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DESPITE their legal debacles, the Sentosa 27++ are
getting moral and financial backing from throughout the world.
Support is growing.
In the United States, supportive
organizations have marched with the nurses. Expectedly, their major
champions are fellow nurses belonging to the Philippine Nurses
Association in the Americas (PNAA), the New York State Nurses
Association (NYSNA) and the American Nurses Association (ANA).
Also actively supporting the
struggle of the Sentosa 27++ in the USA are the Philippine Forum,
Anakbayan Filipino Youth Collective, Filipinas for Rights and
Empowerment (FIRE), Lakas-Diwa Filipino Community Alliance of New
Jersey, Movement for a Free Philippines, New York Committee for
Human Rights in the Philippines, and Migrante International, which
has chapters all over the US.
Messages of support and donations
are reaching the US and Philippine-based organizations campaigning
for a legal defense fund for the Sentosa nurses.
The Sentosa 27++ case now looms
side by side with other dramatic local issues that also preoccupy
Filipinos in the US these days, such as the political crisis facing
President Gloria Arroyo as a result of the ZTE broadband deal
corruption scandal, the extrajudicial killings and the revival of
interest in the “Hello, Garci” tapes.
Rosario May Mayor, PNAA
president, told this writer in late January that “PNAA is helping
raise funds, and many PNAA chapters have contributed monies to build
up a legal defense fund for the Sentosa 27++.”
She herself built, over a 25-year
period, a rewarding practice as nurse in the US, and is now an
esteemed nursing administrator doing the talk circuit as lecturer.
She is also active in recruiting
US-based nurses for the Balik-Turo, the program to transfer the
latest skills and learning from the US to young nurses in the
Philippines by visiting lecturers. These go to nursing colleges and
other institutions and share their knowledge and experience in 15
different aspects of nursing practice whenever they are on vacation
in the Philippines.
“We believe in our nurses. We
are the best in the world,” said Mayor. However, she warned that
while there is recruitment of nurses to the United States, there are
no visas available and the United States has constricted its borders
after the 9-11 attack.
Maita Santiago, Migrante
secretary-general, said that the Sentosa 27++ is a test case of
employers slugging it out against assertive professional workers
from the Philippines.
“We cannot afford to let our
guard down in the Sentosa case, lest these nurses become another
tragic exploitation case of Filipino workers and professionals,”
she said.
--Nora O. Gamolo
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