Health secretary Teodoro Herbosa’s suggestion to hire unlicensed nurses to beef up the gasping healthcare system of the country was a pathetic admission that Filipino labor, known for their seamless dedication to work while employed abroad, has abandoned the domestic labor milieu.

The primary reason for seeking employment outside the country is chiefly the better opportunities foreign jobs offer in terms of compensation, promotion, and the chance to see the world for free. These amenities, sadly, is controverted by the failure of local businesses that extend ‘below than legal’ wage scale, lack of licit benefits, and the failure to follow labor laws.

Still, notwithstanding the adverse factors that hound the domestic labor front, Sec. Herbosa’s recommendation to hire unaccredited nursing graduates reflects in broader perspective on the failure of the state to address the urgent demands of keeping in check the healthcare system.

For, if indeed the health department understands the threat that shortfall of nurses poses to the overall health of the nation, it should have long ago aggressively pursued a balanced policy to rationalize the deployment of healthcare people abroad.

But this has not happened. To stress the neglect, until now the allowances and benefits due to healthcare workers who served during the pandemic have yet to be fully paid. This contrasts with the fact that confidential and intelligence funds (CIFs), unaudited monies to be spent at the discretion of an agency head, go swiftly through the legislative mills with only token struggle.

The sight of a failing labor landscape is also best defined by the way TESDA graduates are hired even before they can finish their trainings. Because the state’s policy is merely on ensuring the trainees get employed as a way of helping the upkeep of their families, the government is not taking the higher level of balancing the acts by introducing measures that require graduates to first hone their skills by getting employed domestically before they are deployed abroad.

The Filipino labor as a world-class entity is an indisputable fact. Filipinos man a fourth of the world’s population of seafarers, and they constitute one of the largest labor demographics that keep many Middle East industries running. Even for a salary that is only slightly higher than the take-home pay house helps get abroad, they persist because a small difference in recompense can go a long way in addressing long-term financial obligations back home.

Sec. Herbosa’s recommendation, moreover, reflects the aggravating domestic labor given that skilled and experienced Filipino workhands, after being offered with better arrangements abroad, choose opportunities that prepare them for better life in the short term, and the chances of becoming citizens of the countries that hire them.

Regulating labor migration is an important aspect of a nation’s life. Even if overseas workers remit roughly $14 billion annually, which is a key element in keeping the country’s dollar reserves, the decline in the quality of people comprising the domestic manpower pool also affects the output of the nation. When all that is left are semi-skilled laborers, expect the construction industry, for instance, to collapse faster than usual because it only has access to second-rate labor.

It does take a bright guy to understand that corruption in all levels of governments, uneven taxation, weak legislation, divisive partisan and political strife, and judicial discrimination have been some of factors that have stunted growth throughout the archipelago.

Day in and day out, the idea of progress is palpably choked to suit the demand of politicians. In cahoots with those who run the bureaucracy, the nation is exposed to abnormalities that are not expected to be cured in a generation but surely have indelible trauma in the way we handle the agenda of growth amid the most patriotic and nationalistic among us.

Sec. Hermosa may not know it but his unsolicited advice to employ ‘nursing assistants’ to man the Philippine healthcare system is an admission of a governance that is very flawed. (PMT)