A MILITANT lawmaker yesterday assailed the Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board’s (RTWPB) decision to approve a P35 increase in the daily minimum wage of workers in the National Capital Region (NCR), saying it is “insulting” to workers.
Rep. Arlene Brosas (PL, Gabriela) Brosas, who reiterated the Makabayan bloc’s call for the passage of their bill seeking a P750 across-the-board wage hike, said the P35 a day hike is “a mere pittance that fails to address the dire economic situation of Filipino workers and their families.
“This P35 increase is an insult to Filipino workers. It’s barely different from the P25 wage hike implemented way back in 1989, and lower than the P40 hike granted last year. How can the government expect NCR workers to survive on P645 a day when the Family Living Wage stands at P1,200 and when prices continue to accelerate?”
The lawmaker emphasized that the new minimum wage of P645, set to take effect on July 17, significantly falls short of what Filipino families need to live with dignity.
“Hampaslupa ang tingin ng gobyerno sa mga manggagawa (The government has poor regard for workers). By approving such a meager increase, the government is treating our workers as mere slaves, disregarding their basic needs and rights,” Brosas said.
Brosas said the Makabayan Bloc’s proposed PP750 across-the-board wage hike bill “is a step towards ensuring that Filipino families can live decently and with dignity, but it’s clear that this is not the priority of the Marcos Jr. administration.”
The Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) also assailed the NCR wage increase, saying it is “just a few crumbs tossed from their master’s table of overflowing abundance and a humiliation to the struggling Filipino workers.”
The labor group, represented by Deputy Speaker Raymond Democrito Mendoza, vowed to push for the passage of House Bill No. 7871, also known as the Wage Recovery Act, which seeks to give a daily across-the-board P150 wage hike for all workers in the private sector.
In a statement, TUCP Vice President Luis Corral said the NCR RWB “proved once again to be so myopic.
“They opted to protect business profits rather than the bigger societal purpose of the wage increase,” he said.
“As TUCP has repeatedly pointed out, the need to elevate the daily wage above the poverty threshold to afford a family of five at least one nutritious meal a day is inextricably linked to addressing the growing problem of stunting Filipino children due to persistent poverty and inequality,” he said.
Quoting UNICEF Philippines, TUCP noted that 95 children in the Philippines die daily from malnutrition; 27 out of 1,000 Filipino children do not get past their fifth birthday; and a third of Filipino children are stunted or short for their age.
HB No. 7871, also known as the Wage Recovery Act, is still pending in the House Committee on Labor and Employment along with other wage hike bills, while the Senate has already passed a P100 daily wage increase.
TUCP said that despite working hard for an honest living, “workers are condemned to a life of deprivation and poverty, which means the promised middle-income Philippines by 2025 excludes the workers and a fatal error.”
According to the World Bank’s “Philippines Human Capital Review,” if the country does not invest in human capital, the incoming labor force members will be unable to drive innovation and economic growth.
It cited the World Bank’s statement that the Philippines has a window of only 20 to 25 years to invest in human capital development, which for the TUCP should start with having a decent daily wage to afford nutritious meals for workers’ children and pay for their education and health.
“The workers are humiliated by the P35.00 increase! It is a slap on the face of every worker, even the resource persons, who underscored the imperative of raising workers’ wages against the big lie that any increase is ‘catastrophic,’” Corral said.
Corral said working families “have had enough of being fiddled around in the past 35 years.
“Worse, the regional wage boards only belatedly and inadequately adjusted wages for the four million minimum wage earners, leaving behind the tens of millions of workers who are mostly unorganized with no collective bargaining agreement (CBA) to raise their paychecks and benefits or even bargain for wage distortion,” he said.
