MANILA, Philippines—There will be no salary hikes for minimum wage earners for the rest of the year, a wage official said Wednesday.
Ciriaco Lagunzad, executive director of the National Wages and Productivity Commission (NWPC), said they are not recommending any wage adjustment “as of the moment” because the country has not fully recovered from the effects of the global financial meltdown last year.
“As a policy, DOLE (Department of Labor and Employment) is not recommending an increase in the general wages at this time because doing so might result in layoffs and the possible closure of companies,” Lagunzad told reporters at the sidelines of the National Policy Forum on Wages and Productivity held at the Bayview Hotel in Manila Wednesday.
“The economy is still fragile and that increases at this time might lead to negative effects. Hopefully the economy will improve next year and we will be looking at it again,” he added.
At present, the daily minimum wage rate in the National Capital Region is P382, which took effect last June 14, 2008.
Lagunzad acknowledged that any labor group could file a petition for wage increase because the one-year moratorium against new petitions before the Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Boards has already lapsed.
Under the law, no petition for wage adjustment may be entertained by the regional wage boards within a year’s time after the last wage order.
Lagunzad said the Alliance for Progressive Labor (APL) has already filed a petition for an across-the-board increase of P126.50 in the daily minimum wage in Region VII (Central Visayas) citing the “erosion of income of workers.”
The daily minimum pay in Region VII is P267 which took effect last June 16, 2008.
But the chairman of the Region VII wage board has already declared that there would be no wage increase in the region for the rest of the year, said Lagunzad.
“I cannot preempt the decision of (the wage board of) Region VII but they are guided by the criteria that they use in deciding petitions for wage increase,” he said.
