Solons call for legislated wage increase amid price hikes

LAWMAKERS on Wednesday called on President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. to certify the urgent passage of bills imposing an across-theboard nationwide wage increases.

Assistant Minority Leader and Gabriela Women’s Party Rep. Arlene Brosas said that the Marcos administration must certify as urgent the passage of wage increase bills.

“By the end of February 2023, the inflation rate in the Philippines has reached 8.6 percent. The price of commodities, such as rice continues to rise, which is estimated to increase by up to P5 per kilo in the coming weeks. Public services such as electricity have also increased, now reaching P11.4348 per kwh from P10.8895 per kwh in February,” said Brosas.

On March 13, 2022, Gabriela Women’s Party filed House Bill 7568, which seeks to provide a P750 acrossthe-board and nationwide wage increase for employees and workers in the private sector to address the longstanding call of Filipino workers.

“Today, another bill was also filed pushing for a P150 across-the-board wage increase in the daily wages of workers and employees in the private sector. The House leadership must prioritize these measures to address the declining real value of wages,” Brosas said.

New bill

HOUSE Deputy Speaker Raymond Democrito C. Mendoza has also filed House Bill 7871 or the Wage Recovery Act of 2023 that seeks to provide a legislated across-the-board wage recovery increase of P150 in the daily wages of workers and employees in the private sector nationwide.

“Workers can no longer afford to wait for the regional wage boards to act. Since late last year, TUCP [Trade Union Congress of the Philippines] was already calling on the wage boards to address the steady decline in the real value of wages due to surging inflation but TUCP’S call fell on deaf ears. Unfortunately, it seems that workers will be left with an empty bag as the wage boards are taking their sweet time in the face of increasing hunger,” said Mendoza.

“The TUCP also recommended win-win policy solutions for workers and employers, such as the provision by employers to their workers of costof-living allowances that could be used as a tax credit by the business owners, or a one-time, big-time P5,000 subsidy from Government for minimum and near-minimum wage earners. But our economic managers simply shut the door on these options. In the face of their insensitivity to what is clearly a survival crisis for millions of workers, the TUCP is compelled to file this important bill,” he added.

According to the lawmaker, both workers and businesses are badly hit by the surging inf lation and continue to suffer through the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and climate change concerns.

“Workers have sacrificed for far too long and are now on the brink. The TUCP feels that this bill is the urgent, actionable, and reasonable course of action that we should now take as a nation through legislation,” he said.

Based on February 2023 consumer price index (CPI) figures, the purchasing power lost from the current minimum wages across the regions range from P55 to P89, with the national average lost from daily minimum wages is P73 per day.

Mendoza said it is also high time that workers be given an equity supplement for every year since 1989, when RA 6727 or the Wage Rationalization Act was enacted, that there was no substantial increase in wages, hence the necessity of an across- the-board P150 wage recovery increase.

“The wages of workers should climb together with productivity because it is only right and just that workers, who create the wealth of our nation, get their fair share of our economic growth. But because of the dismal track record of the regional wage boards in dampening legitimate wage demands by setting too low wages, workers’ wages stagnated even as our gross domestic product [GDP] and labor productivity steadily rose,” said the lawmaker.

This bill also provides for wage recovery subsidies available for micro and small enterprises and which shall be funded through the annual appropriations of the Department of Labor and Employment.