FILE PHOTO: Senate President Juan Miguel “Migz” F. Zubiri (Senate PRIB)
MANILA, Philippines — Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri is seeking a P150 daily wage hike for all workers in the private sector.
“A decent life costs a decent wage. If workers are putting in hours and hours of labor, day after day, and yet are still unable to afford their rent, bills, and basic necessities, then there is a problem,” Zubiri said in a statement on Tuesday after filing Senate Bill No. 2002.
“In the Senate, we addressed the collective bargaining of our employees’ union for increased benefits, in accordance with the rising costs of commodities. And now, with this bill, I hope to answer similar calls from workers across the country, with an across-the-board wage hike,” he added.
Just last month, Zubiri himself announced the raise in this year’s inflationary adjustment assistance of Senate employees – from P12,500 to P50,000.
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In filing his bill, the Senate leader noted that labor groups already have been calling for a wage hike to ease the impact of the rising inflation in the country.
Despite the soaring inflation, however, Zubiri said, the Regional Wages and Productivity Boards are “constrained by law as they can only come out with a new wage order once every year unless they declare supervening conditions due to unusual economic incidents.”
And based on news reports, the regional wage boards are still reviewing the economic indicators in their respective regions, he said.
“Given the urgency of the situation, a legislated wage hike increase is called for to ease the effect of wage erosion brought about by inflation,” the Senate leader said in his bill’s explanatory note.
According to Zubiri, his proposed P150 across-the-board increase could cover “food, water, fuel, electricity, clothing, transportation, rent, communications and personal needs” of workers in the private sector.
If passed into law, he said, the wage hike would apply to the entire private sector, agricultural and non-agricultural, regardless of capitalization and number of employees.
Zubiri noted that at present, the National Capital Region (NCR) has the highest daily nominal wage rate, at P570.00 (non-agriculture) while the lowest is at P316.00 (non-agriculture), for the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.
As of January 2023, however, a family in NCR would need a daily living wage of P1,161, the Senate leader said, citing an Ibon Foundation study.
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“This is almost double than the highest pay received by a minimum wage worker in the region,” Zubiri pointed out.