Stirring win for nurses; nation’s teachers next

The country’s nurses in government hospitals won a stirring victory when the Supreme Court ruled last October 8 that they are entitled to a minimum monthly salary of ₱30,000 under Republic Act 9173, the Philippine Nursing Act signed by President Gloria M. Arroyo in 2002. But Congress will have to enact the funds needed to implement the law.

Government nurses are among the many government workers who have long been asking for salary adjustments. The national organization of nurses, the Filipino Nurses United (FNU), said they are among the most overworked government workers, each nurse attending to 40 patients in some hospitals, when the ideal ratio is 1:12. The current take-home pay of government nurses is ₱18,000 to ₱21,000 a month. It is even lower in private hospitals – ₱8,000 to ₱12,000.

This is one reason so many Filipino nurses seek employment abroad. In comparison, the average monthly salary of a nurse in the United States is equivalent to ₱200,000.

All these years, nurses have not been given the pay provided by RA 9173 because Congress in 2009 approved Joint Resolution No. 4 authorizing the president to modify the compensation and position classification system of government employees. President Arroyo then issued Executive Order 811 setting salary grades for all government workers and that for government nurses was set at Grade 11—₱20,754 a month.

Last week, the Supreme Court, acting on a petition filed by the Ang Nars partylist, ruled that a Congress joint resolution and a presidential executive order cannot overturn a law.

In the wake of the court decision, Anak Kalusugan partylist Rep. Michael Defensor called on Congres to now pass a joint resolution putting into effect the increased nurses’ pay. He pointed out that this was how the nation’s soldiers and policemen were able to have their salaries doubled in 2017 by Congress prodded by the newly elected President Duterte.

In response to claims that the government has not been able raise government salaries for lack of funds, FNU President Eleanor Velasco said that what the government lacks is not funding but political will. When the President wanted money for police salaries, there were funds for it, she pointed out. “They have the money if they want to, but they have a thousand reasons if they don’t want to.”

Now that the Supreme Court has ruled on government nurses’ salaries, it would not look good if President Duterte, who went all-out for military and police pay increases, would continue to leave the problem to Congress. He would open himself to claims that he lacks political will for nurses after what he did for the uniformed services.

Then there is the problem of teachers – a much bigger problem because they are many more than policemen or nurses. The teachers may not have a Supreme Court decision behind them but, perhaps more than any other group in the government service, they deserve much better pay than they are receiving now.