Nurses working in government whether in regular, casual or contractual positions will now receive a minimum pay of P32,053 or Salary Grade as mandated by the law.
Department of Budget and Management (DBM) finally released the Budget Circular 2020-4 which upgrades the entry-level nurse positions and its corresponding salary. The circular implements Section 10 of Republic Act 9173 or the Philippine Nursing Law which sets the nurse’s basic pay at SG-15.
In an en banc decision released October last year, Supreme Court upheld the provision of the law after Ang Nars Partylist questioned its non-implementation for 18 years. Previously, government nurses only receive SG-11 salary.
With the decision and circular, Nurse I got 4-step hike from SG-11 to SG-15. In the current Salary Standardization Law V, that’s from P22,316 to P32,053 monthly.
Also, Nurse II is upgraded from SG-15 to SG-17 (P38,464.00), Nurse III from SG-17 to SG-19(P46,719.00), Nurse IV from SG-19 to SG-20 (P52,703.00), Nurse V from SG-20 to SG-22 (P66,867.00), and Nurse VI from SG-22 to SG-24 (P85,074.00).
According to DBM, this salary upgrade covers all Nurse positions, whether regular, casual, or contractual in nature, full-time or part-time, now existing or hereafter created in the national government agencies (NGAs), including SUCs and GOCCs, and in LGUs.
Retroactive Implementation
Government nurses covered with this salary upgrade will also get the increase from previous months of service as the implementation will be retroactive to January 1, 2020.
For NGAs, funding for this pay hike will come from their Personnel Services (PS) allotments, while LGUs and GOCCs will get it from their respective budgets.
In budget deliberation last year, Senate lodged P3 billion under the Miscellaneous Personnel Benefits Fund for the implementation of the salary upgrading of the nurse positions.