Thousands of nurses leave RP yearly

April 07, 2006
Updated 08:01pm (Mla time)

Agence France-Presse

NURSES and other medical workers are leaving the Philippines at the rate of at least 15,000 a year for better-paying jobs abroad, threatening the country's health infrastructure, World Health Organization (WHO) officials warned Friday.

"It is a serious, serious situation," WHO spokesman Peter Cordingley said, noting that even Filipino doctors abandon their practices and go back to medical schools to enroll in nursing courses.

The number is more than any other country, with the United States, Britain and lately Australia the main destinations.

WHO country representative Jean Marc Olive warned that the exodus was expected to persist until 2015, with annual demand for medical workers in the United States and Europe estimated to be about 800,000.

"In the Philippines the shortage of nurses is starting to be felt, therefore it's a pressing issue that needs to be addressed, but not the quick fix solutions," Olive told a news conference.

He urged the government to "look into the needs of the health workers" and adopt plans to convince them to stay.

Health Secretary Francisco Duque acknowledged the problem, estimating that 85 percent of the country's nurses have left the Philippines, where four in 10 people live on two dollars a day or less.

Medical workers started to go overseas in large numbers when the country's mass labor export program began in the 1970s.

The temporary workers, along with Filipinos living permanently in wealthier countries, sent back a record 10.7 billion dollars to their families in the Philippines through the formal banking system last year, the Central Bank said.

Duque said the government would support proposals to enact a law that would require fresh graduates from nursing and medical schools to stay in the country for between six months and one year before they are allowed to practice abroad.

He said the state-run lottery, Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO), has pledged to finance a scholarship program to put about 100 students through medical school every year.

The lottery has budgeted 252 million pesos (4.93 million dollars), enough for 6,000 students, he added.

"The first batch will enter this June," Duque added.

http://news.inq7.net/express/html_output/20060407-71989.xml.html

Philippines seeks relaxed immigration policies for OFWs

04/08 1:56:17 PM

The Philippines has proposed to labor receiving countries the relaxation of immigration policies to enable migrant workers including the overseas Filipino workers (OFWS), to apply for new jobs before the expiration of the workers' employment contracts.

In a speech at the recent International Conference on Migration and Development in Brussels, Labor and Employment Secretary Patricia A. Sto. Tomas proposed the removal of the so-called 'barriers' to the movement of migrants in host countries to maximize the migrants' contributions to development.

The barriers pertain to immigration policies, quotas on certain professions or occupations, and employment contracts that explicitly restrict migrant workers from applying for a new job once the current contract ends, Sto. Tomas said.

She added that the absence of rules on the mutual recognition of skills and qualifications also limit the mobility of migrant workers across countries.

The barriers to the entry to and exit from certain occupations and geographical locations tend to limit the migrant workers' capacity to fully contribute to development, the Labor Chief said.

In contrast, countries which allow migrants to thrive in their territories in recognition of their huge economic contributions, have proven to rise and be included among the most economically successful, Sto. Tomas said.

Countries with the high levels of immigrant workers such as the United States, Canada, Australia, South Africa, and Germany, Switzerland, and Luxembourg in Europe are now among the wealthiest in the world, she said, even as she called on host countries to ensure good working conditions for migrant workers.

For migrant workers to be productive contributors to the receiving country, they should be guaranteed with decent employment terms and conditions such as commensurable wages and work environment that provide for rest and recreation, social protection, and political participation, Sto. Tomas further said.

The DOLE chief also proposed for the development of terms of reference that would govern the movement of irregular workers to address legal norms and the lack of administrative resources that make the repatriation of irregular migrants difficult.

For instance, she said that migrant workers with irregular status could earn the right to have their statues legalized if they met minimum conditions such as being gainfully employed and found to have made an effort to integrate with the host country's social mainstream like learning the language.

The Secretary added that host countries would be better off regularizing the status of migrant workers they cannot send back home.

http://www.philstar.com/philstar/NEWS_FLASH040820066919_8.htm

Fil-Am comes home to invest in country's human capital

this story was taken from www.inq7money.net
URL: http://money.inq7.net/topstories/view_topstories.php?yyyy=2006&mon=04&dd=23&file=4
Fil-Am comes home to invest in country's human capital
Posted: 5:20 AM Apr. 23, 2006

Inquirer

(Published on page B3 of the April 23, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer)

FILIPINO-American Michael "Mike" Rivera came back to the Philippines last September and was floored by the country's teeming talent that he decided to put up the first offshore company that exclusively catered to employee benefits administration here.

Rivera is the president of ProView Global, a company under the US-based ProView Administration, one of the leading employee benefits outsourcing firms in the United States whose clients include leading hospitals, hotels, and manufacturing and real estate companies.

He was in that industry for over 17 years and has helped developed one of the United States' first systems for HMO Management, working extensively with Fortune 500 companies for over a decade.

"I realized that there was an incredible amount of untapped human capital here," says Rivera, who left the country in 1979. "I read and witnessed the exodus of talent from this country, as I refer to as 'brain drain' in search of better opportunities. That's when I realized that what this country needed were investments to create better job opportunities."

When his family first migrated to Seattle, Washington, he experienced the stigma of racial discrimination as he and his siblings were the only Asian kids in their community.

"I overcame this by focusing on my education," Rivera says. "I remember feeling particularly proud in receiving high honors for US History and English. In a way, I wanted to prove to everybody that I could be better at their own language and their own history."

When he finally finished high school, Rivera's family couldn't afford to send him through college.

"I got a partial scholarship in computer science in one of the smaller colleges in the Seattle, Washington, but I had to turn it down. I just felt that it wasn't the thing for me," he says.

As fate would have it, Rivera made the right decision since he eventually got the opportunity to get the college degree he wanted.

Rivera joined the Marines at 17 despite his mother's objections.

Out of the 160 recruits, only 80 of them graduated. "And I was at the top of my class," Rivera says.

It was this experience in the Marines, he says, that taught him discipline, goal setting, and determination.

Right after college, Rivera was hired as an administrative assistant for an insurance company and eventually went on to work for a firm that handled employee benefits management, one of the biggest industries in the United States right now.

Employee benefits administration involves the handling of the insurance benefits of a company's workforce. In the United States, much like here, medical and other benefits are generally provided for by employers, and the cost of administering these benefits can be quite high. These benefits range from the traditional medical and dental benefits to the more complex Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (Cobra) that provide a continuation of health care coverage even after an employee has left a company.

Prior to joining ProView, Rivera was the National Leader of Supply Chain Management for the Group and Health Care practice at Watson Wyatt Worldwide.

Last year, Rivera decided to come home for the first time in over 20 years.

"I was reading some business papers that time and I realized that the country had a significant amount of intellectual capital here," he says.

This made him decide to create what he calls a "win-win" situation for both ProView and his (home) country.

"Employee benefits administration is highly labor-intensive. Seeing that the Filipinos here can replicate if not surpass the quality of work that we have in the US, I decided that I'd wanted to provide opportunities for the talent here," Rivera says.

And he is not just talking about providing opportunities for his countrymen, but giving them better salary deals as well.

"I wanted to make sure that ProView paid more than the prevailing wages. Our staff's salaries, depending on the role, can be as much as 30% more than the current market average compensation rates. Our human capital strategy is to attract the highest caliber of talent, who will provide more quality service to our customers and at the same time create a much more loyal human capital asset base. The way you take care of your employees will exactly be the same they would take care of your clients.," Rivera explains, adding that he is aware that most business process outsourcing companies in the country have a relatively high turnover rate, something he is looking to change.

ProView, which has started operations about a month ago, currently has 20 employees whose ages range from 20 to 45.

13 registration sites known for Filipino voters abroad

13 registration sites known for Filipino voters abroad

April 05, 2006
Updated 03:15pm (Mla time)
Veronica Uy
INQ7.net

THIRTEEN registration sites for overseas absentee voters have been identified and the dates of registration set, an official of the Department of Foreign Affairs' OAV Secretariat said.

In an interview with INQ7.net, OAVS vice chairman Gene Calonge said the Commission on Elections approved the OAV field registration by the Los Angeles consulate general at San Diego from April 8 to 9; the Ottawa embassy in Montreal, Quebec from May 6 to 7, the Vancouver consulate general in Edmonton from April 8 to 9, and another in Calgary from April 29 to 30.

The OAV field registrations in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea; Port Sudan; Khartoum; Jubail, Eastern Province; Al-Khobar; Haifa; Barcelona, Spain; Modena, Italy; and in Muara District, Brunei have been approved but the specific dates for them have not been set.

As of now, Calonge said the 11-month second OAV registration had about 40,000 applicants, half of who were Filipino workers who registered at the airports before they left for work abroad.

Saving four OFWs on death row is priority of new DFA exec

Saving four OFWs on death row is priority of new DFA exec
Jan 31, 2006
Updated 07:18pm (Mla time)
Nikko Dizon
Inquirer

SAVING four Filipino workers sentenced to death overseas is now the primary concern of the newly-appointed Foreign Affairs undersecretary for Migrant Workers Affairs.

“There are only two avenues left for the Philippine government to save them. One is by making representations for the grant of executive clemency and the other is to offer blood money to the victim’s families to completely exonerate them (OFWs),” Esteban Conejos Jr. said in his first media briefing at the Department of Foreign Affairs on Tuesday.

Conejos said that of the four OFWs, three are women who have been convicted of killing their employers in Saudi Arabia. Two are serving time in Riyadh, while one is in Jeddah.

The male OFW was meted the death penalty in Sabah for drug trafficking, Conejos said.

Meanwhile, Cornejo said the DFA has recently hired two Kuwaiti lawyers, who are experts in the appellate level, to represent OFW Marilou Ranario who has been sentenced to death by hanging for killing her Kuwaiti employer last year.

Aside from these cases, Conejos said his office would be focusing on assisting 32 other OFWs in different countries who are facing offenses punishable by death.

Remittance costs eat up 5% of OFW incomes -- BSP

Remittance costs eat up 5% of OFW incomes — BSP
By Des Ferriols
The Philippine Star 02/03/2006

Sending money to their families cost overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) between 1.31 and 4.4 percent of their income, equivalent to a total of about $154.5 million to $519 million that are paid to banks out of the projected $11.8 billion worth of remittances this year.

According to an estimate made by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), the cost of sending money is even higher if OFWs send their earnings through non-bank channels such as door-to-door delivery services which cost up to almost five percent of their income.

BSP Deputy Governor Diwa Guinigundo said yesterday that remittance fees vary depending on whether the remittance is coming through banks or money transfer agents and whether the money is being directly credited to the account of beneficiaries, other local banks or door-to-door delivery.

According to Guinigundo, the cost is also affected by the origin and destination of the remittance as well as the mode of payment, whether in pesos or in US dollars.

"Based on information we have gathered, the cheapest remittance fee would involve direct deposit of remittance in pesos to an account maintained with the remitting bank," Guinigundo said.

The most expensive, on the other hand, is the door-to-door delivery of foreign exchange remittance. Additional fee is also charged for delivery made outside Metro Manila.

Guinigundo said a study made by the BSP indicated that bank remittance fees range between 1.31 percent and 4.4 percent of the amount of remittances.

He said these fees include the transfer cost as well as the cost of foreign exchange conversion.

"That’s why promoting competition among the different service providers would help bring down the remittance fees," Guinigundo said. "We’re also working to remove barriers that tend to increase remittance charges and to improve payment and settlement systems to make it more efficient to lower remittance costs."

The BSP official added there is also a serious need to educate OFWs and their families in channeling part of their remittances to savings and other micro-enterprises.

In time, Guinigundo said OFWs invariably return to the country and saving up part of their income would help them reintegrate to the economy.

More on OFW Power

More on ofw power
BIZLINKS By Rey Gamboa
The Philippine Star 02/03/2006

Our recent column (Harnessing the OFW Power, 30 January 2006) quickly elicited quite a number of comments from readers, many of them accessing the electronic version of The Philippine Star item via the Internet from as far as the Americas, Europe, and the Middle East.

We’ve compiled some of the more interesting reactions for today’s column. They paint an interesting picture of how our overseas Filipino workers feel about their years working abroad. This first one is from Cianamen Palmero who is now employed in Dubai. Read on.

"I just read your column (Harnessing the OFW Power, 30 January 2006) and I do agree with the idea. I’ve been here in the Middle East for almost three months now; I’m in my mid-20s and I don’t have plans in staying here for good.

"My long term goal is really to invest in marketable securities and real estate. I’m quiet fortunate ‘cause I have the financial freedom and the ample knowledge to hopefully engage in such things unlike most of our kababayans here abroad.

"Most of us here really want to invest in any form of business but some just don’t know where to start, what to do, or simply just don’t have the business acumen to really succeed in their would-be chosen business.

"OFWs are willing to invest so long as they know their money would be safe and (the) returns sufficient. Whoever will handle such program must have integrity, compassion and vision. Integrity, because we all know how we perceive our politicians to be; compassion, for the hard-earned money that these OFW’s worked hard for; and finally, the vision to really understand what this program is all about and where is it leading to. And of course let us not forget the significant role of information dissemination in such kind of program.

"Anyway, hope I could read more of these kinds of programs and hopefully too, it won’t remain an idea written in a piece of paper.

Invest in the economy

This one is from Carina Dizon from the US.

"I read your column about investing in the Philippines, and totally agree with you on tapping overseas workers and keeping the money (in the Philippines). I have been in the US for 14 years and learned (about) investing through my own reading and research.

"I would like to invest and help our economy, but our government was not clear on how the overseas worker could get involved and (how they could) invest their hard earned money. The government should guarantee the investment the same way it guaranteed the international investors, because overseas workers want a guaranteed return of their hard earned money.

"How I wish the Philippine government introduced to the Filipino people especially overseas worker the steps on how to invest in simple layman terms. For a start, the government should educate the overseas worker prior to leaving the country (on) the following:

"1. A guarantee that the money invested would not go to the hand of blue collar criminals.

"2. Steps on how to invest, what, whom, where, how much the minimum/maximum interest required and where to purchase it while… abroad, likewise, the terms or conditions in clear language.

"3. Continued dissemination of investment information or options, and where and how to get them.

"4. Information on who is managing the investment and where the money is (going to be) invested. The investments for (companies like) NAIA-3, UCPB, and Napocor should be managed by people / private companies with… sterling records.

"Probably President Arroyo should harness her talented economic managers to work on this and implement it as soon as possible, so that the overseas worker would not spend all their hard earned money on daily consumptions. The government should educate the overseas worker, their families on how to invest.

Relentless financial literacy campaign

Tony Ranque from the Economic Resource Center for Overseas Filipinos (ERCOF) provides our overseas Filipino readers who believe that the fruit of their labors can be harnessed and put to better use with a glimmer of hope. Here’s his short comment:

"I believe we need to do massive and relentless financial literacy campaigns for OFWs and families first so that they will understand and appreciate what is being proposed (in the column Harnessing the OFW Power, 30 January 2006).

"OFWs should then be encouraged to form small savings and investment groups where they may jointly educate themselves on financial matters.

"Incidentally, I heard that BSP (Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas) will undertake a series of advocacy campaigns on financial literacy programs for OFWs and their beneficiaries in various regions of the country starting February."

ERCOF is a non-profit organization whose avowed vision is for an economically, politically and spiritually empowered Philippines that is sustained by developed local economies, and by the strategic use of the resources of its citizens locally and overseas. You may visit their website at www.ercof.org for more information.

Should you wish to share any insights, write me at Link Edge, 4th Floor, 156 Valero Street, Salcedo Village, 1227 Makati City. Or e-mail me at reydgamboa@yahoo.com or at reygamboa@linkedge.biz. If you wish to view the previous columns, you may visit my website at http://bizlinks.linkedge.biz.

Only GMA can exempt OFWs from paying $5 Naia security fee

Business Mirror
February 3, 2006

UNLESS President Arroyo signs an executive order, all overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) would pay the $5 "security charges" that the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia) would impose in the second quarter of this year.

The Naia is raising P1.3 billion a year, or about P7 billion in five years, to finance a comprehensive effort to make the Naia a veritable fortress equipped with all kinds of detectors, listening devices, hand-held "wands," x-ray portals and vans that could detect if nearby vehicles or suspected cars contain explosive devices.

This van is similar to the ones that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) deployed in Manila several years ago during the visit of President George Bush.

Called a "backscatter" van, the vehicle is equipped with a threat image projection (TIP) equipment showing which vehicles within range contain bombs or explosive charges, and each car would cost about $5 million or P27.5 million each.

On the other hand, the x-ray portals that would be deployed at the airport's entrance would also be able to detect any metallic object or suspicious items in a person's possession that carriers could show so as to avoid body frisking or "patdown" inspection, according to an official of the premier airport who is privy to the three public hearings conducted among airport and airline officials.

The most contentious issue that the Manila International Airport Authority (Miaa) has to deal with is whether it has the political will to charge $5 as well to domestic travelers, expected at about three million passengers a year. "The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) has allowed all ICAO member-countries to levy the security fee and its edict does not exempt anyone from paying, including the OFW or domestic passengers," said a Miaa official who requested anonymity. R. Mercene

BTr to craft new debt tool for OFWs

Business Mirror
Feb 6, 2006

BTr to craft new debt tool for OFWs

THE Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas has endorsed the issuance of a new debt instrument envisioned to benefit millions of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) and their families while helping deepen the domestic capital market as well.

Officials said the new instrument, details of which are still to be fleshed out by the national treasurer, will definitely not embody an earlier proposal by foreign bankers to securitize the huge remittances of OFWs.

In an interview, BSP chief Amando Tetangco Jr. said the new proposal has received a favorable reception from the national government although details of the transaction have yet to be hammered out.

"We have already endorsed the idea to the national government and the Bureau of Treasury is considering the proposal," Tetangco said on Friday.

According to him, it is up to the BTr, now headed by former Citibanker Omar Cruz, to transform the idea into a full-scale debt instrument that will particularly benefit OFWs, while also making available more investment opportunities for long-term investors in the country.

He stressed the debt instrument would not involve the securitization of OFW remittances that some foreign banks, would have Philippine authorities endorsed and adopted. J. Vallecera

Pinoys held in OFW's death in Brunei

Business Mirror
Feb 6, 2006

Pinoys held in OFW's death in Brunei

ROYAL Brunei police picked up for questioning five Filipinos and one Bruneian Thursday last week in connection with the death of Filipino national Jovita Zapanta, whose body was found in a secluded public area on January 28 in the Brunei capital, Bandar Seri Begawan.

The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said the Philippine embassy in Brunei Darussalam is extending full assistance to the Filipinos arrested for "criminal conspiracy to commit murder."

Ambassador to Brunei Virginia Benavidez told DFA Undersecretary for Migrant Workers Affairs Esteban Conejos that based on the initial police report, Zapanta died in another place and "circumstantial evidence" collected showed she was murdered elsewhere. Her body was found wrapped in plastic and fabric.

Bruneian pathologists said that Zapanta died either on January 26 or 27. "The embassy is working for the early resolution of the case [and] to facilitate the shipment of Ms. Zapanta's remains to the Philippines ," said Benavidez in a statement released by the DFA over the weekend.

She said the incident was reported to the embassy on January 27 by Zapanta's daughter. Benavidez said "embassy officials then immediately searched for Ms. Zapanta's residence and relatives in Brunei Darussalam. Three of Ms. Zapanta's housemates were eventually contacted, and were accompanied to the police for further investigation." E. Torres