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Filipino caregivers in UK face job displacement


Hundreds, if not thousands, of Filipino workers in British care homes have been told to prepare for their travel back home because their work permits won’t be renewed. The United Kingdom has adopted a points-based system has made it more difficult for workers from outside the European Union to obtain permission to work in Britain unless they have high levels of skills. Aldwin left a good job in Manila last May and joined his wife who has been in London as a caregiver for two years only to find out two months later that his wife’s work permit won’t be renewed. He wrote GMANews.TV to call attention to the plight of many Filipinos in UK who had hoped of settling there for good. “Sana mabigyan n’yo ng pansin ang problema naming mag-asawa at mga Pinoy na nag tatrabaho dito sa London, lalo na ang caregivers," he appealed. “Kami pong mag-asawa ay nangarap na magkapag-abroad at kumita upang guminhawa ng kaunti kahit malayo sa pamilya. Two years na po ang misis ko dito sa London at ako po ay sumunod last May. Nag-resign po ako sa aking pinapasukan upang makapiling ko ang aking asawa. Ngunit makalipas ang ilang buwan ay bigla kaming nalungkot at tumamlay sa balitang lahat na nagre-renew ng working permit ay denied na lahat, especially Pinoy," said Aldwin, who requested that his name not be printed in full. A report in Buckingham Today on Sunday confirmed Andrin’s fears. “Many Filipinos working in care homes - particularly those employed as senior carers - have been told that their work permits will not be renewed, as their posts could be filled by EU nationals," the report said, quoting Mark Pritchard, Member of Parliament for The Wrekin in Shropshire. He said hundreds of Filipinos were expected to have to leave the country next month, which has been feared to cause a "skills shortage and staffing crisis" in care homes. About 25,000 Filipinos are thought to be employed in British care homes, many of them arriving since 1998 to plug staff shortages in the sector. Aldrin said the Filipinos were neither told of the reason for the denial of the work permit renewal, nor given the chance to meet the requirements “Hindi namin alam basta pag magre-renew ka, denied ka na agad. Hindi namin alam kung ano ang kadahilanan kung bakit at ano ang dapat naming gawin upang maitama ang mali at kung ano ang kulang. Lahat ng caregiver dito sa London, lalo na ‘yung hindi pa residente, ay denied na agad," he said. "Hindi po biro ang sakripisyo naming mag-asawa kung sa ganito lang mapupunta. Masakit po sa amin na gumastos at iwan ang pamilya at bigla na lang po kaming inalisan ng karapatan na magtrabaho na ‘di namin alam ang dahilan at kung ano ang dapat naming gawin upang matama at maiayos ang kakulangan," he added. Down nurses in Cambridge Two weeks ago, more than a dozen Filipino nurses who have lived and worked in Cambridge, UK since four years ago to help ease staffing shortages are facing deportation. The Home Office refused to renew the work permits of the Filipino nurses who are all senior carers in Cambridgeshire county. The nurses left the Philippines in 2003 under a UK recruitment scheme for carers when it became difficult to hire nurses from the European Union. The Filipino nurses are not losing hope though that they would still be allowed to stay after city assemblyman David Howard has taken up their case. "These are qualified and hardworking nurses who came to this country at our request and they are now simply being discarded. This is not the way to treat people doing a very important and difficult job," Howard was quoted to have said in defense of the nurses. 'Filipino five' In Teignmouth, South Devon, town councilors have passed a resolution joining the community in the fight to save five Filipinos taking care of dementia patients at Mayfield Hall from being kicked out when their work permits expire next month. The five due to be thrown out in September when their work permits expire are Helen Cayadong, 52; Maria Lourdes San Andres, 46; and Belinda Celis, 45 along with her husband Edgardo and son Oliver. Their case has become known in the community as "Filipino five." Elaine Sampson, manager of the care home at Bitton Park Road said the Filipino nurses are essential and it would be very difficult to operate properly without them. Cayadong, San Andres and the Celis couple are care assistants, and Celis's son, Oliver, is a domestic worker. The care home has hired a specialist immigration lawyer to fight for the appeal of the five Filipinos for renewal of their work permits. Care homes frequently have problems recruiting British nationals to the jobs done by Filipinos because of low pay rates, and there have been complaints that workers from the new EU states in eastern Europe are not always as suited to the posts because many do not speak English as well. "Filipinos are usually very hard-working, speak excellent English, are very caring, are well qualified, and integrate very well into local communities. "Their contribution to the care sector and to the NHS is enormous. The Government have not thought through the consequences of this policy on care homes throughout the country - as the mass exodus of senior care workers begins," said MP Prtichard. He added that the exodus of Filipino care givers from UK threaten to cost the Philippines a large slice of the £200 million annual remittances from expatriates working in Britain. Buckingham Today quoted a spokeswoman for the British Border and Immigration Agency as saying: "Decisions on work permit applications are made on a case-by-case basis, using all the knowledge we have available to us at the time of assessing the application. The Border and Immigration Agency has a legal obligation to ensure that the work permit criteria are applied correctly." Businesswoman Lynn Gower, a Filipino married to a British national, said the problem over non-renewal of work permits has become national concern. Gower runs the South Pacific store, stocking foodstuffs from home and giving advice on the safest way for people to send money home for their families. "I have contacts in Lincolnshire where exactly the same thing is happening in care homes there. The staff and their employers want them to stay because they are hard-working and well-qualified with an excellent work record," she said in a South Devon news website. Out of date The case of Aldrin Quibuyen, a 36-year-old Filipino nurse in Ammanford, South Wales was a different story altogether. Quibuyen recently won in his fight to stay in the United Kingdom, amid the government's bid to get him to leave because his papers were out of date. With the help of relatives, friends and strangers through an Internet petition, Quibuyen was eventually allowed to remain in Ammanford, where he has lived with his wife and two children for four years. He was recruited from the Philippines to work in Wales and most recently was employed at a nursing home in Llanelli. His wife Rhoda and six-year-old son Buzz followed a year later. His daughter Phebe, two, was born in Wales. Quibuyen said the original decision to deport him and his family stemmed from a misunderstanding that caused him to fill in a form late. He mounted a campaign to contest the order, setting up his own online petition (www.fightforjustice.co.uk), winning the support of hundreds of Ammanford residents, members of his local Salvation Army church and other Filipinos in Wales. "Imagine if you can, being told to leave the country you call home, all your friends, your job, everything you own, and just because you were late filling in a form, the equivalent maybe of being late paying your Council tax, or filing your tax return. an easy offence to commit, but why should you have to up and go?" Quibuyen's supporters said in his website. The trouble began when Quibuyen's paperwork, "partly the responsibility of his employer, but jointly Al's," had lapsed. The three months allowed to re-register for permission to remain in this country had coincided with the birth of his Daughter, Phebe. "Al now had to move quickly to avoid any action by Immigration. Straight away, he confessed his mistake and was told to re-apply. He applied using a form made available to him, and others, from immigrations' own website. The reply was a swift one, 'the form you have submitted was out of date' - a bit steep since they actually gave him the form!" Quibuyen's supporters said in the website. "Our argument is thus: Why punish an individual in this manner, whose only crime was to let some paperwork lapse?" they added. They said Quibuyen and others in similar positions are being made political scapegoats at their own expense, rather than having to go chasing the real illegal immigrants. - GMANews.TV