Monday, December 17, 2007 P10 wage hike seen in Armm
A P10 increase at the most in the daily wage rate for private sector workers in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (Armm) will likely be implemented starting next year, government and business leaders said.
Ishak Mastura, secretary of Department of Trade and Industry-Armm, said the Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board conducted a public consultation early this week where the consensus was to increase the daily wage rate but that it should remain as the lowest wage rate in the country.
"The wage board has still to finalize if the salary adjustment will be P10. But it will not be more than that. We would likely come up with a final decision by January," he said.
Presently, the minimum daily wage rate in Armm is P190 and an optional P10 for the daily cost of living allowance.
With the looming salary adjustment, Mastura noted the wage rate would still be the lowest among the other regions in the country.
"We want to have the lowest salary rate in the whole Philippines as a strategy to attract investors. The region is still undeveloped and one of the ways for the area to take off is to get in more investments," Mastura stressed.
The official said the wage adjustment in the Armm should not be higher with Central Mindanao region, where the minimum daily salary is P229.50 in the non-agriculture sector and in the agriculture sector, P212 for plantation workers and P209 for non-plantation workers.
For those in retail/service establishments, P215 in enterprises with more than 10 workers and P209 for those with less than 10 workers. The figures include additional Cola ranging from P3 to P5.
Mastura said the wage board in the autonomous Muslim region is also considering categorizing the basic wage rate for agriculture and non-agriculture workers.
Datu Haron Bandila, chair of the Armm Business Council, said in a separate interview that daily wage adjustment figures proposed by workers range from P30 to P50 but the wage board is only looking at P10 so as not to heavily burden the employers.
Bandila said that big industries in the region are amenable to a P10 adjustment "as they understand the plight of the workers."
The business leader asserted that banana exporters in the region have been feeling the crunch of the strong performance of the peso versus the dollar, but still support the proposed wage hike for workers.
He conceded, however, that the looming P10 increase is not enough to compensate the difficulties facing workers amidst the rising cost of living brought, among others, by the series of oil price hikes.
Citing a computation presented during the consultation, Mr. Bandila said that a daily wage earner in the region allots an average of P90 for breakfast, lunch and dinner of his family, and the rest for basic needs such as water, electricity, clothing and education.
"The food that could be bought by that amount is those that are not delicious like dried fish," Bandila noted.
In a statement issued on Wednesday, the Bureau of Public Information-Armm said that the autonomous region has one of the lowest standards of living in the country, which reflects the relatively low minimum wage in the area.
