Cardinal Santos Medical Center partners with ASC Global Recruitment

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Cardinal Santos Medical Center (CSMC) opened the year with a milestone with its contract signing with ASC Global Recruitment (ASCGR), an agency engaged in the recruitment of skilled Filipino workers for placement overseas.

The partnership between the two organizations will create an opportunity for Filipino nurses to jumpstart their global careers through Cardinal Santos Medical Center, one of the country’s leading private tertiary hospital. For the hospital, the partnership is one way of fulfilling its vision to develop globally competitive nursing professionals whose career journey begin with Cardinal Santos Medical Center.

“Recognizing the aspiration of Filipino nurses to work overseas, we are collaborating with ASC Global Recruitment to link nurses to U.K. employers through safe, secure and quality placements,” says CSMC President and CEO Raul Pagdanganan. “As a training institution, we aim to provide them the basic training as prescribed by the employers. Our goal is for this initiative to eventually evolve into a career laddering program for our nurses.”

Creating opportunities for Filipino nurses. Cardinal Santos Medical Center partners with ASC Global Recruitment to provide word class training and create opportunities for Filipino nurses through safe, secure, and quality placements in the United Kingdom.

Career laddering program. With the training that CSMC will be providing the nurses, Pagdanganan foresees that this initiative will eventually solidify into a career laddering program.

The contract signing was led by Pagdanganan, Leona Paula Macalintal, Nursing Director, and Maria Louzel Diaz-Tiozon, Vice-President and Head of Human Resources.

ASCGR was represented by Krees Castaneda, President, Fred Sampang, Quality Management Head and Operations Director, Cha Pineda, Finance and Admin Head.

“For nurses, this profession is more than a job—it is a calling,” adds Pagdanganan. “And Cardinal Santos Medical Center is committed to helping them lay a solid foundation for their careers and become a conduit for realizing their dreams by providing world class training.” 

Save the Children Philippines trains teachers, parents to protect children from online sexual abuse

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Save the Children Philippines has raised concern on the online activity dubbed as “Christmas sale” where students allegedly posted sensual photos and videos of themselves and of their younger siblings in social media in exchange for money to buy digital gadgets for use in their online classes.

Atty. Alberto Muyot, Chief Executive Officer of Save the Children Philippines, said the government needs to address the impact of COVID-19 on the livelihood of many families to help prevent the rise of sexual abuse and exploitation of children and youth, and to intensify efforts to capture and prosecute online predators.

“Online sexual abuse and exploitation violate children’s rights to protection, physical integrity, and human dignity,” said Muyot. He added that protecting children from online predators call for a unified action of parents, guardians and leaders of schools and communities to protect children and youth from online predators.

The child rights organization, in partnership with the Department of Education, has rolled out a Cybersafe training program for teachers and school personnel to ensure children are safe from online sexual abuse and exploitation.

The Cybersafe training seeks to capacitate teachers, school personnel, and community leaders on children’s rights, online sexual abuse and exploitation, and how to access child protection services. Guidance counselors, principals, child protection representatives and DepEd regional staff in partner schools in Cagayan de Oro and Iligan also participated in the Cybersafe training.

The training is part of the activities of SaferKidsPH, a six-year initiative of the Australian government to reduce the online sexual abuse and exploitation of children in the Philippines. It is being implemented through the pioneering consortium of Save the Children Philippines, the Asia Foundation and UNICEF.

According to SaferKidsPH, children and youth can stay safe in using digital platforms through simple tips:
Do not accept friend requests or reply to messages from people you do not know.
Set your account to private.
Do not put personal information on your bio like your birthday, school, workplace, or address.
Do not share revealing photos, or use inappropriate screen names.
Do not overshare details about your life, like where you live.
Avoid joining groups that post nasty content.Save the Children Philippines will also conduct Cybersafe training to community leaders to ensure online sexual abuse and exploitation are prevented poor communities where the popular “Pisonet” machines are operating.

Wilma Banaga, Child Protection Advisor of Save the Children Philippines, said children and young people should also remember that there are people online who want to take advantage of them and they must be aware on how protect themselves.

“While we recognize that times are hard right now with many families suffering financially, parents should not forget their responsibility to protect their children from any kind of risk online or offline,” said Banaga.

Akbayan Youth: Don't force health workers to take questionable China vaccine

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Akbayan Youth chairperson Dr. RJ Naguit took a swipe at Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque's statement that healthcare workers who will take the first doses of the government's vaccination program will have to accept China's Sinovac or risk being deprioritized. "Di pwedeng tanggap nang tanggap na lang lalu na kung kalusugan ng mga frontliners natin ang usapin. Sabi ng gobyerno, ang health workers raw ang bayani ng pandemiya, pero bakit parang ang mga doktor, nars, at ibang frontliner ulit ang talo dito?" Dr. RJ Naguit said. "The government is making the questionable Sinovac vaccine a take-it-or-leave-it deal for frontline workers. It’s appalling how they threaten frontliners of being deprioritized and made to line up at the bottom of the list should they refuse to take China's vaccine," Dr. Naguit said. "The list is long for why the public is apprehensive in accepting China's Sinovac. It's touted to be only more than 50% effective in the Brazil clinical trials and it will cost the taxpayer more than double for other brands. The world is cautious in accepting Sinovac because it hasn't been transparent in the final stages of its trials, compared to other vaccines," Naguit said. "Our health workers deserve only the best option and it's the government's job to ensure they get that. Health workers should be allowed to choose their vaccine," Naguit said.