TAGBILARAN CITY — Labor groups in Bohol province have asked the Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board (RTWPB) in Central Visayas for a P100 increase in the daily minimum wage during a public hearing here on Thursday.
Feliciano Aparre of the Partido Manggagawa (PM)-Bohol Sentro ng Nagkakaisa at Progresibong Manggagawa said that daily minimum wage earners in Bohol deserve a wage increase.
“Inflation is high. The P397 minimum wage in Bohol is not enough to [meet] the level of the cost of living. Thus, P100 is necessary to recover the purchasing power of workers’ wages to survive,” he said.
The present P397 minimum wage in Bohol was implemented in May last year after the region’s wage board approved the new daily wage in the province a month earlier.
Unity ride
Aside from PM, organizations from the workers’ sectors in the province such as the Bohol Alliance of Labor Organizations, Bohol Light Employees Union and Tagbilaran Coca-Cola Plant Employees Union are pushing for the P100 salary increase.
“This wage hike demand is merely wage recovery. We want workers to be happy with their wages,” said Aparre.
James Andrew Dua, 36, and a food delivery rider, was among those who echoed the need to increase the salaries of workers.
“The prices of basic commodities have increased but the value of our money or our wages has decreased,” he said.
Dua and the other riders held a “unity ride” along Bohol’s thoroughfares before the start of the public hearing organized by the wage board at Kew Hotel in Tagbilaran City on Thursday.
It was the fourth public hearing held by the RTWPB in the region.
Antonio Cuizon, labor sector representative in the board, met with the labor groups and assured them that the opinions and insights during the hearing would be taken into consideration by the RTWPB.
The RTWPB-Central Visayas approved a P31 daily wage hike in April last year for all the workers in the private sector and a P500 monthly increase for domestic workers in Central Visayas.
The RTWPB earlier assured workers that there will be a wage increase in September this year but the amount would still have to be deliberated on.