Health workers, teachers mark V-Day with demand for higher pay
Health workers and teachers spent Valentine’s Day holding separate rallies to press their demands for higher wages.
Carrying placards showing black hearts and wearing red wristbands, members of the Alliance of Health Workers (AHW) gathered on Wednesday in front of the Department of Health main office in Manila for a “Black Hearts Day” protest.
They called on the government to make a monthly pay of P33,000 the entry salary for public and private health workers, and to also immediately release their long overdue COVID-19 benefits.
“This situation is deemed alarming as our country is in a deep economic crisis as well as our public health-care system. And yet, the Marcos Jr. administration’s response to health workers and people’s demands is Charter change,” said Robert Mendoza, AHW national president and Health Workers United for Wage Increase convenor.
“If the government is really recognizing the noble and heroic work of health workers, heed our demand for a P33,000 entry salary for both public and private health workers and other government employees,” said Ernesto Bulanadi of the Tondo Medical Center Employees Association-AHW.
A Nursing Assistant 1 in a government hospital currently receives a monthly pay of P15,586 under Salary Grade 4 although private nurses receive less. The Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) National Capital Region also held separate protests in front of different schools in Quezon City, Pasig, Caloocan, Marikina and Manila where it called on the government to give them “just and living” wages.
‘Insensitive and negligent’
ACT chair Vladimer Quetua said they had been asking for a salary increase since the beginning of the year, following the end of the Salary Standardization Law V and the recent hike in mandatory contributions imposed by state insurers.
But their calls have fallen on deaf ears, with Quetua pointing out how Vice President and Education Secretary Sara Duterte has been “insensitive and negligent to the situation of the teachers and other education workers and employees.”
“[We] reiterate that it is necessary to address education professionals’ needs,” he said, adding that teachers can perform well “if economic and professional rights are addressed properly.”
Quetua expressed concern about moves to amend the Constitution, particularly allowing foreigners to own schools, which could leave them “more overworked, underpaid and undervalued.”
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“Allowing foreign ownership of a Philippine school … will lead to the voluntary unloading of the government’s responsibility” for Filipinos’ right to an education that is suitable or appropriate to their needs,” he said.
He reiterated their group’s call to the government for a substantial salary for teachers with an entry level pay of P50,000, as well as a P33,000 minimum wage for all private and public workers.
