A HOUSE leader yesterday said the Department of Budget and Management should immediately pay the Supreme Court-mandated higher salary for government nurses especially amid the threat from the new coronavirus disease.
Deputy speaker Michael Romero (1-Pacman) noted the court’s October 2019 ruling that said government nurses are entitled to salary grade (SG) 15 under the Philippine Nursing Act of 2002, instead of SG 11 which is the compensation level they are now receiving.
“As of their last payday, they have not received their pay increase,” Romero said. “Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano made sure funds were included in the budget for carrying out the Supreme Court decision.”
Congress has allocated P3.2 billion in the P4.1-trillion national budget for this year for the salary adjustment which was expected to be implemented beginning last month based.
Romero said the two chambers of Congress even restated the high court’s ruling in the national budget just to emphasize their support “for once and for call granting what our nurses are entitled to under the law.”
“All the DBM now had to do is to implement the mandate of Congress and the SC ruling,” he said.
The October 2019 ruling upheld the validity of a provision in the Philippine Nursing Act of 2002 that assigned SG 15 as the minimum pay allocation of government nurses.
SG 11 is P22,316 under Republic Act No. 11466 or Salary Standardization Law 5 while SG 15 is P32,053.
