Pinoy health workers with existing contracts not barred from leaving —POEA exec

By LLANESCA T. PANTI, GMA News Filipino health workers who have existing contracts abroad won't be barred from leaving the country, the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) said Tuesday. advertisement POEA Administrator Bernard Olalia made the clarification after the government announced that the 5,000 cap for Filipino nurses deployed abroad has been reached and as such, there will be no new deployment amid the COVID-19 pandemic. This means that the POEA will not issue new OEC for Filipino health care workers for the time being. "The cap of 5,000 was reached last June 1 based on the overseas employment certificate issued since January. Exempted from this are those with existing contracts," Olalia said during the Laging Handa briefing. "Also exempted are those for deployment in the United Kingdom and those hired under government-to-government scheme because we have to fulfill the state obligation under such bilateral agreement. So they will be able to leave," he added. Olalia then said that the POEA has already made recommendation to the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases to increase the cap for the number of Filipino health workers to be deployed abroad. "We want to be able to deploy more," Olalia said. Among the 5,000 who were already deployed abroad since January were nurses, nursing aides and nursing assistants, Olalia said. Myanmar As this developed, Olalia also said a temporary deployment ban has been imposed on Myanmar due to lingering military crackdown on pro-democracy protesters there. Those Filipinos with existing job contracts in Myanmar, however, will he allowed to leave the country. —KBK, GMA News

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