficient pool of HCWs, citing data from stakeholders, to supply the needs of UK and the government for its Covid-19 needs.
This even if the UK government has yet to announce the number of Filipino HCWs it will be hiring.
Vaccine protection
The labor chief said the proposal is more likely to be approved by the IATF if the British government agrees to provide Covid-19 vaccine for OFWs.
To recall, DOLE drew heavy criticism after it was reported it is allegedly bartering the deployment of HCWs for Covid-19 vaccine.
Bello belied the said allegation saying they are merely recommending to ensure the protection of OFWs and the British population from Covid-19.
He noted they also asked for the same consideration from the government of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), while they were negotiating for the harmonized standard employment contract (SEC) for Filipino household service workers (HSW).
“It is not a condition of the deployment [of HSWs]. We just recommended that it might be better if they will consider vaccinating our HSWs so they and the people from UAE will be protected [from Covid-19],” Bello said.
DOLE and the UAE government signed a new labor agreement of Tuesday, which will allow the resumption of the regular deployment of HSWs to the Arab country, which was suspended since 2014.
Around 100,000 HSWs are expected to benefit from the new labor agreement, which will take effect on March 31, 2021.
Image credits: Roy Domingo