P18-daily wage hike approved for ARMM workers

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Labor officials of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) announced on Thursday an P18-daily wage increase for minimum wage earners that would take effect this month.

ARMM Labor Secretary Muslimin Jakilan said workers would receive P250 per day compared to 2013’s P232 daily basic wage.

Jakilan said the Regional Tripartite Wage Productivity Board (RTWPB-ARMM) issued ARMM Wage Order No. 15 following a series of consultations.

Jakilan said the wage hike has also been seen as a way to ease the pressure on underpaid workers to push their children into early work to meet daily needs.

“Our way of helping contain child labor in the region slowly is by boosting employment in the region,” Jakilan said.

A 2010 report by the National Statistics Office showed the ARMM having 86,000 child laborers in its component provinces of Maguindanao, Sulu, Tawi-tawi, Lanao del Sur and Basilan.

However, the ARMM remains the region with the least number of child laborers among all regions in the country.

Labor Assistant Secretary Abdulgani Cadir of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration–ARMM (POEA-ARMM), said keeping the ARMM low in the list could not be considered an achievement, given that 86,000 was still a large number.

According to Cadir, President Aquino earlier ordered the Department of Labor and Employment, the POEA and other coordinating government employment agencies to reduce the estimated three million child laborers across the country by 25 percent in 2016.

Cadir said the ARMM has proposed this year a P1.1-billion funding before the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) to address labor-related problems in the region, including child labor.

The DBM has not acted on the request, he said.

If the proposed budget is approved, DOLE-ARMM would extend to underpaid parent-workers a P10,000 livelihood assistance and another P10,000 educational backing to the child laborer.

Latest figures provided by the DOLE-ARMM showed a 1.3-million labor force in the region, with 1.2 million appropriately employed and 125,000 underemployed.

There are 54,000 unemployed, according to the same report.