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Militant groups press
passage of P125 wage hike
Published in the Business Mirror April 16, 2008

By Jonathan L. Mayuga
Correspondent

MILITANT groups reiterated Tuesday the call for legislated wage hike and urged President Arroyo to certify as urgent the P125 wage-hike bill in the wake of the increasing price of rice and other basic commodities in the Philippines.
In a joint statement, the Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya) and the Unyon ng Manggagawa sa Agrikultura (UMA) said instead of tasking the regional wage boards across the country to act on the workers demand for wage increase, President Arroyo should certify as urgent the bill that will legislate wage hike of P125 for the workers’ daily take- home pay.
House Bill (HB) 345, which calls for a P125 across-the-board wage increase was filed by militant party-list lawmakers, namely, Anakpawis Rep. Crispin Beltran, Bayan Muna Reps. Satur Ocampo and Teodoro Casiٌo and Gabriela party-list Reps. Liza Maza and Luzviminda Ilagan.
“Mrs. Arroyo should instead dismantle the unproductive and antiworker wage boards and send marching order to Congress to pass HB 345 on or before May 1. The law can be passed and signed in less than a week’s time if President Arroyo is really sincere in her wage-hike proposal,” the statement said.
Pamalakaya national chairman Fernando Hicap and UMA national chairman Rene Galang said the regional wage boards, by orientation and by design, are meant to further keep the daily take-home pay of Filipino at “depressed levels.”
“The regional wage boards are forever white elephants to workers and chiefly serve the best interests of capital. The passage of the P125 wage-hike bill is very material, very urgent and the most politically, legally and morally correct way of addressing the pressing need of the working class of this country,” the groups added.
Pamalakaya said the passage of the P125-wage increase has become a political and economic necessity for the country given what he described as seemingly unstoppable increases in the prices of rice and other basic needs, which are further compounded and complicated by the weekly increases in the prices of petroleum products.
Citing the recent study made by the National Wages and Productivity Commission (NWPC) that each family of six needs P768 per day to survive in Metro Manila, Pamalakaya said the P350 minimum wage, which is regularly received by nonagricultural workers is way, way below the required amount for a family of six to survive.
The NWPC also said the P350 minimum wage is actually worth P245.61 today based on the present inflation rate. In the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, this has the lowest minimum wage pegged at P200 a day, a family of six needs P1,008 a day to survive. However, the nominal basic pay of P200 if translated to a real wage would only be P136.71 today.
For his part, Galang of UMA said the real value of workers’ wages had also seriously been eroded. Citing the study made by independent think tank Ibon Foundation, the union leader said the purchasing power of the peso in Metro Manila fell to 70 centavos from 72 centavos from April 2006 to April 2007.
“This means that a worker has lost P2 of actual buying power for every P100 he or she earns. This is despite the fact that the workers’ productivity has increased from P9,265 per month to P9,560 per month from April 2006 to April 2007.