The Coalition for People’s Right to Health, Council for Health and Development together with other progressive health organizations are in solidarity with the health workers fighting for just wage, job security and rights. Today, Feb. 13, health workers from various public and private hospitals marched to Mendiola to protest against the unjust wages, delayed benefits, contractualization, understaffing in hospitals and the deteriorating health care system as well as the systemic corruption in the government by the bureaucrat capitalist.
It’s 2026 and there are still lack of accessibly of free basic health care services among Filipinos especially the marginalized sector as 42.7% of the total national health expenditure are out-of-pocket, that means people still need to buy medicines and laboratory on their own. Only 35% of the total hospitals are public and there are only 26,860 barangay health stations out of 42,011 barangays. Not all the health facilities have health personnel as there are issues on understaffing due to low salary with unreasonable working hours. Currently there are 16.6 health workers per 10,000 population in average. The ratio of doctors per patients are 1:21,981 and 1:5,402 for nurses, far from WHO recommendation’s 1:1,000.
With the deteriorating health care system, 5 out 10 Filipinos died without medical attention or seeing a health worker and the causes of morbidity and mortality are still due to preventable diseases such as tubercolosis and pulmonia. The average minimum wage of a worker is 498 below the estimated family living wage of Php 1,240, farmers still have no land to till, foreign corporations continue to illegally mine natural resources off of indigenous lands and imperialist powers continue to violate our sovereignty by deploying military bases on our territory, all while the oligarchs and bureaucrat capitalist busy profiting off our national budget intended for social services like health.
We must continue to organize our communities, build and strengthen health workers’unions, expose the ailing health care system and oppose the programs and policies that aggravate the worsening health conditions of the Filipino people. We must continue to struggle for people’s health and social change.
We call for Php 36,000 entry salary for public and private health workers and Php 50,000 entry salary for nurses and other allied health professionals! Strengthen the public health care system by passing the HB 208 or Free, Comprehensive, and Progressive, National Public Health Care System and allocate 5% of GDP to health! Review the implementation of the Universal Health Care Law and PhilHealth! Investigate the corruption in the government and hold the corrupt officials accountable!
References:
www.philstar.com/business/2025/07/27/2460917/philippines-health-spending-hits-p156-trillion-2024/amp/
https://nhfr.doh.gov.ph/Home
https://www.ibon.org/lack-of-basic-health-resources/
https://www.ibon.org/flw-regl-2512/
Council for Health and Development (CHD) 