Funding for the deserving

The Supreme Court has released a decision regarding the appropriate wage for nurses working in government hospitals which is Salary Grade 15. Salary Grade 15 (SG15) is about P30,531 a month. But even if the high court has decided in favor of the petition of Ang Nars partylist, implementation or enforcing it may be another problem. Congress will have to pass legislation to grant the salary increase. And although DOH Sec. Duque is behind the raising of the salaries, it may be difficult to source the funds to carry out the increase. Well, no surprises there.

The nurses may now have the Supreme Court behind their backs but are now facing Congress which may prove to be a more difficult obstacle to hurdle, especially with this administration known to care about the police and military. President Duterte himself led the way in seeing to it that the salaries of the police and military were doubled. I guess they were able to find the funds to implement it. The next wage increase promised by Duterte is for teachers, not nurses.

Low wages - especially in the private sector - are the main reason why nurses seek better paying employment abroad, ultimately affecting the country's nursing care capacity. The government's health program needs nurses. Many have questioned the salaries of some officials running into hundreds of thousands of pesos, so surely a nurse deserves a raise.

And since we are already talking about money, we should also mention the private jet this administration has purchased for President Duterte and other top officials' use at a cost of two billion pesos. A Gulfstream G280 was purchased and should be delivered next year. It can carry up to ten passengers. The government has defended the purchase of the aircraft by stating it could be used as an airborne command center in times of crisis or disaster. I checked the internet and the current price of a Gulfstream G280 is about $24.5 million dollars, or the equivalent of a little over P1.2 billion pesos. I wonder what the other eight hundred million pesos is for? Perhaps for the aircraft's maintenance and upkeep? Surely maintaining a jet like this would be expensive.

Whatever the reason for the government buying this private plane, let's just say that it will be used by President Duterte until the end of his term. This will probably be used for his trips to and from Davao and maybe regional flights on official visits. He previously said he would rather take commercial flights. That was then. A spokesperson also added that other top government officials such as Defense Sec. Lorenzana and the AFP Chief of Staff could also use the jet being an airborne command center.

Hopefully the government will not forget that it belongs to the people, purchased with the people's money. And just so we remember, we started this article talking about the prescribed salary of government nurses which the government might have a hard time finding funds for.