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| President Benigno S. Aquino III (Photo by Lauro Montillano / Gil Nartea. / Malacañang Photo Bureau) |
The salary increase for public elementary and secondary school teachers and non-teaching personnel nationwide is included in the whooping P436.5 billion of the Department of Education (DepEd).
This has left a question among nurses, "How about us?".
The Philippines issues nursing licenses to thousands of nurses every year, and yet one of the biggest problems in the health system is maldistribution, as health workers prefer to stay in urbanized areas where they can be compensated properly.
To "uphold the dignity of nurses", Senator Teofisto "TG" Guingona III recently filed Senate Bill 2583, which seeks an entry level salary of P24,887 for registered nurses working in government institutions. This is an increase from Salary Grade (SG) 11 (P18,549) to Salary Grade 15.
Guingona said he filed the bill because many registered nurses remain unemployed "as a result of the health system's failure in determining and projecting human resource needs in and out of the country."
"Plantilla positions in public hospitals remain unfilled, making nurses vulnerable to exploitation and unfair labor practices. In recent years, nurses have been forced to work in job order or contractual terms. Many accept 'volunteer' work or pay 'training fees' just to be able to work. We need to correct this," he said in a statement last February.
Many Filipino nurses also leave the country to work abroad. The latest country migration report of the International Organization for Migration showed that in 2012 alone, 15,655 out of 458,575 deployed newly-hired, land-based overseas Filipino workers are nurses.
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