Reforms needed to make Filipino nurses stay in PH, says group

Policy changes and reforms are needed to get more Filipino nurses to stay and pursue opportunities in the Philippines.

During the Filipino Nurses Global Summit VI and 15th International Nursing Conference in Pasay City on Thursday, Philippine Nursing Association president-elect Alicia Tullo said that Filipino nurses leave the country in pursuit of a better life.

“If the reason that they are motivated to leave their family and their loved ones ...to go abroad is to have a better life for their family, how do you stop that? Give it to them here, then there's no reason to leave,” she said.

Tullo said that access to healthcare in the country would be easily resolved if there were more nurses in communities.

She said that an increase in compensation would be the easiest way to improve their living conditions, and make migration a choice instead of a necessity to survive.

“Right now, mahirap ang buhay. Siyempre, most of the Filipinos, they want to help their families. So, what do they want to do? They want to go somewhere where there is a better opportunity, where they can earn a good living, and they can help their families back home,” she shared.

Tullo commended President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s recent move to provide the biggest budget yet to the healthcare sector under the 2026 General Appropriations Act (GAA), noting that it was a step in the right direction.

She stressed the need to make healthcare a priority in the Philippines.

“If you want a country to prosper and you have to have a healthy workforce, you really have to focus on health care because an unhealthy person cannot work… As far as I'm concerned, [the budget increase is] the first step, and I would congratulate him for doing that. Finally, it's happening,” she said.

Migration as a choice, not a necessity

Commission on Filipinos Overseas (CFO) chairperson Dante Francis Ang II said that the government is working to ensure that migration is only an option, and not a necessity, for the Filipino nurses.

He said the agency is focusing on diaspora engagement and implementing programs to encourage and help Filipino nurses find their way back into the country.

“Our programs are geared to link the Filipinos abroad back to the Philippines politically, economically, and culturally. We don't encourage people to go out. What we do is to create programs that allow them to establish linkages back with the Philippines,” Ang said.

“The good thing about our people is they don't need encouragement [to go back to the Philippines]. What they do need is information. Who can they trust here in the Philippines. They may have been gone for many decades.  They don't know who to talk to or how to go about helping. That is where CFO comes in to provide those programs to enable them to do what they want to contribute to or participate in their national development,” he added.

Ang noted that the country views Filipinos overseas as “strategic partners in national development.” —LDF, GMA Integrated News