A FACULTY member of the UST College of Nursing has been elected president of the Philippine Nurses Association (PNA), the organization announced on Jan. 20.
Prof. Gian Carlo Torres will be the PNA president for the 2026-2028 term, succeeding Rosana Grace Belo-Delariarte.
Torres told the Varsitarian that his election came at a critical time for the nursing profession, citing longstanding issues, such as the continued exodus of Filipino nurses and low wages.
“[T]he promise and the hope is that they will be able to stay and they will be able to provide the care that is needed by our country,” he said.
Torres said he would work for the passage of a nursing bill and greater support for education.
“That’s why we’re looking into how can we concretize these services, the support that the association can give to our nurses,” he said, noting the disparity in salaries between government and private hospitals.
He also pointed to challenges in nursing education, noting that entry-level nursing faculty members were typically placed under salary grade 12, which discourages nurses from entering academia.
“It’s only salary grade 12 for a nursing faculty or a beginning clinical instructor. Yet it requires more than what a regular nurse is expected to have, because the minimum salary grade is 15 for [entry-level nurses],” he said.
Torres also stressed the decent working conditions for Filipino nurses, citing workplace stress, mental health concerns, and exhaustion, and burnout as persistent issues.
Torres has been a faculty member of the College of Nursing since June 2005 and previously worked at the UST Hospital from 2002 to 2005.
Established in 1922, PNA is the country’s professional organization for nurses, with over 368,000 members nationwide. With reports from Carlo Jose H. Ruga
