PHILIPPINE  NURSES  ASSOCIATION  POSITION
 STATEMENT ON THE  JPEPA

The Filipino nurses constitute the biggest foreign-educated
nurses in the United States.  There is also a growing
number of nurses in Europe and Middle East.  They are
dubbed to be the best nurse in the world.  Global respect
for the quality of caring and the competencies of the
Filipino nurses have undoubtedly evolved from the Filipino
nurses produced by the Philippine Nursing Education,
regulated by the Philippine Board of Nursing, and provided
experience and training by the Philippine Nursing Practice.
The Philippine government shall jointly maintains the pride,
dignity and professionalism of Filipino nurses. 

The Filipino nurses politely decline the offer of Japan as it
is currently embodied in the JPEPA. Nurses strongly feel
that the bilateral agreement shortchanges the professional
qualifications of Filipino nurses and exposes to potential
abuse and discrimination those who may be unwittingly
enticed to seek Japanese employment under its bilateral
channel.


EVEN JAPANESE NURSES ARE AWARE THAT REFORMS
ARE NEEDED IN THE LOCAL JAPANESE NURSES
CONDITION!
      
Filipino Nurses are calling for the rejection of the JPEPA
with keen regard and utmost consideration to the official
position of the Japanese Nursing Association (JNA) that
reforms and improvement in the working conditions
salaries and benefits of local Japanese nurses should
first be instituted before the entry of Filipino nurses.  They
should institute to improve the working conditions of local
Japanese nurses first before they can ensure that Filipino
nurses will have favorable working conditions in Japan.


DISCRIMINATION:

Under the bilateral agreement, the odds are unfairly
stacked against us. It could be said that with the JPEPA
Japan slightly opened the gate to the yard, but double-
bolted the door to the house.

Under the present inequitable terms of the JPEPA, a
qualified Filipino nurse will not be accorded the equal
status of a full-fledged Japanese nurse practicing in
Japan.

Indonesian Nurses, who studied nursing in three years
only without licensure examinations and two years
experience, are currently accorded better placement and
career opportunities by Japan than Filipino nurses who
had four years of nursing education, passed the licensure
examination and had 3 years working experience. 


NOT NURSING PRACTICE BUT TRAINING

Even with a bachelor’s degree earned from four years of
higher education in the Philippines, proof of competence
by virtue of having passed the Philippine Licensure
Examination and three solid years of work experience, the
Filipino nurse will go to Japan not to fully practice the
nursing profession but to become a trainee. Under the
JPEPA, the Filipino nurse must train under the supervision
of a Japanese nurse for up to three years. If unable to
pass the nursing licensure examination in Japanese, the
Filipino nurse would have to be deported.

Not salaried but given allowance…
Neither employees nor workers…
Hence, not protected!

As trainees who have not yet passed the Japanese
Licensure Examination, the Filipino nurses risk receiving
mere trainee allowance (not salary for a professional
practice of nursing). They also risk having virtually zero
employment right in Japan as they are considered neither
employees nor workers under Japan’s Immigration Control
Act. Specific provisions committing Japan to international
core labor standards and the protection of the rights of
migrant health workers are also absent in the agreement.

Also, Japan’s failure to ratify ILO Convention no. 111,
otherwise known as the Discrimination (Employment and
Occupation) Convention, is an indication that the Japanese
government is not keen on addressing the persistent
problem of discrimination on the basis of race, gender,
language and social status in Japan.


BETTER OPPORTUNITIES IN OTHER COUNTRIES

Thus exposed to generally unfavorable working
conditions in Japan, the Filipino nurse would be spending
three years of his or her life hoping for real work when he
or she could have a rewarding professional career in
other countries abroad with better remuneration than
what Japan currently offers even to  its local Japanese
nurses.

Unrealistic Demand for Filipinos to Speak Nihonggo, a
suspicious agenda of cheap labor

Filipino nurses acknowledge that communication skills
form an integral part of health care service delivery and
that a working facility with the Japanese language is a
valid requirement for nursing practice in Japan. But the
language skills required by the JPEPA are so high as to
constitute an almost impregnable barrier to our entry.
Filipino nurses, given the unnecessarily stringent
requirements, will most likely end up providing cheap labor
and quality nursing care as nursing trainees in Japanese
health care facilities.


PHILIPPINE SITUATION NOT WORST THAN JAPAN
SITUATION

If only Filipino nurses are aware of the plight of the
Japanese nurses, they will realize that we have a similar
situation here in the Philippines.  Even with the
promulgation of RA 7305 or the Magna Carta of Public 
Health Workers, the greater benefits and increased
remuneration for nurses mandated by that law are ignored
by the Philippine government. This is a major factor to the
many reasons why Filipino nurses decide to look for
foreign employment. As the Philippine situation is not ideal
for Filipino nurses, the JPEPA offers a blurred opportunity
that discriminates the Filipino nurses, and in effect attract
Filipino nurses to serve Japanese (instead of Filipinos) for
a future that after all does not belong to them.  Nurses
should rather see the value of staying in the Philippines to
serve the Filipinos (and given professional accord and
protection by the government) that being “exported,”
discriminated and without clear career path and security.


A NURSE IS NOT A COMMODITY!

The economic values of JPEPA should
exclude the nurses for the issue is beyond just the influx
of economic variables but the dignity of professionals that
Philippines have been proud of in the global market.  A
Filipino professional nurse, reduced to a trainee, paid
allowance, and given neither protection nor assurance of
tenure and career path in Japan, may indeed bring in
economic productivity but shall certainly hurt the self-
esteem and the rightful pride of being a professional nurse
in particular and of being Filipino in general.

“Beggars can’t be choosers.”  True!  But Filipino nurses
are not begging for job in Japan for the rest of the world
has been wanting the service of Filipino nurses.    




DR. LEAH PRIMITIVA G. SAMACO-PAQUIZ
National President
Philippine Nurses Association (PNA)