Palace: Wage hike announcement unlikely

Thursday, April 28, 2011

A SALARY increase is unlikely to be included in the "good news" President Benigno Aquino III is set to announce on May 1, Labor Day.

Presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda on Thursday said the wage hike is a matter that should be decided by the respective wage boards across the country.

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However, he said the government's economic team is still finalizing recommendations that will be announced by the President on Labor Day.

"On May 2, the wage boards will convene. What is certain is that the wage hike will be decided by the wage board and not the President," Lacierda said.

The Palace official meanwhile refused to disclose details of the recommendations but he assured that it will be beneficial to the public.

Lacierda also clarified inconsistencies between his statements about the wage hike and those made by Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz.

"I am just amused with the way they are trying to make us fight with each other. I had a good conversation with Secretary Baldoz. And apparently we were in the same page and don’t make it appear as if we are fighting,” he told reporters in a press briefing.

Baldoz earlier said that she has “no idea” about the “good news” Malacanang was referring to. She said Malacañang was probably referring to a package of non-wage benefits as news on Labor Day.

While Lacierda was having a press briefing, a group of government employees walked out Thursday demanding the approval of a P6000 wage increase.

The Palace official appealed for understanding and said that government personnel could expect “good news” in the speech of the President on Sunday.

“Just wait until Sunday, the President has plans for the government employees,” he said.

The employees’ protest took place in front of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) office in Quezon City. It was participated by employees from the DAR, Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), National Housing Authority (NHA), National Food Authority (NFA), Sandiganbayan, and Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR).

Meanwhile, the Philippine Airlines Employees' Association (Palea) urged Aquino to publicize his position about the issue of contractualization, following his office's move to approve the layoff of 2,600 airline workers last month.

As an early good news to the public, Lacierda affirmed that government has the capacity to allot an additional one-billion peso fuel assistance for public utility vehicles.

He said Malacanang could increase the fuel subsidy if the program will be extended and will include other sectors such as fishers and farmers.

“If the coverage has to be extended for another month or two, while there is an oil crisis…we can give more than a billion to the fuel subsidy,” Lacierda said.

Malacañang initially allotted P450 million funds to assist public utility jeepneys and tricycles amid continuing global oil price hike.

Lacierda said the government could give out additional funds since there is a lower budget deficit in the first quarter.

“With the much lower than expected budget deficit, we can hopefully use those funds to assist in the subsidies that we have put out and we'll use those funds also to address any crisis in the future,” he said.

Lawmakers want wage hike measure certified as urgent

At the House of Representatives, legislators belonging to Gabriela party-list filed a House resolution on Thursday urging President Benigno Aquino III to certify as urgent a measure providing for a P125 wage hike.

Gabriela Representatives Luzviminda Ilagan and Emmi De Jesus wants House Bill (HB) No. 375, “An Act Providing for a P125 daily across the board increase in the salary rates of employees and workers in the private sector and for other purposes,” to be certified as urgent to “alleviate the sufferings of poor Filipino families due to decreased purchasing power of the peso brought by the recent spate of increases in the prices of oil petroleum products”.

"The gap between Filipino workers' slave-like wages and the cost to live decently has become so wide. For the Aquino government to tolerate this is not only insensitive but inhuman,” the party-list lawmakers added.

The resolution stated that the minimum wage in Metro Manila being P404 is P553 short of the family living wage valued at P957 as of June 2010 according to the
National Wages and Productivity Commission.

Ilagan and De Jesus noted that the increasing pump prices of diesel and gasoline for the last three months have already resulted in the spiraling prices of basic commodities like rice, sugar, and milk.

“The recent spate of price increases in oil petroleum products has in effect
decreased the purchasing power of the peso resulting to a lower real value of the wages of workers,” they said.

The minimum wage was raised only four times since 2001 – in June 2005, July
2006, August 2007, and June 2010; while the Cost of Living Allowance for workers was increased five times – in November 2001, February 2002, July 2004, June 2008 and June 2010, the lawmakers stated in the House resolution.

HB 375 pushing for a legislated wage hike was a take-off from a measure passed but later recalled by the 13th Congress at the last hour on the excuse that there was a need to review the Committee Report which recommended for its approval.

The measure was re-filed in the 14th Congress where it was left at the House committee level despite the strong clamor for its passage nationwide.

Employers hit over layoff threats

For its part, militant labor group Partido ng Manggagawa on Thursday hit employers for resorting to layoff threats once a higher minimum wage is implemented.

“This is just the usual capitalist black propaganda and blackmail. Employers will not go bankrupt with a wage hike but they will lose some of their profit,” PM national chairperson Renato Magtubo.

Earlier, the Employers' Confederation of the Philippines (Ecop) warned that at least 700,000 people will surely lose their jobs once the measure takes effect.

Based on their own computation, PM said the cost of living for a family of six in Metro Manila has reached P1,010 a day as of March this year.

The group arrived at the figure using PM’s P984 April 2010 survey of the daily cost of living and the National Statistics Office’s 2.6 percent estimate of the inflation rate from April 2010 to March 2011 [1010 = 984 + (984 X 2.6 percent)].

PM’s cost of living study did not provide for savings and social security, leisure and recreation, and health.

Magtubo said that “if we include such items, and we must in a more accurate survey, then the cost of living will even be bigger.”

Instead of a wage hike, Malacañang mulled of giving non-cash benefits from PhilHealth and Pag-Ibig and possible discounts on consumer goods on Labor Day.

“President Benigno Aquino III’s gift on May 1 is a cheap shot intended to mollify workers and discourage participation in the nationwide protest set on that day,” Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) chairperson Elmer Labog told Sun.Star.

Even if the wage board in the National Capital Region will grant the P75 wage hike petition filed by the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP), the groups said this will not be enough to meet the rising cost of living.

The gap between the P404 minimum wage in the NCR and the cost of living is P 606 or 150 percent of the ordinary wage.

PM said that even if two members work, their combined income will not be enough to feed the entire family. (Jill Beltran/Kathrina Alvarez/Virgil Lopez/Sunnex)