Pasay city: The Commission on Filipinos Overseas (CFO) is strengthening programs that link overseas Filipinos (OFs), including nurses, back to the Philippines while highlighting open pathways for their return and reintegration. In a social media post Friday, the CFO said that Chairperson and Secretary Dante 'Klink' Ang II expressed support for the causes of Filipino nurses worldwide during the 2026 Filipino Nurses Global Summit and International Nursing Conference on Jan. 22 to 23 in Pasay City.
According to Philippines News Agency, during the panel discussion, Ang said the CFO is focusing on diaspora engagement, implementing programs that encourage and help Filipinos abroad find their way back into the country. '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,' he said. He stated that the government is working to ensure that migration is only an option, and not a necessity.
During the session, Ang outlined CFO initiatives and programs, including its own pre-departure orientation seminars (PDOS) for emigrants, and the Lingkod sa Kapwa Pilipino (LINKAPIL), which engages overseas Filipinos and facilitates the transfer of various forms of assistance to support projects in livelihood development, education, health-related activities and small-scale infrastructure here in the Philippines. Other programs include YouLead, a platform that enables Filipino youth overseas to rediscover their Filipino roots and heritage, and the BaLinkBayan Project, CFO's one-stop online portal for diaspora engagement, which offers OFWs an integrated and unique platform to reengage with the Philippines through the D2D (Diaspora to Development) program.
He also noted the ongoing CFO partnership with migrant organizations that aims to develop a retirement community for overseas Filipinos who wish to eventually return and retire in the Philippines after working abroad. Ang also cited CFO's close collaboration with nursing organizations, including the Philippine Nurses Association of America (PNAA) and the Philippine Nurses Association (PNA), recalling the successful 2007 lobbying effort that led to the establishment of the first NCLEX (National Council Licensure Examination) testing site in the Philippines, easing access for qualified Filipino nurses to the United States nursing workforce.
The two-day summit, organized by the PNAA, in partnership with the PNA, Association of Deans of Philippine Colleges of Nursing and the CFO, gathered more than 600 Filipino nurses and stakeholders from the United States, Australia, Canada, Guam, Iceland, India, Ireland, Japan, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom and the Philippines.
