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By Dr. Dante A. Ang, Chairman, Commission on
Filipinos Overseas
[Welcome message at the opening of the First
Asia Pacific Conference on Nursing Research, held at the Manila
Hotel, September 4, 2008, organized by the Commission on Filipinos
Overseas (CFO), the UP College of Nursing and the University of
Hawaii at Manos.]
Dr. Emerlinda Roman, Dr. Lulu Bravo, Prof.
Teresita Barcelo, Dean Josefina Tuazon, Dean Mary Boland, resource
speakers and participants in the First Asia Pacific Conference on
Nursing Research, a pleasant good morning.
Firstly, allow me to congratulate the University
of the Philippines for celebrating its centennial year and the UP
College of Nursing on the occasion of its 60th founding anniversary.
Many of their graduates are successful
individuals who helped shape and continue to shape, our country’s
destiny. A great number of the UP alumni have brought honor and
prestige, not only to the institution, but to the country as well
for their achievements and contribution to national
growth—politically, socially and economically.
I say, therefore, that the other name for the
University of the Philippines and the UP College of Nursing is,
“Excellence.”
The Commission on Filipinos Overseas or the CFO,
is privileged to partner with the UP College of Nursing and the
University of Hawaii at Manos in organizing this pioneering
conference.
The CFO shares your commitment to help uplift
the quality of life of the Filipino nurse. I also believe that
improving the quality of life of the nurse is a function of
education, quality education.
But what is “quality education?” Quality
education, in my humble opinion, is more than excelling in academics
or in clinical practice. It is a mix of academic excellence, skills
and values. Values are what makes a nurse—compassionate, caring,
loving. Values are the heart and soul of the nursing profession.
At the risk of sounding like a braggart, I
presume that many of you know that it was through my initiative that
we were able to bring NCLEX to the Philippines.
One of the very first things I did following my
appointment as Chairman of the Commission on Filipinos Overseas with
Cabinet rank in December, 2004, was to immediately recommend to
President Arroyo the inclusion of NCLEX lobby in the CFO’s
mandate.
That recommendation, for your information, was
in response to the President’s marching orders for me to find a
way to help mitigate the economic burden of the Filipino nurses.
And so with the help of the members of the
Presidential Task Force on NCLEX, namely: the Professional
Regulatory Commission, the National Bureau of Investigation, the
Philippine National Police, the Intellectual Property Office, the
Association of the Deans of College of Nursing, the Philippine
Nurses Association and the Dept. of Justice, we went on to make
history. Congratulations to all of us.
But to my disappointment, reports have it that
the passing average for the Filipino NCLEX takers in the Philippines
is a deplorable 58 percent.
And if that’s not enough disappointment,
records will show that the passing average for the PRC’s licensure
exam for nurses is a miserable 43 percent, which leads me to wonder
if there is a correlation between competence and employment.
Just the other day, the newspapers published a
story by the PRC saying that some 400,000 nurses— or is it
600,000?— are unemployed. I know for a fact, that in the Middle
East alone, several thousand nurses are in demand. The same is true
in Europe and elsewhere.
Which brings me to my question: “If there’s
such a strong demand for our nurses, how come we have so many of
them unemployed?” Surely, there is no simple answer to that. But
there’s is one thing I can be sure of: Incompetence and skewed
values are great employment disincentives.
I recall the time when you and I, along with St.
Paul’s College, FEU, UST, UE, St. Louis University in Baguio,
Perpetual Help College of Nursing were together in a campaign to
uphold the integrity of the nursing exam of June 2006. We were for
the retake of Tests 3 and 5. Remember those months when you and I
were the subject of a hate campaign by interest groups? These
interest groups— well-connected, powerful and moneyed—threw
everything at us, including the kitchen sink.
These people, cleverly used emotion against
reason. One of their calls was to “Pity the poor students who
labored long and hard just to pass the licensure exam.” Another
silly argument they put forward was, “Why punish the innocent for
the sins of a few?” completely ignoring that the nursing
profession concerns itself with public health and that there should
be no room for incompetents especially when people’s lives are at
stake.
These people have no scruples. They used the
unsuspecting parents and the students as battering rams and to
advance a shameful cause.
My arguments then were rooted on
values—protecting the integrity of the system, upholding the
Filipino honor, meeting the global challenge and embracing a culture
of excellence.
Sure enough, we were upheld by the respected
hospitals in the country who refused to hire passers of the June
2006 nursing licensure exam and, subsequently, by the CGFNS and the
NCSBN in the US. In their statements, they said that no immigrant or
working visa would be made available to those who passed the
controversial June 2006 exams and that only those who retake and
pass the Tests 3 and 5 would be considered, or words to that effect.
But one thing good came out of it. There is a
renewed sense of commitment from our educators, a commitment to
upgrade the quality of nursing education.
I am not a nurse, neither am I a medical
practitioner. I am not sure if my advice, if it is sought, would be
meaningful for nurses. Maybe, and just maybe, my contribution to
helping improve the quality of our nursing education could be by way
of airing my frustrations on some of the subjects currently offered
to the students. But that is another story altogether.
And so, finally, as you embark on your research,
I appeal to you to consider looking at how the world can bring down
the walls that divide us. This is especially true of developed
countries. Notwithstanding the cries of the hospitals, of the
patients who are in critical need of health care, and of the glaring
nursing shortage, the Filipino nurses and those from other
developing countries enter and work in most developed countries by
going through a maze of legalese.
The lobby of the interest groups in developed
countries, while admirable, in my opinion is parochial and has no
place in a world that has become smaller and where its people have
become global citizens.
At the same time, your research should also
focus on the migration problem. There must be, at some point, a
policy or a program for reverse migration. You are the experts. I
leave it up to you.
Good luck and Mabuhay tayong lahat.
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