By Ali G. Macabalang
COTABATO CITY
The Integrated Provincial Health Office in Lanao del Sur (IPHO-LDS) has confirmed availability funds for the delayed three month (January to March) salaries of 389 nurses under the Human Resource for Health (HRH) program in the province.
“Yes. The funds have been downloaded to us last week and we have readied the procedural release of the salaries to individual nurses,” Dr. Alinadir “Allen” Minalang, IPHO-LDS chief, told the Philippine Muslim Today news over the phone Tuesday, April 6.
Dr. Minalang urged the individual claimants to submit their daily time records and monthly accomplishment reports corresponding to the three months covered before” they could receive corresponding salaries.”
He said the 39 towns of Lanao del Sur are assigned with 389 nurses, correcting the figure of over 800 earlier given by Dr. Amirel Usman, health OIC- minister in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).
Dr. Usman’s figure applied to the whole BARMM, not for Lanao del Sur alone, he said.
Minalang said each HRH nurse is entitled to P32,000 monthly salary plus P8,000 monthly hazard pay, but all of them are required to submit daily time records and accomplishment reports prior to receipt of the remunerations.
Based on available reports on Tuesday, only nurses from 10 of the 39 tons have complied with the requirements, Dr. Minalang said.
“We are fighting for the rights of the nurses who are our frontline workers in the countryside, but also protect our own accountability to government rules and regulations,” he pointed out.
On Tuesday morning, one Hadji Mustapha Mohammad Naif asked via messenger the Philippine Muslim Today to intervene in the clamour of HRH nurses about the delayed salaries for January, February and March.
“The nurses in Lanao del Sur are pitiful. Their counterparts in other provinces received salaries already. Ramadan fasting is coming and they are penniless,” Naif said in the vernacular.
Sought for reaction, Dr. Usman said his ministry and the BARMM government do not have control of the inflow and outflow of RHR nurses’ salaries.
He said the corresponding funds are coming from the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) through the Department of Health (DoH), which subsequently make the downloads to the BARMM’s Ministry of Health (MoH).
The payroll of HRH nurses expires every three months, requiring the DoH to ask for a quarterly fund from the DBM, Usman said, adding that the request is subject to Presidential approval.
Such type of salary differs from other government agencies’ compensation schedules that Congress appropriates on a yearly basis, he said.
Dr. Usman suggested that strong representation in local and national levels be made for Congress to appropriate the HRH nurses’ salaries on an annual basis to prevent the delay-prone mode of their compensation. AGM
PHILIPPINE MUSLIM TODAY 