Salary hike for nurses barely enough

With regard to the editorial, “‘Year of Filipino Health Workers’” (7/21/20), where nurses in public hospitals and health institutions were said to be “finally” receiving P34,801 per month after “nearly two decades” of begging for it, allow me to give my two cents’ worth. That kind of pay is hardly enough considering the great hazards they have to face amid this current pandemic which could last for years!

Comparing that to the shamelessness with which high government officials are robbing the people blind, collecting more than P1 MILLION PER MONTH in salaries, perks, allowances, bonuses, incentives, etc., even in these times when the country’s economy is teetering on the brink of collapse (e.g., Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas officials), one cannot help but curse at the government that allows this kind of stupidity and blatant iniquity.

And think about this biggest joke of all: What is Mocha Uson doing for this country to deserve being paid P155,000 plus per month—more than four times the paltry sums being paid to those nurses at the forefront of the fight against COVID-19, and who run the risk of getting infected (and God forbid, dying) every day?

Thousands of other good-for-nothing bureaucrats have been taking advantage of similar or bigger entitlements. If an honest-to-goodness restructuring of the entire bureaucracy were to be done, there is no doubt half of those scalawags would be jobless. Good riddance. Will President Duterte please show the same political will to prove he cannot stand even just a “whiff of corruption” as he did in “dismantling the oligarchy”?

Marites dela Merced,

mardelamerc@gmail.com