An additional 1,500 newly hired health-care workers (HCW) will now be allowed to work abroad under a new Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) issuance.
In its Resolution 122, the IATF raised the existing deployment cap for HCWs, which are classified as mission critical skills (MCS) amid the novel coronavirus disease (Covid-19), from 5,000 to 6,500.
“Those HCWs falling under MCS with perfected contracts as of 31 May 2021, shall from part of the adjusted [deployment] ceiling,” Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque said in a news statement issued on Friday.
Also exempted from the deployment cap are HCWs, who will be deployed under government-to-government labor agreements.
In a Viber message, Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) Administrator Bernard P. Olalia said the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) would come out with the labor advisory for the implementation of the 6,500 deployment cap.
However, he said, they have already resumed the processing the overseas employment certificate (OEC) for HCWs on Friday. An OEC is a document issued by POEA for overseas Filipino workers before they could work abroad.
The IATF raised the deployment cap after POEA stopped the deployment of HCWs after the 5,000 deployment quota for deployed HCWs this year was exhausted earlier this month.
POEA imposed the deployment cap this year to ensure the country will still have a sufficient pool of HCWs to help in the government’s Covid-19 response.
Some groups are pushing for the lifting deployment cap amid claims that it prevents HCWs from getting gainful employment abroad.
Image credits: AP/Bullit Marquez