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Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III on Wednesday, October 21, said that President Rodrigo Duterte “approved” more health workers to work overseas.

Bello told reporters at the Kapihan sa Manila Bay media forum that he informed the President about the plea of health workers whose overseas contracts have been completed as of September 30 in the cut-off period.

“There was a tacit approval by him so I immediately informed POEA (Philippine Overseas Employment Administration) Administrator [Bernard] Olalia about the approval of the President,” said Bello.

The labor chief added that the department was submitting its recommendation to the coronavirus task force (IATF).

At present, health workers with overseas employment certificates and verified contracts as of August 31 have been allowed to leave the Philippines. Returning overseas Filipino workers who went home for vacation were also allowed to return to their jobs abroad.

Bilateral labor agreements for government-to-government deployment of health workers were also suspended during the state of national emergency.

Bello also said that labor officials were considering to lift the moratorium on deployment, but with certain conditions. Of course, this was still up for the approvals of the IATF and the President.

“We could probably impose a cap. For example, we will allow deployment of 5,000 nurses and health workers per year so that we have enough frontliners here in case the pandemic worsens,” Bello said in a mix of English and Filipino.

During the earlier months of the pandemic, the President also said that while he was “okay” with the decision of health workers to leave, he appealed to them to remain in the country during the coronavirus outbreak. – Rappler.com