Tag Archives: Philippines

Philippines tells China to mind its own business over maritime drills

MANILA (Reuters) -China has no business telling the Philippines what it can or cannot do within its waters, Manila’s defense ministry said on Wednesday, rejecting Beijing’s opposition to its ongoing coastguard exercises.

China claims almost the entire South China Sea, where about $3 trillion worth of ship-borne trade passes each year. In 2016, an arbitration tribunal in The Hague ruled that claim, which Beijing bases on its old maps, was inconsistent with international law.

Philippines Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana told reporters that Beijing had “no authority or legal basis to prevent us from conducting these exercises” in the South China Sea because “their claims… have no basis”.

The Philippine coastguard and fisheries bureau started maritime exercises on Saturday inside the country’s 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), following an announcement of a boosting of its presence to counter the “threatening” presence of Chinese boats.

Responding to the exercises, China’s foreign ministry on Monday said the Philippines should “stop actions complicating the situation and escalating disputes”.

The Philippine defense ministry in a statement responded saying: “China has no business telling the Philippines what it can and cannot do.”

The Philippines has taken a tough tone in recent weeks over the lingering presence of hundreds of Chinese boats in its EEZ, reviving tensions that had eased due to President Rodrigo Duterte’s embrace of Beijing.

While the Philippines owed China a “huge debt” of gratitude for many things, including free COVID-19 vaccines, Duterte said on Wednesday he would not compromise on his country’s sovereignty in the South China Sea.

“So China, let it be known, is a good friend and we don’t want trouble with them, especially a war,” Duterte said in a late night address. “But there are things that are not really subject to a compromise … I hope they will understand but I have the interest of my country also to protect.”

On Wednesday, Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin ordered the filing of another diplomatic protest, one of more than a dozen recently, this time over China’s rebuke.

“They can say what they want from the Chinese mainland; we continue to assert from our waters by right of international law what we won in The Hague. But we must not fail to protest,” Locsin said in a Tweet.

The exercises took place near a Philippine-held island in the disputed Spratly archipelago and at the heavily contested Scarborough Shoal, which the tribunal in 2016 said was a traditional fishing spot for several countries.

Lorenzana said it was China that was complicating matters by illegally occupying reefs it turned into artificial islands.

“It is they who are encroaching and should desist and leave,” he said.

(Reporting by Karen Lema; Editing by Martin Petty and Alison Williams)

Philippines seeks to lift medical capacity as COVID-19 cases top one million

By Adrian Portugal and Neil Jerome Morales

MANILA (Reuters) – The Philippines announced on Monday that its COVID-19 cases had exceeded one million, as the country sought to boost healthcare capacity to ease strains on hospitals and medical staff stretched by a second wave of infections.

The Philippines imposed a two-week lockdown of Manila and surrounding provinces late last month to try to stem a surge in cases blamed on more contagious COVID-19 variants.

But while daily infections have eased slightly they have still averaged more than 9,000, against 5,525 in March and 213 per day in April 2020, health ministry data showed.

In the capital region, an urban sprawl of 16 cities home to at least 13 million people, intensive care unit (ICU) capacity is above 70%, while 57% of isolation beds and 64% of ward beds for COVID-19 patients were occupied as of April 26.

In a bid to admit more patients, tents were turned into COVID-19 emergency rooms at the National Kidney Transplant Institute, a government hospital in Manila.

“All in all we waited for almost six hours It’s a long difficult wait,” COVID-19 patients Roel Galan told Reuters, speaking outside a makeshift emergency room.

Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque said on Monday 289 additional ICU beds would be made available in the capital.

To free up beds for severe COVID-19 patients, the Philippine Red Cross said on Monday it has set up field hospital tents and converted unused classrooms and buildings into quarantine facilities to care for patients with moderate and mild symptoms.

Dr. John Wong, a member of the government’s coronavirus task force’s data analytics team, said authorities must ramp up vaccinations to contain the virus and allow the economy to reopen.

He said 350,000 people needed to be vaccinated a day so the government could meet its target of immunizing 70 million, or a third of the country’s population, this year.

Since the Philippines started its vaccination drive in March, 1.5 million people have received a first dose of vaccine, with close to 231,000 people getting two doses, officials said.

The Philippines recorded 70 new deaths from COVID-19 on Monday bringing total fatalities to 16,853.

(Reporting by Adrian Protugal and Neil Jerome Morales; Writing by Karen Lema; Editing by Ed Davies)

Philippines to start clinical trials on ivermectin, other drugs for COVID-19

By Reuters Staff

MANILA (Reuters) – The Philippines will begin clinical trial of several drugs, including the anti-parasite medication ivermectin, in patients with COVID-19 to determine their efficacy in combatting the coronavirus, a senior government official said.

Some politicians in the Philippines have started promoting the use of ivermectin for coronavirus and given out free doses, although the country’s food and drugs regulator has cautioned against the use because of a lack of evidence for the drug as a treatment.

The clinical trial for ivermectin, which could last for six months, “will give us a more reliable estimate of the effects of invermectin as an anti-viral agent in mild and moderate (COVID-19) patients,” science and technology minister, Fortunato Dela Pena, said in a presentation late on Monday.

The Southeast Asian nation, which is facing one of the worst coronavirus outbreaks in Asia, is battling a renewed surge in infections, with its vaccination drive on reaching 1.3 million people out of its more than 108 million population.

Ivermectin tablets have been approved for treating some worm infestations and for veterinary use in animals for parasites.

The World Health Organization last month recommended against using ivermectin in patients with COVID-19 except for clinical trials, because of a lack of data demonstrating its benefits.

The European Medicines Agency, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and Merck, an ivermectin manufacturer, have also recommended against its use.

Dela Pena said the government has also approved the clinical trials of a new formulation of methylprednisolone, a steroid, and melatonin, as treatments for COVID-19.

The government will also start trials of an herbal supplement, derived from the native tawa-tawa plant that can fight dengue, he said, adding to ongoing tests using virgin coconut oil for severe COVID-19 patients.

“We are trying several (medications). They may not be vaccines but they could potentially speed up the recovery,” Dela Pena said.

The Philippines has recorded more than 945,000 COVID-19 cases and over 16,000 deaths, the second highest rates in Southeast Asia, next to Indonesia.

Pacific Ocean storm intensifies into year’s first super typhoon

By Kanupriya Kapoor and Karen Lema

MANILA (Reuters) -Strong winds and high waves lashed the eastern Philippines on Monday as the strongest typhoon ever recorded in April barreled past in the Pacific Ocean, killing one man and triggering flooding in lower-lying communities, disaster officials said.

The national weather bureau issued a severe wind and heavy rainfall warning on Monday, saying “destructive typhoon-force winds extend outward up to 110 km (68.35 miles) from the center of the storm”.

More than 100,000 people were evacuated from coastal areas, according to provincial disaster agencies.

The core of Surigae, or Bising as the storm is known locally, is not expected to hit land. But with a diameter of 500 km and winds reaching 195 km per hour, parts of the eastern islands of Samar experienced flooding, while several communities lost power.

The first super typhoon of 2021 foreshadows a busy storm season for the region in the year ahead, experts say.

“Early indications are that the 2021 typhoon season will be at least average in activity, and possibly above average,” U.S. meteorologist Jeff Masters wrote in a post on Yale Climate Connections’ website, which reports daily on climate conditions.

Atmospheric scientists say data shows that storms, called typhoons, cyclones or hurricanes in different parts of the world, are getting stronger because of global warming.

“The fuel for these storms is warm oceans,” said Anne-Claire Fontan, a scientific officer at the World Meteorological Organization based in Geneva.

“The global trend is that they are getting stronger, and a higher percentage of total storms will be stronger.”

A warmer atmosphere holds more moisture, allowing gale force winds to dump more rain. In particular, water temperature in the western Pacific Ocean is higher than the global average, making it fertile ground for mega storms like Surigae. The region sees more storms than any other part of the world, more than 70% of which develop at the peak of the season between July and October.

Disaster officials said a 79-year old man from Southern Leyte province in the Philippines was confirmed dead after he was hit by a fallen tree and one person was missing.

The Philippines sees around 20 tropical storms annually. Last year, the strongest typhoon of the year, Goni, hit the country with gusts of up to 310 km per hour, killing 25 people and forcing the evacuation of more than 345,000.

Taiwan, meanwhile, is hoping the storm brings much-needed rain to alleviate a drought, with people taking to social media to welcome it. However, it is expected to veer away from Taiwan out into the Pacific, bringing rain only to the northern part of the island later this week.

(Reporting by Kanupriya Kapoor in Singapore; Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in Taipei and Karen Lema in Manila; Editing by Susan Fenton)

AstraZeneca woes grow as Australia, Philippines, African Union curb COVID shots

By Reuters Staff

(Reuters) – Australia and the Philippines limited use of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine on Thursday, while the Africa Union dropped plans to buy the shot, dealing further blows to the company’s hopes to deliver a vaccine for the world.

The vaccine – developed with Oxford University and considered a frontrunner in the global vaccine race – has been plagued by safety concerns and supply problems since Phase III trial results were published in December, with Indonesia the latest country forced to seek doses from other vaccine developers.

The Philippines suspended the use of AstraZeneca shots for people below 60 after Europe’s regulator said on Wednesday it found rare cases of blood clots among some adult recipients although the vaccine’s advantages still outweighed its risks.

Australia recommended people under 50 should get Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine in preference to AstraZeneca’s, a policy shift that it warned would hold up its inoculation campaign.

The African Union is exploring options with Johnson & Johnson having dropped plans to buy AstraZeneca’s vaccine from India’s Serum Institute, the head of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told reporters.

AstraZeneca’s shot is sold at cost, for a few dollars a dose. It is by far the cheapest and most high-volume launched so far, and has none of the extreme refrigeration requirements of some other COVID-19 vaccines, making it likely to be the mainstay of many vaccination programs in the developing world.

But more than a dozen countries have at one time suspended or partially suspended use of the shot, first on concerns about efficacy in older people, and now on worries about rare side effects in younger people.

That, coupled with production setbacks, will delay the rollout of vaccines across the globe as governments scramble to find alternatives to tame the pandemic which has killed more than 3 million.

‘EXTREMELY RARE’

Italy joined France, the Netherlands, Germany and others in recommending a minimum age for recipients of AstraZeneca’s shot on Wednesday and Britain said people under 30 should get an alternative. South Korea also suspended use of the vaccine in people under 60 this week, while approving Johnson & Johnson’s shot.

AstraZeneca has said it is working with the British and European regulators to list possible brain blood clots as “an extremely rare potential side-effect”.

South Africa also paused AstraZeneca vaccinations last month because of a small trial showing the shot offered minimal protection against mild to moderate illness caused by the dominant local coronavirus variant.

AstraZeneca is grappling with production issues that have led to shortfalls of its shot in several countries.

Indonesian Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin said on Thursday the country was in talks with China on getting as many as 100 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to plug a gap in deliveries after delays in the arrivals of AstraZeneca shots.

India has put a temporary hold on all major exports of AstraZeneca’s shot made by the Serum Institute of India (SII), the world’s biggest vaccine-maker, as domestic infections rise.

That has affected supplies to the GAVI/WHO-backed global COVAX vaccine-sharing facility through which 64 poorer countries are supposed to get doses from the SII, the program’s procurement and distributing partner UNICEF told Reuters last month.

Britain is slowing its vaccine rollout due to a shipment delay from India and is at loggerheads with the EU over exports. Australia has also blamed delays in its immunization campaign on supply issues in Europe.

AstraZeneca has cited reduced yields at a European factory behind the supply shortfall to the European Union.

Philippines sees 10,000 new COVID-19 cases as tight curbs return to capital

By Neil Jerome Morales

MANILA (Reuters) – The Philippines passed the 10,000 mark for new daily coronavirus infections for the first time on Monday and put its capital region back on one of its toughest levels of lockdown, to try to tackle a spike in cases that is testing its healthcare capacity.

Manila and surrounding provinces were put back under enhanced community quarantine (ECQ), the highest tier in its containment protocols, for the first time since May 2020 to try to quell the surge in cases, despite inroads late last year towards controlling its epidemic.

The country recorded 10,016 new infections on Monday, bringing the overall tally to 731,894, with deaths at 13,186, one of the highest caseloads in Asia.

Health experts say the surge in infections underscores the need to expedite a national vaccination drive, with only 656,331 healthcare workers so far given their first of two shots. The government aims to inoculate 70 million people this year.

It has also struggled to secure vaccine supplies, with an inventory of 2.525 million doses, mostly of Sinovac Biotech’s vaccine, one million of which arrived on Monday.

Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday allowed the private sector to import vaccines to boost supply and help reopen the economy.

“Whatever the cost, whatever the volume they want to bring in, it’s fine with me,” Duterte said in a national address.

Prior to Duterte’s approval, businesses go through the government for supply deals. Previously, half of the purchased doses were required to be given to the government.

Health authorities blame the spike on poor public compliance with prevention measures and the presence of new and more transmissible coronavirus variants in the capital region, which accounts for about a third of economic activity.

“This surge is really challenging while ECQ is painful, particularly for the economic sector,” said Benjamin Co, an infectious disease expert with three Manila hospitals.

The Philippines was the first country in Asia to go under a nationwide lockdown and broad restrictions and movement curbs saw its economy slump 9.5% last year, its worst economic contraction on record.

Hospitals’ intensive care and isolation bed capacity in the capital region have reached critical levels or above 70% usage, government data showed.

“I can give you beds, I can give you rooms. The problem is I cannot give you additional manpower capacity, like nurses and doctors to take care of you,” Co added.

(Reporting by Neil Jerome Morales; Editing by Ed Davies and Marguerita Choy)

Philippines offers nurses in exchange for vaccines from Britain, Germany

By Neil Jerome Morales

MANILA (Reuters) – The Philippines will let thousands of its healthcare workers, mostly nurses, take up jobs in Britain and Germany if the two countries agree to donate much-needed coronavirus vaccines, a senior official said on Tuesday.

The Philippines, which has among Asia’s highest number of coronavirus cases, has relaxed a ban on deploying its healthcare workers overseas, but still limits the number of medical professionals leaving the country to 5,000 a year.

Alice Visperas, director of the labor ministry’s international affairs bureau, said the Philippines was open to lifting the cap in exchange for vaccines from Britain and Germany, which it would use to inoculate outbound workers and hundreds of thousands of Filipino repatriates.

Nurses are among the millions of Filipinos who work overseas, providing in excess of $30 billion a year in remittances vital to the country’s economy.

“We are considering the request to lift the deployment cap, subject to agreement,” Visperas told Reuters.

Britain is grappling with the world’s sixth-highest coronavirus death toll and one of the worst economic hits from the pandemic, while Germany has the 10th most infections globally.

While the two countries have inoculated a combined 23 million people, the Philippines has yet to start its campaign to immunize 70 million adults, or two-thirds of its 108 million people. It expects to receive its first batch of vaccines this week, donated by China.

The Philippines wants to secure 148 million doses of vaccines altogether.

The British embassy in Manila did not immediately respond to a request for comment while calls to Germany’s mission went unanswered.

In 2019, almost 17,000 Filipino nurses signed overseas work contracts, government data showed.

While Filipino nurses have fought to lift the deployment ban to escape poor working conditions and low pay at home, the workers-for-vaccine plan has not gone down well with some medical workers.

“We are disgusted on how nurses and healthcare workers are being treated by the government as commodities or export products,” Jocelyn Andamo, secretary general of the Filipino Nurses United, told Reuters.

‘We’ve got your back’ – Trump advisor vows U.S. support in South China Sea

MANILA (Reuters) – U.S. national security adviser Robert O’Brien on Monday assured the Philippines and Vietnam, countries both locked in maritime rows with China, that Washington has their backs and would fight to keep the Indo-Pacific region free and open.

“Our message is we’re going to be here, we’ve got your back, and we’re not leaving,” said O’Brien, on a visit to the Philippines after concluding a trip to Vietnam on Sunday.

“I think when we send that message – that peace-through-strength message – is the way to deter China. It is a way to ensure the peace,” O’Brien said.

Vietnam and the Philippines have been the most vocal regional opponents to what they see as Chinese overreach in the South China Sea and its disregard for boundaries outlined in international maritime law.

China claims 90% of the potentially energy-rich South China Sea, but Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam each claim parts of it.

The United States has long opposed China’s expansive claims, sending warships regularly through the strategic waterway to demonstrate freedom of navigation there.

China maintains it is a force for peace in the region and sees the U.S. presence as provocative and interference by an outsider.

O’Brien, who led the turnover in Manila of $18 million worth of precision-guided munitions, said the United States stood with the Philippines in protecting its offshore resource entitlements.

“Those resources belong to the children and grandchildren of the people here,” he said.

“They don’t belong to some other country just because they may be bigger than the Philippines,” he said, adding: “That’s just wrong.”

His visit came more than a week after the Philippines suspended its scrapping of a Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) with the United States for a second time, as the treaty allies work on a long-term mutual defense arrangement.

Last year, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo assured the Philippines it would come to its defense if attacked in the South China Sea.

(Reporting by Karen Lema; Editing by Martin Petty)

In COVID-19 clampdown, China bars travelers from Britain, France, India

BEIJING (Reuters) – China has barred non-Chinese travelers from Britain, France, Belgium, the Philippines and India, imposing some of the most stringent entry curbs of any country as coronavirus cases surge around the world.

The restrictions, which cover those with valid visas and residence permits and take effect in conjunction with a more restrictive testing regime for arrivals from several other countries, drew a frosty response from Britain.

“We are concerned by the abruptness of the announcement and the blanket ban on entry, and await further clarification on when it will be lifted,” said the British Chamber of Commerce in China as the blanket bans were announced by the five countries’ Chinese embassies.

England started a month-long lockdown on Thursday. Britain’s virus death toll is the highest in Europe, and it is grappling with more than 20,000 new cases a day.

Belgium has Europe’s highest per capita number of new confirmed cases, while France and India are among the top five countries in the world with the most infections.

The suspensions were a partial reversal of an easing on Sept. 28, when China allowed all foreigners with valid residence permits to enter. In March, China had banned entry of foreigners in response to the epidemic.

‘SOLD OUT IN SECONDS’

Meanwhile, many people planning November visits to China scrambled to book earlier flights to circumvent potentially disruptive restrictions due to come into force for other countries from Friday.

Linyi Li, a Chinese national, had planned to fly from Seattle to China in mid-November but switched her flight to Nov. 6 even though fares had tripled.

“The tickets were sold out in seconds, as people were all scrambling to beat the deadline,” said Li, 30. “I’ve been rushing to sell many of my family belongings in the past days in case I can’t get back to the States.”

From Friday, all passengers from the United States, France, Germany and Thailand bound for mainland China must take a nucleic acid test and a blood test for antibodies against the coronavirus no more than 48 hours before boarding.

Flights scheduled for Friday are not covered by the new rule, since passengers would have done their tests before that day under previous requirements.

China also plans to impose dual-test requirements on travelers from Australia, Singapore and Japan from Nov. 8.

The European Union Chamber of Commerce in China said the antibody test was not widely available in many countries.

“(So) unfortunately, while technically leaving the door open, these changes imply a de facto ban on anyone trying to get back to their lives, work and families in China,” said the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China.

On Tuesday, China Southern Airlines, the country’s biggest carrier by passenger load, said it would suspend transit services for passengers embarking from 21 countries, mostly African and Asian countries and including India and the Philippines.

The number of weekly international passenger flights serving mainland China from late October through March is set to slump 96.8% from a year earlier to 592, the latest schedules show.

(Reporting by Ryan Woo, Lusha Zhang, Dominique Patton, Stella Qiu, Gabriel Crossley, Martin Pollard and Shivani Singh; Editing by Jacqueline Wong and John Stonestreet)

Pandemic ‘hero’ Filipino nurses struggle to leave home

By Karen Lema and Clare Baldwin

MANILA (Reuters) – From across the Philippines, they gathered to pray by Zoom.

They were praying to be allowed to leave: To be allowed to take up nursing jobs in countries where the coronavirus is killing thousands in hospitals and care homes. In recent months, these care workers have taken to calling themselves “priso-nurses.”

With infections also surging in the Philippines, the government in April banned healthcare workers from leaving the country. They were needed, it said, to fight the pandemic at home.

But many of the nurses on the two-hour Zoom call on Aug. 20, organised by a union and attended by nearly 200 health workers both in the Philippines and abroad, were unwilling to work at home. They said they felt underpaid, unappreciated and unprotected.

Nurses have been leaving the Philippines for decades, encouraged by the government to join other workers who send back billions of dollars each year.

With COVID-19 sweeping the globalized economy, the Philippine ban squeezed a supply line that has sent hundreds of thousands of staff to hospitals in the United States, the Gulf and Britain, where some commentators have called the nurses “unsung heroes” of the pandemic.

The Philippines’ healthcare system is already short-handed. In Germany there are 430 doctors and nurses per 10,000 people, in the United States 337 and in Britain 254, International Labor Organization data shows.

The Philippines – where the coronavirus death rate is one of the highest in Southeast Asia – has 65.

The April ban has stopped more than 1,000 nurses from leaving the country. Of those, only 25 have applied to work in local hospitals, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III told journalists late last month. The Department of Health did not reply to a request for an updated figure.

The government has since partially eased the restrictions, but sometimes also tightens them, so nurses are still clamoring to get out.

On the Zoom call in August, someone played a recording of the Philippine national anthem. A Catholic priest prayed and a man with a soft voice crooned a song about passing off your burdens to God.

One nurse, 34-year-old April Glory, had already spent years away from her young son and had been about to leave again when the ban kicked in. Even before the pandemic, she told Reuters separately, she was better off in a war zone in the Middle East than at home.

Soon after she arrived in Yemen in 2011, a bullet pierced the wall of her private hospital, she said. Staff moved patients to safety.

Still, she said, “we were insured, we had free lodging so my salary was intact and I could send more to my family.” Abroad, there was no need to do any work outside her job description: “You are not expected to sweep the floor.”

SIMPLE MATH

It’s mainly money that drives the Filipinos abroad.

A nurse in the United States can earn as much as $5,000 per month; in the Middle East it’s $2,000 per month, tax free. In Germany, nurses can earn up to $2,800 per month, and get language training, labor organizers, recruiters and the Philippine government’s overseas employment agency say.

Even with its emergency hiring efforts, the Philippine Department of Health is only offering nurses a starting salary of $650 per month. It says it will pay another $10 per day as COVID-19 hazard allowance.

Private nurses sometimes make just $100 per month.

“I felt that I was not earning enough,” said Glory, explaining why she left. Her son, now 11, was a year and a half old at the time. “My mother told me: Better to leave now because my child will not really remember.”

Abroad, Glory’s shifts were a standard eight hours and she only looked after one or two patients at a time in intensive care. Working in Yemen and then Saudi Arabia, she said she bought a house and a car.

Nurses have recently left faster than they are trained. Last year, 12,083 new nurses graduated in the Philippines. That same year, 16,711 signed contracts to go abroad, data from the Commission on Higher Education and the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration shows. Those renewing foreign contracts are counted separately. So far this year there have been 46,000 such renewals.

The Philippine government wasn’t able to provide figures for the total number of nurses overseas, or say which countries they are working in.

Filipinos are the biggest group of foreign nurses in the United States. In 2018, there were 348,000, an analysis of U.S. government data by Washington D.C.-based think tank Migration Policy Institute showed. Even with the pandemic, another 3,260 Filipinos have passed the U.S. nurse licensing exam this year.

A report to Britain’s House of Commons Library in May said more than 15,000 of the National Health Service nursing jobs held by foreigners went to Filipinos – nearly a third of the total and more than any other nationality. The NHS employs a further 6,600 Filipinos in other healthcare jobs.

Labor brokers say that, besides the UK and US, Filipino nurses are sought-after in Germany, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Singapore.

36-HOUR SHIFTS

Nine months into the pandemic in the Philippines, reported coronavirus infections in the Philippines have soared to around 270,000. Not all hospitals allow family members to visit, so nurses must feed and clean patients as well as giving health care, said Filipino Nurses United President Maristela Abenojar.

Some nurses are working up to 36-hour shifts because relief staff are calling in sick or not reporting for duty, she said, and sometimes nurses are issued just one set of protective gear per shift. Nurses can’t get tested regularly and if they get sick, there aren’t always hospital beds reserved for them, she said.

At least 56 healthcare workers have died in the Philippines, Department of Health data shows.

“It seems they don’t really value our contributions,” said Jordan Jugo, who works at a private hospital in the Philippines. “It hurts.” He had a contract to work in Britain, but the ban prevented him from leaving.

He said he could sometimes only eat two meals a day and could no longer support his siblings.

The Philippine Department of Health said its healthcare workers work long hours and “it is natural for them to feel tired and overwhelmed with their immense responsibilities.” It said it had arranged for “substitution teams” in some areas.

It said hospitals should provide sufficient protective gear and that healthcare workers should not go on duty without it. Healthcare workers should be prioritized for regular COVID-19 testing, it said, and the Department would ensure there are enough beds for everyone.

Health Secretary Duque has said previously that the government was appealing to the nurses’ “sense of nation, sense of people and sense of service.”

“I DON’T WANT TO BE A HERO”

Foreign countries have gone all-out to show Filipino nurses they are valued.

Saudi Arabia sent chartered planes to help them return to work, and only partly filled them so the nurses could maintain social distance.

British ambassador to the Philippines Daniel Pruce went on an 11-minute segment on Philippine television to praise the “incredible commitment and dedication” of Filipino healthcare workers in Britain.

When nurse Aileen Amoncio, 36, got trapped by a lockdown and then the travel ban during a vacation to the Philippines in March, Britain’s NHS granted her a special “COVID leave” and kept paying her, she said. The NHS said staff stuck abroad due to COVID-19 could qualify for such leave.

Amoncio got out of the Philippines in June, after the government eased the ban slightly.

Working at an NHS neurological rehabilitation hospital in the UK, she said she sympathized with the nurses back home, where she once handled as many as 80 patients on a surgical ward at a small hospital. Now she looks after no more than 10 at a time.

Not only are the pay and conditions better in Britain, she said, but she also hopes her daughter will one day be able to join her and get free treatment on the NHS. The hearing implant she needs would cost $20,000 in the Philippines.

“I’ve served my country already,” said Amoncio. “I don’t want to be a hero again. I am looking out for the future of my children.”

On the Zoom call, Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III dialed in with an update: Some of those who had existing contracts could leave, he announced. Cheers went up.

Nurse Glory was one of them. She wept.

“I hope the government will not take it against us that we are leaving,” she said. “We are looking forward to helping the government with this fight in other ways. When we are able, when we’ve risen out of poverty, we will.”

Hours later, on the pavement outside the airport, she quickly hugged her son, then raced to board her flight in case the government changed its mind.

(Additional reporting by Eloisa Lopez; Edited by Matthew Tostevin and Sara Ledwith)