Presidential bets want to raise wages of nurses to keep them in PH

Members of Nurses United party-list gathered at the Comelec office in Manila on Monday, Nov. .22, 2021, to call on the poll body to approve their party list, which will represent nurses and health workers. (File photo by MARIANNE BERMUDEZ / Philippine Daily Inquirer)

MANILA, Philippines — Raising the wages of nurses so that they would stay in the Phillippines was a common goal for the presidential candidate who attended on Sunday the “Presidential Debate”  hosted by CNN Philippines.

According to Manila Mayor Francisco “Isko Moreno” Domagoso, he and running mate Dr. Willie Ong will establish 17 new hospitals and an infectious and cancer hospital to open up job opportunities.

“These facilities will need medical frontliners — nurses and doctors —  jobs for nurses in their own provinces and regions. Hopefully, they need not go abroad because there are jobs available [here],” Moreno said in Filipino.

“We will invest. I think we should. And we need to wake up in this pandemic that it’s high time that we invest in the health of our countrymen,” he added.

He then promised to invest in Filipino scientists in preparation for future pandemics.

Meanwhile, Sen. Panfilo Lacson said the government should review the salaries of nurses in the private sector through the Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board.

“Senate President Tito Sotto and I authored a magna carta of health workers. And if it’s not through wages [that incentives are given], there are a lot of incentives in there. Like the discount on transportation for nurses, there are a lot of packages there. So those who are left behind here are the private sector nurses who are left with the same salaries,” Lacson said.

“We can’t order the private sector to raise [their wages] so that they reach ]the salary grade level of government nurses. So the solution there is we need to review the tripartite wage boards that look at the minimum wage of our workers. We must review the salaries of private sector nurses” he added.

Sen. Manny Pacquiao vowed to increase not only the salaries of nurses but also medical technologists and other medical frontliners.

“We need to raise their wages. I’m not saying that we should raise them to equal those abroad. But just enough so that they have a reason to work here and be with their families,” he said.

“They would not want to go and work abroad and be separated from their families. They just need to be given justice and given higher wages,” he added.

Pacquiao also said that his administration would improve the health services by improving and establishing tertiary hospitals in the cities and provinces.

Meanwhile, Dr. Jose Montemayor Jr., a physician and lawyer said that he would not make a lot of mere promises.

He pointed out that he was the first to file a petition in court to lift the ban on deploying nurses abroad due to the pandemic.

“Let’s give incentives. Let’s give motivation, equipment — but those remain to be seen. It takes sincerity. At that time, my life was even threatened. I filed for the sake of our nurses to be deployed abroad because they have live contracts and yet our own government violates their rights,” he said.

“We have seen the cruelty of the government. ‘We will love them [health workers]. We will give them a big salary’ Those will remain words. Who is fighting for the nurses? Dr. Montemayor. Who is fighting for mandatory vaccination? Dr. Montemayor. I am fighting for them,” he added.

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