Marcos assures labor sector, ILO of progress in wage hike petitions

Workers at a medicine factory in the Philippines (AFP FILE PHOTO)

MANILA, Philippines — President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has assured the labor sector that the government was making progress on the wage hike petitions, Malacañang said on Thursday. 

The Presidential Communications Office (PCO) said Marcos had a conversation with International Labor Organization (ILO) Director General Gilbert F. Houngbo and said that the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) has met with different labor groups.  

“I think our negotiations with workers, with the unions, with the different negotiations, we will be able to come to a good working number, a good compromise,” the President told Houngbo on Tuesday.

The Department of Labor and Employment has long been processing wage hike petitions, with nine appeals from December 2022 to April 2023 still pending.

The current minimum wage across the regions ranges from P372 and P470 a day, said the PCO. 

Houngbo was on a four-day trip to push for a new social contract that would ensure better working conditions and address inequalities and poverty. 

“When there is rapid industrialization and rapid expansion of the economy, there is a tendency to leave the labor sector behind and just exploit the labor sector,” Marcos acknowledged. 

Marcos told the ILO director that Filipino workers in small businesses have asked for a wage increase. 

The President had previously vowed support for small enterprises, saying that they are vital for the development of the Philippine economy. 

  gsg/abc