SENATE President Vicente Sotto III yesterday pushed for a P1,000 minimum daily wage for private sector workers in Metro Manila to allow them to cope with the adverse effects of the continuing oil price hikes.
In an interview during their campaign sortie in Tuguegarao City, Sotto said: “If it were up to me, in these trying times, dapat ang minimum wage is (the minimum wage should already be) P1,000.”
Sotto, who is running for vice president in the May 9 elections, made the remark a day after the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) filed a petition before the Regional Tripartite Wage and Productivity Board for a P470 increase in the daily minimum wage of workers in the National Capital Region.
With the TUCP’s petition, the minimum daily wage for private sector workers in the National Capital Region will be at P1,007. The present minimum daily wage is P537.
National Wage and Productivity Commission’s records showed Metro Manila’s daily minimum wage was last increased on October 30, 2018.
Presidential candidate Sen. Panfilo Lacson said wages in other parts of the country are best decided by the regional wage boards due to the peculiarity in the cost of living per region.
“Hindi natin dapat tignan in terms of real wages. Tignan natin ang living wage kasi doon nagma-matter kung sino ang nangangailangan at sino ang hindi (We must not look at it in terms of real wages. Let us look at the living wage per region because it matters how much wage increase is needed),” Lacson said.
