Nicole Did Not Fail Us. The Justice System Did

by: Rob Ty
Mar 18, '09 12:34 PM

Sen. Francis Pangilinan's words, not mine. But I completely agree with him.

Let's one thing straight: We are not the victims here. She is. We've never been raped. Never been exposed to an overblown media circus. Never been agitated in court. Never been harassed by reporters, lawyers and embassy men.

So when someone like Korina Sanchez announces on her AM radio station that Nicole is a disgrace to Filipino women everywhere (translated from tagalog), you can't help but shudder.

So this is justice, this is hate. It's no wonder she left the country.

We are not the victims here. Yet, we are the ones who cannot forgive. Here we are, sitting in our armchairs, waving our nation's flags, our gender's hopes, our nurtured concepts of justice.

But the thing is, we did nothing. We let people like Raul Gonzalez change the prosecutors of the case. We let people like NSA Norberto Gonzales change custody of Smith in the dead of the night. We let the US embassy exert pressure on Nicole by withdrawing her US VISA. We allowed countless women like Nicole to be gobbled up by the system, by the politics.

So who are we to judge? Who are we to cast the first stone?

Truth be told, we've already used her up. We got the conviction - which allowed us to question the VFA in the Supreme Court. We got the Supreme Court decision.

What more do we want? Maybe just more blood, sweat and tears.

What Can We Do?

Right now, if you really care for Nicole, you will support the drafting of a disbarment complaint against Daniel Smith's lawyer.

Why? At the time of the affidavit (March 12), Evalyn Ursua was still Nicole's lawyer. She was only fired last Monday (March 16). Smith's lawyer violated a cardinal rule of legal ethics by talking to Nicole behind her lawyer's back. Why is this unethical? The legal reason is that it undermines a fellow attorney's ability to handle her client's case. It's a form of disrespect for a colleague. The practical reason is to prevent people from being tricked since the best defense against the opposing lawyer, is your own lawyer.

In the case of Camacho v. Pangulayan, a UP law professor accused some lawyers of directly negotiating with his clients in order to obtain an amicable settlement. In effect, they ignored him even though he was the counsel on record. The Court agreed with the professor and said that the failure to inform opposing counsel is an inexcusable violation of the canons of professional ethics and in utter disregard of a duty owing to a colleague. The erring lawyer was suspended from the practice of law for three months.

Fast forward to the present: Smith's lawyer prepares a statement, has a junior associate (who, by the way, is a UP law graduate) notarize the document, and then asks Nicole to sign it as a condition for the release of her VISA and 100,000 pesos. All this WITHOUT EVER consulting her counsel on record.

If Nicole had a lawyer, she might still have signed the affidavit. But it would have never looked this bad. Take a look at paragraphs 6-10, which incorporate all the arguments the defense raised during trial. ALL OF THEM.

And then take a look at the last sentence of the affidavit: "I would rather risk public outrage than do nothing to help the court in ensuring that justice is served." The sentence brings a whole new low to the legal profession. I admit I am ashamed of what we have become.

Nicole left everything behind so she could start anew, and I don't blame her. Not one bit.

THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES FOR THE SENTOSA 27++ NURSES

News Release
March 18, 2009

Reference: Atty. Felix Vinluan, Justice for the Sentosa 27++ Campaign,
email: nafconusa@yahoo.com

Community Forum Pledges to Struggle for Complete Justice for Wronged Healthcare Workers

"It's time to up the ante...."

This was the sentiment posed by community supporters of the Sentosa 27++ Nurses who will be holding an important forum on the ongoing Justice for the Sentosa 27++ Nurses Campaign this Sunday, March 22nd, 2pm at Jing Fong Restaurant in Chinatown . Entitled "Up the Ante Towards Full Justice for the Sentosa 27++ and All Victims of Illegal Recruitment" the dinner event will feature highlights from the community campaign for the trafficked healthcare workers from the Philippines who came to the United States in 2006 under direct hire nursing contracts with SentosaCare LLC. But after tenets of the Sentosa contracts were not honored, the 26 nurses and a physical therapist fought back with the help of their lawyer, Felix Vinluan.

Sentosa's CEO Bent Philipson retaliated against 10 of the nurses who resigned from his Avalon Gardens Nursing home in Suffolk County , Long Island and Vinluan by filing criminal charges of so-called patient endangerment. In a historic court decision earlier this year, the criminal charges against the 10 Avalon Nurses and Vinluan were formally prohibited. This was after supporters, such as the Legal Aid Society, the National Employment Lawyers Association of New York, New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA), the American Nurses Association (ANA), SEIU 1199, and the Suffolk County Defenders Association filed their respective amicus briefs to support the Article 78 prohibition petition filed by lawyers James Druker and Oscar Michelen for the nurses and Vinluan.

"Justice has not been fully served. We still need to fight for the shutting down of SentosaCare LLC. The former Sentosa nurses represent millions of Filipino migrant workers who fall victim to illegal contractualization and other forms of human trafficking because contractors like SentosaCare LLC prey on their desire to escape joblessness and poverty in the Philippines . Every year, tens of thousands of Filipinos enter the US as healthworkers or teachers duped by fraudulent contracts signed in the Philippines ," states Rico Foz of the National Alliance for Filipino Concerns or NAFCON.

NAFCON, along with supporters from the Philippine Nurses Association of America (PNAA), NYSNA, Movement for a Free Philippines (MFP), formed the Justice for the Sentosa 27++ Campaign (J4S27), a grassroots community campaign in support of the nurses as early as 2006, at a time when the nurses plea for justice was largely shunned by others in the Filipino community. "Unfortunately, there were those who refused to offer help to the nurses back then that are only speaking out now in support because of the Avalon 11's recent victory against criminalization," Foz added.

In 2007, the Justice for the Sentosa 27++ Campaign marched as one large contingent down Madison Avenue during the annual Philippine Independence Day Parade in New York City after holding several community forums at the NAFCON office in Queens . NAFCON, PNAA and NYSNA members also held outdoor demonstrations in the freezing cold winter of 2007 outside the Suffolk County Courthouse during the hearings on the Avalon 11's case. Congressional hearings were held in Manila through the J4S27's campaign's Philippine-based partners investigating the Sentosa Recruitment Agency, the agency who contracted the nurses from the Philippines to work at Sentosa-owned facilities in New York State . A campaign website was generated with a petition calling for six basic demands, which include the dropping of all civil and criminal charges against the nurses and shutting down of SentosaCare LLC. "For as long as all six demands have not been met, we will continue to up the ante on this important struggle for justice," Foz ended.

Jing Fong Restaurant is located at 18 Elizabeth Street , between Canal and Bayard Streets in Chinatown . The Justice for the Sentosa 27++ Campaign site can be accessed at www.s27plus.com. ###

Leftist Victory in El Salvador Closes an Historic Cycle

by: Marc Cooper
The Huffington Post
Special Correspondent, frmr Editorial Director of OffTheBus
Posted March 16, 2009 | 09:08 AM (EST)

The apparent victory of leftist candidate Maurico Funes in Sunday's presidential election in El Salvador finally closes out the Cold War in Central America and raises some serious questions about the long term goals of U.S. foreign policy.

With Funes' election, history has come full cycle. Both El Salvador and neighboring Nicaragua will now be governed by two former guerrilla fronts against which the Reagan administration spared no efforts in trying to defeat during the entire course of the 1980's. We will now coexist with those we once branded as the greatest of threats to our national security. Those we branded as "international terrorists" now democratically govern much of Central America.

Funes, once a commentator for CNN's Spanish-language service, comes to power representing the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), a Marxist guerrilla group-turned-political -party, an organization that the U.S. government once described in terms now reserved for Al Qaeda and Hizbollah.

From the late 1970's until a negotiated peace settlement in 1992, the FMLN fought a bloody civil war against a series of U.S.-backed right-wing regimes. Those Salvadoran regimes engaged in horrific massacres and deployed savage death squads, taking a massive human toll. While the FMLN also perpetrated atrocities, all independent analysts agree that the overwhelming majority of the 75,000 who were killed in the war in El Salvador were victims of government-sponsored violence.

This same FMLN which now comes to power in El Salvador was once declared as the primary perpetrator of "international terrorism" by the Reagan administration who deployed hundreds of U.S. military advisors to the tiny Central American country and who quadrupled the size of the Salvadoran Army. In this all-out quest to crush the FLMN, U.S. authorities, at best, turned a blind eye to the bloody excesses of the Salvadoran regime. At worst, it encouraged them.

At the same time in history, the U.S. spent billions creating a "contra" army to destabilize and dislodge the leftist Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) which had taken power in Nicaragua in 1979, overthrowing the dynastic and dictatorial rule of the Somoza family - another U.S.-backed ally.

During the entire eight years of the Reagan era, defeating both the FMLN and the FSLN were the absolute top priorities of U.S. foreign policy as the administration argued that the Texas border was a short hop from the fields of Central America and that all must be done to stop the northward march of hemispheric revolution. The sort of inflammatory rhetoric used to describe the Central American guerrilla movements was an eerie precedent for the overheated war of words against "The Axis of Evil" that would emerge earlier this decade.

The Nicaraguan Sandinistas were eventually defeated by an American-backed opposition in elections in 1990 and democratically and peacefully transferred power (something the Reaganites claimed could never happen). But the Sandinistas returned to power last year re-electing its historic leader Daniel Ortega as president. Almost twenty years of rule from the pro-U.S. coalitions that had succeeded the Sandinistas had failed to implement any meaningful social change.

The Salvadoran FMLN, meanwhile, which has acted as a parliamentary opposition party since the 1992 Salvadoran peace accords, now comes to power ending twenty years of uninterrupted rule by the country's ultra-conservative ARENA party - a political organization born directly from the death squads of the 1980's and, yes, a close ally of the U.S.

All of this raises the question of why so many lives were spent and so many billions in U.S. dollars were burned in an attempt to expunge these leftist forces twenty years ago? Wouldn't it have been possible in 1989 to find some sort of accommodation with these radical forces and not postpone the inevitable for twenty years?

In the case of Nicaragua, the year-old reborn and duly elected Sandinista administration--while far from a model of democratic ethics-- hardly poses any threat to U.S. interests. Though President Ortega, saddled with governing one of the poorest countries in the hemisphere, still clothes his actions in revolutionary rhetoric, he has headed up what many think is essentially a conservative regime which recently outlawed all abortion (a move that could warm the deceased Ronald Reagan's heart). Ortega campaigned successfully for the presidency last year by quoting from scripture and has not flinched from pacting with the most conservative of political elements.

In the case of El Salvador, President-elect Funes has pledged to maintain close and cordial relations with the U.S. And while the FMLN--like the Sandinistas - clings to some of its Cold War revolutionary rhetoric, no one expects any radical moves by the incoming government. Fighting widespread poverty aggravated by the global slump and a chilling crime wave, the FMLN will have its hands full just keeping the government on keel. President-elect Funes holds distinctly moderate views and in an American context would be little more than a liberal Democrat. In any case, the FMLN can point to its recent governance of several Salvadoran cities (including until recently the capital of San Salvador) as its democratic bona fides.

The resurrection of the FMLN and the FSLN at this time in history raises a troubling irony regarding U.S. foreign policy. Yesterday we were told they were our greatest enemies. Today, now in power, they hardly garner any U.S. press coverage, let alone much attention from Washington. Likewise, the right-wing forces we bankrolled with blood and treasure and who we were told were a bulwark of Western Civilization, utterly failed in solving the basic existential questions that bedeviled their respective countries. Twenty years from now, we have to ask, what will Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria look like? Might we find ourselves peacefully co-existing with the same undefeated forces who today we proclaim our mortal enemies? Might we be better off using our soft power, our economic and diplomatic clout to force negotiation and moderation with those we perceive as irrational and radical enemies? Or do we only reach that conclusion after the dissipation of prolonged, bloody and ultimately unsuccessful armed intervention and war?

'Daddy O' brings parenting into politics

By: Andie Coller
The Politico, December 27, 2008 07:37 PM EST

Just call him Daddy O.

Most leaders’ playbooks take at least a page or two from “The Art of War,” but President-elect Obama’s rhetoric seems to be torn from very different kind of text: the modern parenting manual.

The “change we can believe in,” it turns out, shares a lot with the revolution in thinking about child-rearing sprung from the work of Austrian psychologist Alfred Adler, which centers on principles such as mutual respect — or what the president-elect has called “the presumption of good faith” — fostering independence (“Team of Rivals,” anyone?), and encouragement (“Yes we can!”).

This passage from Obama’s victory speech, for example, is a family meeting waiting to happen, complete with attempts to acknowledge his own limits, make room for dissent, make sure the listeners feel heard, and stress the importance of everyone’s contribution:

“There are many who won’t agree with every decision or policy I make as president, and we know that government can’t solve every problem. But I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face. I will listen to you, especially when we disagree. And above all, I will ask you join in the work of remaking this nation the only way it’s been done in America for two-hundred and twenty-one years — block by block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand.”

These and other progressive parenting principles are reflected not only in Obama’s rhetoric, but also in his approach to leadership — an approach that already seems to be rubbing off.

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), for instance, recently called Senate Democrats’ decision not to strip Sen. Joe Lieberman of his chairmanship a “direct result of the tone [Obama] set.”

“The old school was that you reward your friends and punish your enemies,” she said. “But it’s a new day, and there is no reward and punishment going on.”

No rewards or punishments? Alfie Kohn, whose book “Unconditional Parenting” is subtitled “Moving from Rewards and Punishments to Love and Reason” approves:

“The most respectful — and effective — approach to parenting consists of working WITH children rather than doing things TO them,” he says. ‘Working with’ parents talk less and listen more. They regularly try to imagine how the world looks from the child's point of view. They bring kids into the process of decision-making whenever possible. ‘Doing to’ parents, on the other hand, impose their will and use some combination of rewards and punishments in an attempt to elicit obedience.”

Kohn says a “working with” approach in the political realm is “essentially more democratic” — particularly if it offers real choices, and not just the illusion of them.

A progressive parenting approach also means taking responsibility for your own role in a conflict, says Jane Nelsen, author of the classic child-rearing handbook “Positive Discipline.” She compares Obama’s vow to end the “partisan bickering” in Washington or his determination to use diplomacy as a primary tool in international relations to the efforts of parents who want to break out of power struggles or revenge cycles with their kids: “In order to stop them, someone has to recognize what it is, and say, ‘I can even see what my part has been in the power struggle,’ and find solutions that work for everyone.”

It would be easy to bash Obama’s enlightened-father philosophy as an insulting new extension of the nanny state, but the truth is that the exercise of power in any form shares a lot in common with the parent-child relationship.

As President Bush’s former chief of staff Andy Card said of his boss during the 2004 Republican National Convention: “This president sees America as we think about a 10-year-old child.”

Bush’s rhetorical model, however, is typically more “Father Knows Best” than T. Berry Brazelton.

Consider these words from the 43rd president, back when he was keeping his secretary of defense:

"I hear the voices, and I read the front page, and I know the speculation. But I’m the decider, and I decide what is best. And what's best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the secretary of defense."

His choice of words suggests a more no-nonsense, SuperNanny-style approach to his job (“It’s in their nature to test the boundaries and it’s up to you to make sure they don’t cross the line”) that also has its proponents: Bush’s tough, take-no-guff rhetoric led many, including former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, to praise him as a “strong leader” during a time of war.

But progressive parenting experts argue that the “love and reason” approach to leadership is not only more respectful — it might also turn out to be more effective.

According to Kohn, children who feel listened to, respected and understood, and who are allowed to take real responsibility and develop internal motivation, tend to care more and work harder than those who are rewarded for their achievements.

On the other hand, says Nelsen, while rewards and punishments may work in the short term, in the long run children who are raised to respond to them rather become either “praise junkies” or “rebels.”

As Kohn puts it in “Unconditional Parenting”: “One reason that a heavy-handed, do-what-I-say approach tends not to work very well is that, in the final analysis, we really CAN’T control our kids — at least not in the ways that matter. ... It’s simply impossible to force a child to go to sleep, or stop crying, or listen or respect us. These are the issues that are most trying to parents precisely because it’s here that we run up against the inherent limits of what one human being can compel another human being to do.”

“Sadly, though, that doesn’t stop us from trying newer, cleverer, or more forceful strategies to get kids to comply. And when these techniques fail, that’s often taken as evidence that what’s needed is ... more of the same.”

More of the same? There’s one phrase that’s definitely not in the new top pop’s vocabulary.

© 2008 Capitol News Company, LLC

1st CNA for Academic Union and 3rd for the Workers Union Signed Today

In the 100 year history of the University of the Philippines (UP), the first ever collective negotiation agreement (CNA) between UP and the union of UP’s rank-and-file faculty and REPS (research, extension and professional staff) will be signed today, December 12, Friday at 10 to 11 am at the Lobby of Quezon Hall, University of the Philippines. The University will be represented by President Emerlinda R. Roman and the rank-and-file academic personnel will be represented by Dr. Erlinda Castro-Palaganas, National President of the All UP Academic Employees Union.

The third CNA between UP and the university’s rank-and-file administrative staff will be signed simultaneously. President Roman will sign for the university and Arnulfo Anoos, National President of the All-UP Workers Union will sign on behalf of the administrative staff.

The CNA is equivalent to the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) in the private sector.

The two CNAs will be in force for five years and include provisions recognizing the All UP Academic Employees Union and the All UP Workers Union as the sole-and-exclusive representative of the rank-and-file academic personnel and administrative staff, respectively. Provisions on union representation in university committees, union rights and privileges, leaves, incentives and gender responsiveness are among the salient provisions of the CNA.

The signing of the two CNAs is one of the remaining major activities in the state university’s observance of its centennial year, now dubbed as the Philippine's National University under its new charter (R.A. 9500) that was enacted on April 2008.

Public Education at Risk of Privatisation by Stealth

By Guntars Catlaks

A new study commissioned by Education International reveals that a growing trend towards privatisation of public education is often camouflaged by the language of "educational reform," or introduced stealthily as "modernisation. " Hence the title of the study: Hidden Privatisation In Public Education.

The research was undertaken by Prof. Stephen Ball and Dr. Deborah Youdell, both of the Institute of Education, University of London. The authors explore two key types of privatisation: one in which ideas, techniques and practices from the private sector are imported to make schools more business-like; and another in which public education is opened up to private sector participation on a for-profit basis. The former type often paves the way for the latter.

Both types of privatisation have profound impacts upon the way education is delivered, how curriculum is decided, how teachers are trained, how students are assessed, and indeed on the fundamental values underpinning public education in both industrialised and developing countries.

"A central issue, as this report so clearly shows, concerns the very ethos of education," said EI General Secretary Fred van Leeuwen. "To put it in the starkest possible way: is education about giving each child, each young man or woman, the opportunity to develop his or her full potential as a person and as a member of society? Or is education to be a service sold to clients, who are considered from a young age to be consumers and targets for marketing?"

Teachers and their unions around the world actively defend the concept of quality public education as a fundamental right of child. Therefore, this stealthy transformation of education from a public good into a commodity to be used for private profit is of deep concern.

"Education International commissioned this study to shine a spotlight on the trend towards privatisation. We need greater transparency and we need to get a better understanding of what is happening, so that we can engage in an open public debate about the future of education in our societies," van Leeuwen said.

A preliminary report was published for the World Congress in Berlin in July 2007, and was presented by the authors at a break-out session. The EI Research Institute commissioned the report, and the EI Research Network met twice to discuss issues of privatisation and to evaluate the emerging findings. The final report was launched 17 June at the Trade Union Centre in London.

John Bangs of the National Union of Teachers and a member of the board of the EI Research Institute, said: "It's the first genuine analysis of the global impact of these trends toward privatisation on public education systems." Referring to the lately deceased General Secretary of the NUT, he added: "Steve Sinnott would have been absolutely delighted to see this report."

"This is the first blast of the EI trumpet against the monstrous impact of the privatisers in education," said Jerry Bartlett, General Secretary of the NASUWT and a member of the EI Executive Board. "Privatisation is an abdication of the state's responsibility to provide a fundamental right. This will be a really useful tool to use to campaign against the loss of the public sector ethos in education."

Stephen Ball noted that the so-called education industry is enormously profitable. "Education services are the single largest export industry for the UK, valued at about 28 billion pounds a year," he said. "This is big business!"

And within this big business, the newly emerged class of "edupreneurs" are set to reap the biggest profits. Testing companies, for example, are multi-million dollar enterprises in countries that place high priority on test results as a measure of educational quality. Under George Bush's "No Child Left Behind" legislation in the United States, about 45 million tests are administered annually at a profit of up to US $517 million to the private sector, he said.

And, at a global level, the World Bank is also actively promoting private corporate involvement in public education systems. "The World Bank is placing the private sector at the centre of its policy in the developing world," Ball said.

Youdell added that in many developing nations privatisation tendencies are often more prevalent in newly-established World Bank or aid-funded educational projects. Because they are more dependent on external funding, developing nations are inevitably also more vulnerable to privatisation in all its forms, she said.

In many countries, privatisation has proceeded so far that it is seen as inevitable or simply "common sense," Ball warned. He urged educators to be sceptical of private initiatives, and to look more deeply beyond the immediately apparent benefits of, for example, "free" computers, equipment, or learning resources.

The most insidious effects of hidden privatisation, Ball found, were the ways in which relationships between teachers, students and parents are changed. When education is commodified, the results—including the accomplishments of students—become seen as products. In this way, school leaders become business managers, teachers become technicians and students—depending on their test results—become assets or liabilities in a school ranked against all its neighbours.

He emphasized that there is a strong need for "ethical audits" to evaluate the impact of private involvement in public education.

Bob Harrris, EI Senior Consultant, welcomed the report and praised its potential as a tool for teacher unions to develop their strategies and resist the most egregious forms of privatisation. Harris emphasized the need for trade unionists to gain a deep understanding of the threats posed to public education (and indeed all public services) by the pressures of privatisation, and to act energetically to implement counter-proposals.

"The debate should not be about whether education reforms are needed, but rather about the kind of reforms and the conditions for success," he said.

This article was published in Worlds of Education, Issue 27, September 2008.

Migration of Health Workers & Professionals: The Philippine Experience

Jossel I. Ebesate, RN, MAN Candidate
Secretary-General, Alliance of Health Workers (AHW), Philippines

Migration is one of the pressing issue that affects the lives of around 90 million Filipinos, 9 to 10 million of which are officially coined as Overseas Filipino Workers or OFWs. It is not a coincidence that the Philippines is hosting the 2nd Global Forum on Migration & Development (GFMD). Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is like a poster girl promoting migration of Filipinos in the name of dollar remittances, at the expense of poor Filipino OFWs, migrants and their families.

Our own International Assembly of Migrants & Refugees is very significant not only because we are holding this at almost the same time with the GFMD. This is significant because we, migrants, refugees and concerned organizations and individuals are strengthening our unity to fight for our rights in the face of a worsening global financial crisis affecting all countries.

Extent of Brain Drain

The Philippines is the no. 1 exporter of nurses worldwide with 85% of Filipino nurses working in some 50 countries. Every month more than 2,000 nurses leave the Philippines to work abroad . More than 9,000 doctors have already left as nurses from 2002 to 2005. Other professionals like dentists, physical therapists, medical technologists, lawyers, engineers are taking up nursing courses to work as nurses abroad. An estimated 15,000 health professionals leave the country annually for employment abroad.

For the past five years, about 50% of nurses employed in specialty hospitals like Philippine Health Center, National Kidney & Transplant Institute, Lung Center of the Philippines & Philippine Children's Medical Center went abroad. They are replaced by new nurses, who are also applying for abroad but just finishing few years experience as requirements.

“Doctors becoming nurses” is a new phenomenon which result to the depletion of doctors. Ninety percent (90%) of Municipal Health Officers, these are doctors working in rural health centers, are taking up nursing and expected to leave the country. Anesthesiologists and obstetricians are rapidly depleting, followed by pediatricians and surgeons.

The demand for nurses is expected to increase, estimated at 600,000 between now and year 2010 . Developed countries want skilled labor to take care of their sick and old population. Their youth population no longer takes interest in nursing profession due to relatively difficult, long hours, and high stress, hazardous working conditions. They dislike the care of the chronically ill and afraid of exposure to HIV/AIDS.

In this era of imperialist globalization, countries like United States of America, United Kingdom and other developed countries, thrives on cheap labor of the third world countries like the Philippines. There are about 10 million Filipinos including health professionals who live and work in 197 countries.

The globalization of labor has been accepted thru the World Trade Organization's specific provisions, the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) which sets down disciplines and provides the most effective framework to pursue liberalization of trade in services. GATS encourages industrialized countries to poach the brightest and the best from poor countries while protecting their own.

Oppressive & exploitative conditions pushing health professionals to leave

Manila Archbishop Gaudencio Rosales said in July 2004, “the fact that millions of Filipinos are forced to work abroad is proof of government’s economic failure.”

Indeed, economic factor is the number one cause why Filipinos, including health professionals, leave the country. The problems of unemployment, low salaries, rising cost of basic commodities and services push many Filipinos to seek greener pasture abroad. Nurses and other health professionals suffer from unjust working conditions, low salaries, denied benefit, job insecurity and curtailment of basic rights.

Health workers suffer from unjust working conditions. To provide better patient care, a nurse should take care of 15 patients for an 8-hour shift. But nurses in the Philippines take care of up to 150 patients per shift.

Starvation wages and denied benefits. Health workers are among the most overworked workers in the world, yet, salaries remained at starvation level. Our salaries cannot afford us decent, health and humane living conditions. Nurses receive a salary of P6,000 (US$130) in private hospitals, P12,026 (US$261) in government hospitals per month. A resident physician in a government hospital earns P19, 168 (US$417)/month. This is way below the monthly cost of living of P27,100 (US $565) for a family of 6 .

Health workers are deprived of economic benefits due us, such as overtime pay, night shift differential, housing allowance and holiday pay. Meager amounts are given for subsistence, clothing and laundry allowances. Health workers have to struggle earnestly for those benefits. These are despite the fact that all these benefits are mandated by law.

Health workers suffer from job insecurity. The government implements reorganization and streamlining programs resulting to mass lay-off and job insecurities among health workers. In state hospitals, operations and maintenance are now privatized or are under contract to private companies. The security service, dietary, pharmacy, laundry, engineering and maintenance are contracted out first. Former regular employees in these services, if not removed became contractual workers. Nurses also become contractual workers.

Government agencies say that we have an “oversupply of nurses”. But aside from understaffing in the hospitals, there are so many doctorless and nurse-less barangays throughout the country, because there are no plantilla positions available or no takers if ever there are available positions. The supposed “oversupply” - which is actually “unemployment,” results to exploitation by hospitals both in the private and public sector through “volunteer” work and “trainings” in exchange for exorbitant fees. In reality however, these “volunteers” and “trainees” were in most cases made to cover for the understaffing of hospitals.

Health workers’ basic rights curtailed. To ensure more income, owners and hospital management find ways to control the workers even if their basic democratic rights are trampled upon. Freedom of expression is suppressed. Contractual health workers are prevented from joining unions or organizations while legitimate workers’ unions are being busted. Some management refuses to negotiate with duly accredited health workers union. Union leaders are harassed. Policies, regulations and strict work procedures are implemented to hinder the movement or curtail freedom of workers. Hospital management intervenes by promoting and actually establishing pro-management & yellow unions.

The Philippine government is not worried on the exodus of health professionals, even encourages it. The DOH response is not to stop the brain drain. The government agencies are not doing anything with the sprouting of substandard profit-oriented nursing schools in response to increased demands for nurses abroad. The western-oriented and commercialized curriculum is even being modified to further “prepare” nurse graduates in working broad by introducing subjects like “Nihonggo” as electives, and others.

These are the factors that force health professionals to work or migrate to developed countries. However, instead of solving the economic crisis and addressing the problems of health workers the Arroyo government choose to make money out of the migrants and overseas workers. Through the labor export policy the government trade cheap labor force in exchange for dollar remittances.

Abuses and Exploitation of Health Workers & Professionals Abroad

Growing number of health professionals going abroad end up working as nanny, health care givers in home care institutions or live-in care givers. In Canada, Filipino Nurses are recruited to work as registered nurses through the Live-in Caregiver Program that forces them to work as 24-hour domestic workers who clean, cook and care for the children, elderly of the middle & upper class Canadian families.

In the United Kingdom, foreign nurses are made to pay their employer or recruitment agency for the opportunity to work. Worse, they are put on the lowest rung of the ladder, equivalent to health care assistants, while they are in still processing their registration as professional nurses. After they receive their UK registration their salary is adjusted to a level with UK trained staff.

In the USA, some health professionals become victims of illegal recruitment. Like the case of the 27 victims of Sentosa Recruitment Agency in New York. Upon arriving in the US, the 26 nurses and 1 physical therapist were duped into working as agency nurses rather than as direct-hire staff nurses, had their wage rates lowered considerably and withheld over long periods of time, their green cards withheld, and were maltreated and abused by Sentosa affiliate hospitals and nursing homes for which they worked. When they resigned upon realizing their exploitative conditions, they were charged with criminal and administrative charges by the hospitals and nursing homes together with Sentosa. The case of illegal recruitment filed against Sentosa in the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration was dismissed after a government official intervened.

In some other countries especially in the Middle East, many nurses complained of a series of promises over salaries and accommodation that have been broken twice over by recruiters and employers. In fact, contract substitution is the norm. They claim their housing costs have been raised in spite of their contract to include electricity, gas and council tax. The nurses also report that the free airfare promised by the recruitment agency is now being deducted from their salaries. There are also reports of bullying. Nurses were not provided with job descriptions and some employers have asked to be paid if the nurse leaves before the end of three years, even though they had only agreed to work for two. They encountered problems of being asked to sign new contracts that will commit them to less pay and more work, including some domestic duties.

The Philippine government itself is pushing Filipinos in peril abroad. Yet it gives token or no assistance at all in most of these cases of abuse and exploitation. Thus, Filipino health workers become victims twice over. Their cases add up to the increasing number of abuse and exploitation of overseas Filipino workers.

Devastating effects of migration

Effects to health care. The continuing out-migration of health workers and health professionals is affecting health care provisions in the home country, negatively. Migration aggravates the already dismal health care system. Health groups have predicted an impending health crisis unless the “exodus” of health personnel is mitigated.

Even before the dramatic out-migration of health professionals, the health care system is already in dismal state. Fifty percent (50%) of the population has no access to health care. The Philippines is record holder in the incidence of tuberculosis in the past years, but only 60% of the population has access to essential drugs. Average hospitalization bill is three times the average monthly income.

The health indicators of the Philippines are worse compared to selected Asian countries like Japan, South Korea, Malaysia & Thailand.

The fast turn-over of nurses further lowers the standard of care, because they are replaced with new inexperienced nurses. Operating rooms are staffed with novice nurses, and experienced ones often work double shifts.

There is a decrease in the enrollment in medical schools of 10%-55% in the last 2 years. Likewise there is a decline in the applicants for medical residency positions to become specialists with an average of 50%.

The out-migration is aggravating the shortage of doctors and nurses in the hospital and in rural areas. In 2003 to 2005 some 200 hospitals were completely closed, 800 partially closed for lack of doctors/nurses . Many more towns will be added to the list of towns which have no doctors and nurses.

Filipino people have to suffer once more with further lack of nurses and doctors on top of inadequate and unaffordable medicines, supplies and health services. It is very ironic that in a country exporting tens of thousands of nurses, seven (7) out of 10 Filipinos are dying without being seen by health personnel. Health groups are worried that there will come a day when there are no more doctors or nurses to cure our illnesses.

Aside from the effects of brain drain to health care, social cost is equally devastating. Those who will leave the country will suffer from extreme loneliness and will be longing for home. Family members of health professionals also suffer from the separation. There are cases wherein children of OFWs became victims of drug addiction, alcoholism, early pregnancy due to lack of parental guidance. Cases of infidelity and separation among married couples are increasing.

Neoliberal policies and Labor Export Policy

The Philippine government is callous and insensitive to the plight of the Filipino people including health workers & professionals. Instead of resolving the health and economic problems of the Filipino people and the concerns of health workers, the government is implementing policies detrimental to people’s welfare.

The government is implementing budget cuts for social services, wage freeze, streamlining of bureaucracy, freeze hiring and contractualization in accordance with cost-cutting measures dictated by international lending bodies particularly the International Monetary Fund-World Bank in exchange for fresh loans. These same policies that subject health workers to unjust working conditions, starvation wages and non-payment of benefits, curtailment of rights and denial of job security that push them to go abroad.

In the framework of globalization, neoliberal policies such as liberalization, deregulation and privatization are religiously implemented by the Philippine government decades but have not uplifted the condition of Filipinos. Unemployment, underemployment, landlessness & deprivation of basic services become worse. With the current financial crisis, the majority of Filipino people will sink even deeper to poverty and lack opportunities to survive, 10 million Filipinos have migrate and many more are being forced to work abroad.

Labor export has been a flourishing industry in the Philippines due government’s Labor Export Policy. It is used to prop up the sagging economy battered by perennial crisis. Forced migration is used to deflect social revolt due the people’s discontent and it is used as deception tool employed by the government to enable daily survival of majority Filipinos.

The government is earning much from remittances and exactions from Filipino migrant workers. The Philippines ranks 4th worldwide in terms of remittances earned with US $17B remittances in 2007 . The huge amount of remittances poured into the country by overseas and migrant workers constitute the bulk of dollar reserves, used not for social services, but as guarantee for foreign loans, payment for foreign debt and to cover for trade deficit.

For as long as the Philippines remain as semi-colonial & semi-feudal society, our country will be a steady source of cheap labor to exploit.

The Arroyo government is more concerned in staying in power and raking up money from the blood and sweat of the Filipino people, both here and abroad. It prioritizes debt servicing and military expenditures in the national budget. The neo-liberal policies exacerbate the economic crisis and poverty among the Filipino people. If not for the remittances of the OFWs, the Philippine economy had collapsed long ago.

In their bid to earn from the migration of Filipinos, the Arroyo Government and first world receiving countries treat the Filipino people, Filipino families and the OFWs and migrants as simply collateral damages. Labor export policy and migration will never become a tool for development for the Filipino people because it never addresses the root causes of crisis and poverty that have caused migration in the first place. Migration at such becomes a tool to further control, exploit and impoverish poor countries and peoples like the Filipino people.

Response & Proposed Actions

The migration of health professionals will not be controlled for as long as the causes why the Filipinos migrate continue to exist in the country. Primary focus should be in addressing the economic crisis and poverty affecting the majority of the Filipino people. This necessitates the concerted action of all sectors of the Philippine society.

In the immediate, concerns like unemployment, low salaries, inadequate benefits, unfavorable working conditions must be improved. Education should be reoriented to produce graduates willing to serve the Filipino people. Health and education should be affordable and accessible to all Filipinos.


At the policy level, pressures must be exerted to scrap the “labor export policy”. Policies like wage freeze, freeze hiring, streamlining, cuts in social services, contractualization, privatization being implemented in accordance with globalization policies should be exposed and opposed. Meaningful programs like genuine land reform and nationalist industrialization should be implemented.

These require political will from a truly pro-people government. Different groups and sectors must exert all efforts to push for structural changes both in economic and political spheres to carry out meaningful changes in the situation of the Filipino people.

It has been proven time and again that organized people’s action is the most effective way to confront problems. The unity and solidarity of migrants & other sectors is necessary to effectively resist anti-people policies. Let us launch sustained concerted actions at the country and global level with the involvement of more health workers and professionals.

Our Calls/On Going Campaigns

In particular and in immediate terms, we call:

• Scrap labor export policy (LEP)!
• Fight for workers rights & welfare!
• Demand for health budget increase! Fight for salary increase!
• Stop Forced migration, ensure jobs at homelands! End poverty!
• WTO out of health!

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Keynote Presentation for Workshop No. 9 (Health, Globalization & Migration: Issues and Struggles of Migrant Health Workers), International Assembly of Migrants and Refugees, October 30, 2008, 8:30 – 11:30 AM, Ballroom (B), 10/F, Bayview Park Hotel, Roxas Blvd corner U.N. Ave., Manila, Philippines