The long-running exodus of Filipino nurses is rooted less in ambition than in survival, according to leaders speaking at a major health gathering in Pasay City, where the focus shifted to what would make staying in the Philippines a realistic option.
Addressing the Filipino Nurses Global Summit VI and the 15th International Nursing Conference on Thursday, Philippine Nursing Association president-elect Alicia Tullo framed overseas work as a response to unmet needs at home rather than a preference to leave. “If the reason that they are motivated to leave their family and their loved ones …to go abroad is to have a better life for their family, how do you stop that? Give it to them here, then there’s no reason to leave,” she said in a GMA News Online report.
Tullo linked the shortage of nurses to persistent gaps in community healthcare access, arguing that local services would improve if more nurses were able to build sustainable careers within their own regions. She pointed to pay as the most direct lever, saying better compensation would immediately ease living conditions and change the nature of migration. “Right now, mahirap ang buhay. Siyempre, most of the Filipinos, they want to help their families. So, what do they want to do? They want to go somewhere where there is a better opportunity, where they can earn a good living, and they can help their families back home,” she shared.
While calling for deeper reforms, Tullo acknowledged recent government action, citing the allocation of the largest health sector budget to date under the 2026 General Appropriations Act. She described the move as overdue recognition of healthcare’s role in economic stability. “If you want a country to prosper and you have to have a healthy workforce, you really have to focus on health care because an unhealthy person cannot work… As far as I’m concerned, [the budget increase is] the first step, and I would congratulate him for doing that. Finally, it’s happening,” she said.
From the government side, Commission on Filipinos Overseas chairperson Dante Francis Ang II said efforts are underway to ensure that leaving the country is not driven by necessity. He explained that the agency’s approach centers on reconnecting overseas Filipinos to national life rather than promoting outward movement. “Our programs are geared to link the Filipinos abroad back to the Philippines politically, economically, and culturally. We don’t encourage people to go out. What we do is to create programs that allow them to establish linkages back with the Philippines,” Ang said.
He added that many nurses abroad are willing to contribute or return but lack clear pathways. “The good thing about our people is they don’t need encouragement [to go back to the Philippines]. What they do need is information. Who can they trust here in the Philippines. They may have been gone for many decades. They don’t know who to talk to or how to go about helping. That is where CFO comes in to provide those programs to enable them to do what they want to contribute to or participate in their national development,” he said.
Ang noted that the Philippines considers Filipinos overseas as “strategic partners in national development.”
