SAYING the regional wage boards have been slow—and thrifty—in granting workers relief for the past several years, Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri on Wednesday affirmed his commitment to push the bill for a legislated wage hike, and sounded confident he can muster his peers’ support for it.
Interviewed at the Kapihan sa Manila Bay, the Senate leader recalled a previous commitment at the Senate to pass an awaited legislative wage hike to help workers reeling from persistently high inflation.
“On Labor Day I resurfaced our commitment in the Senate to pass a legislative wage hike due to inflation,” he said partly in Filipino, adding: “I mention this because I frequently talk to foreigners and I ask them how much is the minimum wage in their country; in their case it’s often $10 minimum per hour. In our case that $10 is the whole day’s wage. So, they are surprised. How can our workers survive?’
Senate President Zubiri said he agrees with their view that workers and their families can hardly survive being paid a minimum wage of P517 a day.
He noted that such a rate is even for the NCR (National Capital Region); “I’m not yet talking about the provinces, where it’s P300 per day— it’s less than $7 per day. How can you feed your family if you have, say 4-5 children, on P300 per day? How can you cope with their educational requirements?”
This being so, Zubiri lamented, “our workers’ situation is truly dire; and that was especially highlighted in the pandemic.”
Soon after the pandemic, he recalled the next problem was inflation, as “prices of all basic items soared – from sugar to vegetables to fish, pork, other meat, everything went up. Gasoline, electricity, none went down. The only thing that was frozen was the people’s wages. It’s not inflationary, it does not go up with inflation. Our people’s wages have remained steady.”
He disclosed that several senators now share his view that, “it is time to move. Most of them believe it’s high time to act, one-time big-time, to help our workers.” He cited Senate President Pro Tempore Loren Legarda, Majority Leader Joel Villanueva, and Senators Nancy Binay and Raffy Tulfo, among those who share this view.
As an example, he noted that in the US, there is a Federal Minimum Wage per hour. “They assigned one rate for the entire US, where you cannot give anything lower.
I think it’s no less than $9 to $10 per hour.” It’s up to the respective states, be it California or Florida, if they wish to set something higher, and by how much, he added. “That means in California, it’s higher tna $10, I think $11.50 per hour is the minimum wage, if I am not mistaken.”
He thinks the example set by the US Federal Government is something “which we can do under our situation now.”
The US, he continued, continuously reviews that policy, usually every decade. “Even less than a decade, every five years they do a review.”
While the Philippine Congress passed Republic Act 6727, creating the Regional Wage Productivity Board, “let’s face it . . . the Regional Wage Boards are weak, they’re slow to move.”
And he added, unless workers rally and cry their hearts out in front of the offices of the Regional Wage Boards, nothing happens. “And when they move, the increrase they give is something like P16, P15 daily. What can a person eat with P15, that can’t even buy a Selecta ice cream that costs P20.”