"Yes, Attorney, my sponsor filed a petition for me way back in 2020, even before the start of the pandemic, and they said I would be able to get a visa after one year," explained Marites D. Matabil, a fictional US NCLEX-passer nurse who recently called from Cebu for a phone consultation.

"Uh, so…"

"In fact, I've already started looking around for cheap plane tickets for my family," she hastily added, "because my sponsor was only going to pay for my plane fare. And then the pandemic struck, and everything stopped…"

"Uh, that's…"

"And despite repeated follow-ups at the US Embassy, nothing happened. They kept saying family petitions were being given priority…"

"Uh, yeah, that's what…"

"Do you think there's still hope, Attorney? I'm worried that the employer's no longer interested in continuing the sponsorship. My friend who works there, uh, she said they already started hiring local nurses even at higher salaries to make up for the nursing shortfall…"

"Yeah, I think so," I rattled off quickly, glad that I finally found an opening. "The US Embassy says they're now starting to recover from the backlogs. In fact, based on next month's Visa Bulletin, they're supposed to interview people with priority dates of December 2021 or earlier. Also, the US nursing shortage's here to stay, so I don't think your sponsor will just throw everything down the drain, especially now that there's light at the end of the tunnel."

"Wow, that's good to hear!" Ms. Matabil hollered over the phone. "It means I'll get my interview schedule soon. That's the best thing I've heard in a long time!"

And just like that, her logorrheic voice was gone. No adios, no gracias, but no hard feelings. As a fictional client, she could do whatever she wanted, so everything was good.

But seriously, the past few years have not been very kind to our kababayan nurses, who have long waited for the opportunity to live and work the American dream.

Thanks to the dual impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and visa retrogression, many Pinoy nurses were not able to apply for or acquire the necessary US visas due to the office closures and visa interview cancellations that had plagued the US Embassy in Manila these past few years.

Some were already lined up for interviews. Others were just undergoing processing at the National Visa Center. A few were still being petitioned at the US Citizenship and Immigration Services.

All had one thing in common: They and their employer/sponsor were blindsided by the sudden onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.
But as fate would have it, this was when the Philippines, along with most countries in Asia and Europe, were reeling from the catastrophic effects of the pandemic.

This was when thousands of Filipinos, young and old, men and women, especially the elderly and the immunocompromised, were dying left and right in homes and hospitals across the country.

This was the time when the Philippines, a third-world nation, was in desperate need of medical and nursing services.

Maybe it was a mere coincidence. Or maybe it was a minor blip in the natural order of things.

But the visa retrogression — independent of the overall impact of the pandemic on consular operations — did in itself cause the visa issuance delays and cancellations, without which our kababayan nurses would have hastily departed in droves even before the pandemic emergency had been lifted, leaving the Philippine healthcare system in shambles.

If so, perhaps it was not a natural occurrence, after all, but a divine intervention, in which case, the Pinoy nurses were not casualties of visa retrogression, but rather unwitting instruments of miracles for their roles as life-savers of the nation.