Senate raises nurses’ monthly base pay to P30,531 in 2020 budget

ALMOST THERE Nursing students browse the day’s program while waiting to take their oath as professional nurses. —INQUIRER PHOTO

Like public school teachers, government nurses may soon get higher wages after the Senate amended the proposed P4.1-trillion 2020 budget and increased their base pay to Salary Grade 15.

Sen. Panfilo Lacson said the 2020 budget, approved on third and final reading by the Senate on Wednesday,  had a new special provision stating that nurses should have a base pay of P30,531 a month in compliance with a Supreme Court decision.

“The implementation of the salary adjustment shall take effect when the decision of the Supreme Court had become final and executory, but not earlier than the start of Fiscal Year 2020,” the budget provision said.

The salary adjustment for government nurses would be sourced from appropriations for staffing modifications and upgrading of salaries where some P3.173 billion is needed.

Lacson said the increase in pay could come from the P12.469-billion Miscellaneous Personnel Benefit Fund of the health department’s budget so that nurses need not wait for the passage of another law, or the availability of funds to enjoy their higher base pay.

The Supreme Court earlier ruled that the pay of government nurses must be at Salary Grade 15 at the very least, as the court upheld the validity of the Philippine Nursing Act of 2002.

The base pay of nurses was reduced to Salary Grade 11 by then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in 2009.

But the court also said in its ruling that it could not compel the government to implement the Salary Grade 15 base pay of nurses since it would require a law passed by Congress to provide funding for it.