The Arroyo government boasted that SSL-3 would considerably increase the state workers’ salaries, but according to Ferdinand Gaite, chairman of Courage (Confederation for Unity, Recognition and Advancement of Government Employees), SSL-3 only considerably increased the salaries of executive-level employees. The increases for those in lower salary grades were almost negligible, and the government will not give it in one go but in yearly piecemeal tranches from the second half of 2009 up to 2012.
Among the public health workers and professionals, particularly nurses, the contrasting rates of increases between the ordinary employees and those in executive levels were not the only injustice brought upon them by SSL-3.
“It’s like we also lost out (on the substantial provisions of the Philippine Nursing Act),” Ebesate told Bulatlat, relaying his fellow public nurses’ complaints.
Apparently, SSL-3 tried to formalize the non-observance of the Philippine Nursing Act, and downgraded the Nursing Act’s entry-level for government nurses from SG-15 to SG-11. “The Department of Health and the Department of Budget Management told us that, given the salary increases stipulated in SSL-3, what we’ll get would be as good as what’s in the Nursing Act,” Ebesate said.
“But the salary grade of public hospital nurses will only rise up to SG-11, even as the Nursing Act stipulated that it should be SG-15,” Ebesate said. And their salaries will increase to P18,000 a month ($390 at the current exchange rate of $1=P46.138) only in 2012. Even at today’s prices, P18,000 ($390) is just two-thirds of the living wage in the national capital region. Thus, its real value would be smaller by 2012.
Deferred, Staggered, Delayed Wage Increases
Beside these defects, the implementation of SSL-3 also crawls excruciatingly slow for public health workers. According to Ebesate, the SSL-3 has reached the local government personnel only this year. But they are still unsure whether the public health workers in local government units including nurses will finally receive their SSL-3-stipulated wage hike this year.
Iloilo nurses, for instance, told the AHW that although their local government had deliberated on its 2010 budget as early as October 2009, no allocations were yet made for increases in salaries of health personnel.
In the PGH and other public national hospitals, the salary grade of all health professionals should rise a grade higher than before the implementation of SSL-3. But up to now, they remain in the same salary grade because the DBM has not released appropriate funding. The DBM now describes them as “reallocated positions,” but the government still “owes” its health professionals their supposedly already legally mandated wage increases, Ebesate said.
Despite the SSL-3 promising to increase the state workers’ wages yearly, public health professionals seem to be pushed into a situation where they would have to fight again for wage increases this year. They have yet to receive the second tranche of the meager salary increases decreed by SSL-3. “The second tranche is supposed to start on January 2010, but Ebesate said they’re still living under last year’s first tranche.
Public health workers also did not just lose a significant stipulation of the Philippine Nursing Act in SSL-3. Their hazard pay, which the Magna Carta of Public Health Workers used to give to all public health workers, became limited to those “directly exposed” to hazards. Thus, Ebesate said health workers are placed in such a situation that they would have to fight first to convince the government that they are “directly exposed” to hazards.
Increased Need for Solidarity
Despite SSL-3, “the demand for just wages remains,” Ebesate told Bulatlat. With the rest of the country’s public sector employees, “we will continue to press for a P3,000 ($65) across the board monthly salary increase, and “not the piecemeal hikes spread over 4 years,” Emma Manuel, president of AHW, told Bulatlat.
“We will continue to press the government to implement and allocate funds for the provisions of the Nursing Act of 2002 and the Magna Carta of Public Health Workers. The government has to increase its health budget both in the local and national levels, Ebesate said.
The AHW and All-UP Workers Union say they will continue to push the government to address the growing lack of health workers, and to “not just resort to short-term stop-gap measures such as the ‘Project NARS’ which lasts for only six months.
“In the coming elections, the people’s health should be a big issue,” Ebesate said. His group vows to press the next government for a good health human resource planning and development in accordance with the global standards on health professional to population ratio. (Bulatlat.com)
