Tuesday, April 29, 2008 Vidal supports wage hike, Tomas opposes it
TO compensate for the price increases of rice, fuel and other commodities, Cebu Archbishop Ricardo Cardinal Vidal is advocating for a wage increase to alleviate the plight of Filipino workers.
He is also willing to or-ganize the more than 140 parishes under the archdiocese and help the government distribute rice through them as a means of helping the people cope with the rice shortage.
“I would like, first of all, to organize the parishes because, you know, when we were distributing relief goods before, nahi-mong kaaway sa mga pari ang mga (the priests had a row with) religious organizations. I do not want to create unnecessary conflicts. The first thing that we can do is to open the grounds of the parish and let the officials of the National Food Authority do their distribution there. That is possible,” the prelate told reporters.
Sun.Star Cebu learned that St. Joseph Parish in Barangay Mabolo, Cebu City has been distributing rice weekly to identified poor beneficiaries through a ticketing system
long before the issue on rice shortage broke out.
On the other hand, Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña is not in favor of increasing the minimum wage.
“This may sound like I am a brutal person, but one cannot amend the laws of supply and demand,” he told a news conference.
President Arroyo earlier called for the convening of regional wage boards to discuss a possible wage increase to help workers cope with the increasing prices of oil and rice.
Osmeña pointed out, though, that while there are labor unions demanding for a wage increase to cope with price hikes of basic commodities, a wage hike is useless for a major segment of the urban poor, which includes jobless individuals.
“And these jobless people are willing to take on odd jobs at a cheap wage. One could go to a barangay, offer work for P1,000 per month or P100 per day, and many would accept (it),” he said.
He said that increasing wages would affect the country’s economy by forcing existing and would-be investors to move to countries, such as China, Vietnam and Thailand, where labor is cheaper.
“We have trainable people. They are willing to work. But investors won’t come here because they have to comply with the minimum wage. We already lost our furniture industry, (which was) as high as 80 percent. Cebu used to be number one in the country. Many of the manufacturers here moved to China and Vietnam,” he said.
Osmeña suggested a selective process in increasing workers’ salaries and asked that the government arrange for the increase of minimum wages only for specific areas where there are export processing zones.
Aside from being a “politically-acceptable” suggestion, it can also guarantee that more investors will come in and help develop areas, such as Bohol, which do not have export processing zones, he said. (NRC)
