Zubiri slams Laguesma for opposing wage hike

Labor Secretary Bienvenido Laguesma and Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri | PHOTOS: PCO and Senate PRIB

MANILA, Philippines — Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri on Thursday criticized Labor Secretary Bienvenido Laguesma, whom he said is “slowly becoming to be one of the more unpopular” secretaries of the Department of Labor (DOLE).

“I’m saddened and shocked to hear the statement of the Secretary of Labor in objecting to higher wages for the labor sector by rejecting our reasonable Minimum Wage hike bill that would increase by a modest P100 across the board for all our minimum wage earners in the country,” Zubiri said in a statement.

He was responding to the reported objection of the DOLE chief to the proposed across-the-board legislated wage hike for workers nationwide.

It was  Zubiri who earlier proposed to raise the pay of all workers by P150 daily but later agreed to reduce it to P100.

The proposed P100 daily wage hike was approved by the Senate last March.

According to Zubiri, President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.’s earlier order to review workers’ minimum wage showed that Laguesma “has failed to protect workers interests and would rather speak for the interest of the business sector…”

“For the President to say that the regional wage boards should be activated again when they recently came out with those measly increases show that the wage boards are ineffective in dealing with the crisis that laborers are facing today with high inflation and food costs,” the Senate chief said.

“It should be the Secretary that should lead the way on this and not the other way around,” he said.

“He is slowly becoming to be one of the more unpopular Labor Secretaries the Department has had if he keeps up what he is doing,” Zubiri further remarked.

Instead of leading the labor department, Laguesma should just have been appointed as Secretary of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), said the Senate chief.

“Unfortunately for him, the DTI is already being ably handled by its Secretary,”  Zubiri said.

Secretary Alfredo Pascual currently heads DTI.