THE Department of Budget and Management (DBM) released a total of P311.79 million to the Department of Health (DOH) to cover the payment of the Special Risk Allowances (SRA) of public and private health workers.
In a statement on Wednesday, the budget department said the funds will be charged from the Miscellaneous Personnel Benefits Fund and Unprogrammed Appropriations under this year’s national budget.
Moreover, the DBM said the DOH
shall facilitate the downloading of the funds to the DOH-retained hospitals, treatment and rehabilitation centers, private hospitals, and other Covid-19 facilities.
“Guided by Administrative Order 42 and DBM-DOH Joint Circular 1 dated June 16, 2021, about 20,208 public and private health workers directly catering to Covid-19 patients shall receive an SRA not exceeding P5,000 per month from December 20, 2020 to June 30, 2021. The grant of the Covid-19 SRA shall be pro-rated based on the number of days that the public and private health workers physically report for work in a month,” the DBM said. The release of the funds came three days after President Duterte ordered the DOH and DBM to facilitate the release of SRA to health workers following complaints from some groups of medical professionals.
Earlier, the Filipino Nurses United (FNU) warned of a possible mass resignation if they still can’t receive their SRA from DOH.
Guidelines on nurses
IN a related development, the DBM also released on Wednesday the guidelines on the upgrading of the salary grade of Nurse II from Salary Grade (SG) 15 to SG 16 and to retain the position titles of Nurse III to Nurse VII with their corresponding SGs.
“The provisions stipulated in Budget Circular 2021-2 shall be effective not earlier than June 1, 2021. The DBM would like to emphasize that the modification of the position attributes will not result in the reduction in the salary of the incumbent nurses,” it said.
This means that Nurse II may now receive a monthly salary of P36,628-P39,650, higher than his or her previous monthly salary of P33,575-P36,323, based on the second tranche monthly salary schedule for the national government this year.
In June this year, the Office of the President directed the DBM to overturn the Budget Circular 2020-04 it issued last year, which FNU said “effectively demoted” senior government nurses from their present ranks while nurses in Nurse II positions will even have a salary upgrade to Salary Grade 16.
The DBM said its Budget Circular 2020-4 upgraded the salary of the Nurse I position from SG-11 to SG-15 but this resulted in the modification of the position attributes of the remaining non-entry level nurse positions.