INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines — The Senate committee on labor, employment and human Resources on Wednesday approved “in principle” a bill seeking to increase the minimum wage in the private sector by P150.
Senate Bill No. 2002 or “Across-the-board Wage Increase Act,” was tackled during the committee’s hearing, where laborers, labor rights activists, businessmen, as well as representatives from the Department of Labor and Employment and Regional Wage Boards were invited.
“In principle, the Senate committee on labor has already approved our Across-the-Board Wage Increase Act, and a Technical Working Group is set to discuss a proposed graduated wage increase scheme for our MSMEs,” said Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri.
“We expect that the Committee Report will come out in about two weeks, and we hope to pass the bill before we adjourn in June,” he added.
During the hearing, Zubiri pointed out that the last legislated minimum wage increase was way back 1989, at P89, right before the passage of the Republic Act (RA) 6727, which created the Regional Wage Boards.
“‘Yung sigaw po ng increase of minimum wage matagal na po ‘yang sinisigaw ng ating mga kababayan … ang nakita po natin, with due respects sa Regional Wage Boards, napakababa ng mga increases nila at napakatagal, long durations bago nila aksyunan ang problema ng pagtaas ng bilihin, paghirap ng tao, pagsigaw ng tao sa konting disenteng sahod na ibigay sa kanila,” said Zubiri.
(The call for a minimum wage increase has been going on for a long time. What we have seen, with due respect to the Regional Wage Boards, is that the wage increases are minimal, and it takes them a long time to act on the problem of price increase, the difficulties encountered by the people who are seeking better, more decent wages.)
Zubiri compared the country’s minimum wage figures to other Southeast Asian countries, specifically Indonesia (equivalent to P842 /day), Malaysia (P854 / day) and Singapore (P2,486 / day).
He added that Vietnam, despite having a lower minimum wage, at P511 a day nationwide, has no deduction for both housing and healthcare.
“Tayo? Kaltas ng Pagibig, Philhealth, SSS naiiwan na lang sa kababayan from P570 to P525,” said Zubiri.
(Here, there are deductions forPag-ibig, Philhealth, SSS, so the take home pay is only around P525 to P570.)
For micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), Zubiri said that they can instead implement a graduated increase in wages.