Nurses stage Baguio march over unimplemented law

BAGUIO CITY, Benguet, Philippines — About a hundred hospital nurses and medical school students on Friday afternoon staged a protest march to demand the payment of delayed salary hikes and improved working conditions.

The health workers complained that they continue to receive substandard salaries despite the passage of Republic Act No. 9173, or Philippine Nursing Act of 2002, which entitles entry-level nurses to receive P30,000 and P31,000.

Seventeen years after the passage of the law, that minimum pay has yet to be enforced. The march was the Baguio leg of a National Day of Protest for Nurses which was staged in other parts of the country. –Kimberlie Quitasol