Senate President Pro Tempore Jose “Jinggoy” Estrada
Household help may have to wait three more years before getting more employment benefits, given the lukewarm response of the leaders of the House of Representatives to Senate President Pro Tempore Jose “Jinggoy” Estrada’s proposed compromise on House Bill No. 6144, or the kasambahay bill.
Estrada, chairman of the Senate labor committee, said disagreements during a bicameral meeting in early October centered on the minimum salaries that kasambahay—domestic household staff such as maids and babysitters or yayas—should be paid monthly.
Estrada wants all kasambahay in Metro Manila to be paid at least P3,000 monthly, with those working in first-class municipalities and chartered cities paid P2,500 a month, and those in the rest of the country P2,000 a month.
The Senate version of the bill mandates that these workers also be entitled to 13th-month pay, Philhealth coverage and Social Security System membership.
Under present laws, kasambahay in Metro Manila receive between P850 and P3,000 monthly. Those in first-class municipalities and chartered cities get P650 to P2,500, and in other municipalities P550 to P2,000.
Leaders of the House, however, want the regional wage boards to determine the domestic workers’ salaries.
They argued that household help had become a necessity in modern life but then there were cases where their employers earned only P10,000 a month or less.
Estrada’s counterproposal was to let his rates apply during the first year after President Aquino signs the bill into law and let the wage boards decide subsequent rates to be paid kasambahay after that.
But the House leaders would not agree.
“This bill has been languishing in Congress for the past 18 years,” Estrada said in a taped overseas phone conversation aired over the radio Sunday.
He pointed out that the kasambahay bill was considered a priority measure during a legislative-executive meeting early in the Aquino administration.
Estrada recalled the kasambahay bill only reached the bicameral stage in the last Congress.
“If we do not agree on the provisions this time, we are going back to square one,” he said. Cathy Yamsuan