ARMM workers to get P18 pay hike

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

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

Jakilan said the Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board issued ARMM Wage Order No. 15 following a series of consultations.

Jakilan said the wage hike was also seen to somehow ease the pressure on underpaid workers to allow their children to work to help make ends meet.

“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.

The ARMM, however, is at the bottom of the list of regions in the country having the most number of child workers.

“Having 86,000 child laborers is still a huge number,” said Labor Assistant Secretary Abdulgani Cadir of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration-ARMM (POEA-ARMM).

Cadir said President Aquino earlier ordered the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), the POEA and other government employment agencies to work for a reduction of the number of child workers in the country, which is estimated to be 3 million, by at least 25 percent by the time Mr. Aquino steps down from office.

Cadir said the ARMM had requested  a P1.1-billion funding this year to address labor-related problems in the region, including that of child labor.

The Department of Budget and Management has yet to act on the request, he said.

If the proposed budget is approved, the DOLE-ARMM will provide an underpaid parent-worker a P10,000 livelihood assistance and another P10,000 in educational assistance for each child worker.

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

The same data also showed the region has some 54,000 unemployed people. Edwin Fernandez, Inquirer Mindanao