Thursday, May 08, 2008 Malig: Trying times continue By Jun A. Malig Cognition
A KILO of pork is being sold at between P170 to P180. A kilo of chicken meat is around P120. A kilo of ordinary rice is around P37. The cost of unleaded gasoline, which is cheaper than premium gasoline, is more or less P49 per liter.
A mere 100-kilowatt hour power consumption, particularly in areas being served by Pelco II, means around P750 from the consumers' shallow pockets. Thanks but no thanks to its P3 to P4 per kwh generation charge, its P1 to P1.50 transmission charge, its systems loss charges, supply charges, metering charges, universal charges, and value added tax.
And the daily wage of ordinary workers who have to cope with the continually rising costs of food and non-food goods and services? P201 to P287, which is subject to tax and other deductions. Calculate it through a calculator, common sense, or experience and you'll still end up with the same result -- it is no longer enough in these continuing trying times.
I have several childhood friends who are still my close friends to this day. One of them is my better half, one is a supervisor in a multi-national company, two are government employees, one is an engineer-turned-simple housewife, and the others are either immigrants or contract workers abroad.
During the Holy Week, some of us were fortunate enough to spend free time together. Aside from reminiscing the past, those good old, worry-free, days when daily survival and economics were still nowhere in our psyche, we also talked about salaries, expenses, and related matters.
My engineer-turned-housewife friend told me in jest that she envied my monthly salary. I laughed and told her that if she only knew my monthly expenses, she would even shake her head.
I said the roundtrip toll to and from Dau and San Fernando along the North Luzon Expensive -- way is P100 and my daily home -- office-home gas consumption is P250, based on the current price of unleaded gasoline.
Without buying any food or drink, I spend around P8,000 per month in work-related expenses. I told her some P4,000 is being deducted monthly from my salary for income tax, Pag-Ibig, PhilHealth, and SSS.
"So, how much is your net income, your take-home pay?" she asked. I smiled. "We're just renting an old apartment and own a 13-year-old car," I replied. She understood.
The fact is everyone, especially salaried employees and wage earners, is directly affected by the continually rising costs of basic goods and services and the imposition of the expanded value-added tax (e-VAT). While business establishments and service providers can pass on to their customers and clients the 12 percent e-VAT, the working class can do nothing but shoulder the additional economic burdens and further tighten their already tight belts.
Is reprieve in order? Evidently. The working class should not be blamed for asking for wage and salary increases amid the shrinking purchasing power of their already meager income, especially the ones who work for companies and establishments that don't have profit-sharing schemes and similar incentives. This is the main reason why some workers are being compelled to organize unions.
Setting the idealistic yet often unrealistic "even-if-I-go-hungry" maxim aside, the truth remains that even the so-called vocations are composed of people who have economic needs.
