Editorial

a substantial number of their nursing staff. Amid the pandemic, wealthy countries moved aggressively to recruit health professionals from overseas. Canada, for example, eased language requirements for residency. Germany allowed foreign-trained doctors to move directly into assistant physician positions. Even Finland began recruiting health workers from overseas.

The destination country was also encouraged to provide some form of support for public healthcare programs in the source country, and to encourage foreign health professionals to return to their home country after a certain period, and after acquiring certain skills. The question has always been whether migrant health professionals wanted to return home.

The nursing shortage burdened the Philippines at the height of the COVID pandemic, when even the top hospitals that could afford high salaries reported losing

BaBe Romualdez

THOSE arguing against expanding the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) with the additional four new locations

The problem requires less affluent and developing economies to innovate and exert more effort to hang on to their health professionals particularly nurses. On Wednesday, March 29, President Marcos ordered the Commission on Higher Education to address the country’s loss of nurses to states that offer better remuneration. He noted that Filipino nurses are known for the quality of their service. He said that in his meetings with leaders of other countries, they always asked him for nursing staff from the Philippines.

CHED officials have said that so far, several programs are already in place to address the problem. Among these are shorter courses for various nursing competencies, the “retooling” of those who fail the nursing board, and a “return service” program that offers nursing scholarships in exchange for a certain mandatory period of working in the Philippines. A “Nurse para sa Bayan” will be similar to the “Doktor para sa Bayan” scheme under Republic Act 11509.

President Marcos gave an accurate assessment: “Our nurses are the best; the whole world is our rival here.” One thing certain is that the country cannot afford to be complacent and ignore the problem. (Philstar. com)

miss the whole point when they declare it is tantamount to preparing for conflict, or that our efforts to enhance the capability of our military through modernization could get us embroiled in a war over the Taiwan issue which, in their view, is “none of our business.”

Totally wrong. We, together with like-minded countries, want to prevent an armed conflict from occurring within our area. At the same time, we want to deter any more incursions into our territory. No one can dispute that we have been very patient in the face of the aggression that China has been repeatedly demonstrating for so many years, where we have been filing diplomatic protests for every instance of bullying against our fishermen and the harassment to which they have been subjecting our Coast Guard personnel in areas that are unquestionably within our exclusive economic zone.

La Salle professor Richard Heydarian – a foreign policy and economic analyst whom I have a high regard for because the points he raises on various issues are rational and highly cerebral – correctly pointed out that “diplomacy can only be effective when deployed from a position of strength, otherwise one has limited leverage when dealing with rivals and hostile powers. Worse, diplomacy from a position of weakness is tantamount to glorified surrender.”

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