MANILA -- President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo ordered Saturday Labor and Employment Secretary Marianito Roque to fast-track the hearings of wage hike petitions with the respective regional wage boards.
This developed as various groups marched the streets Saturday in commemoration of the 117th International Labor Day, demanding for a P75 per day salary increase.
In Davao City, a progressive march was led by Kilusang Mayo Uno-Southern Mindanao Region (KMU-SMR) and Anakpawis, whose members chanted their long awaited legislation for a P125 wage increase.
"We join the rest of the working people across the globe in demanding for the respect of our human rights and dignity and in rejecting the institutionalized exploitation of our ranks. We have been relentlessly rendered as subjects of greed and abuses by the heartless capitalists that monopolize the wealth and resources of the world's economy," said SMR-Davao secretary general and also Anakpawis coordinator Romualso Basilio.
KMU's delegation was composed of workers from various industries, including banana plantations, mining and other industries such as retail and service. They joined affiliate groups of Makabayang Koalisyon ng Mamamayan (Makabayan) for a meeting de avance at Rizal Park from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m.
In Pampanga province, members of other progressive militant labor groups also gathered Saturday as they called for higher wages for workers in Central Luzon.
Manggagawa para sa Kalayaan ng Bayan, also known as Makabayan, said they held the rally in a bid to call government attention to the poor state of labor practices in the country.
The rallyists gathered along Bayanihan Park before they marched to Plaza Miranda in Angeles City holding a short program and urging the government to answer the needs of workers in the country for higher wages and safer working conditions.
Makabayan's worker organizations and sectoral groups also held simultaneous activities marking Labor Day in Balanga City in Bataan and Subic town in Zambales.
In those events, the leaders of the labor groups clamored for genuine social change, higher wages, protection of workers, universal health care, as well as the scrapping of employment contractualization, among others.
But President Arroyo, in opening the Labor Day celebration held at SMX Convention Center in the Mall of Asia in Pasay City, acknowledged that at present, the country's minimum wages ranging from P148 to P256 are higher than those in Vietnam, China, Indonesia, and Thailand.
She said while there are no wage hike announcements yet, government salaries have already gone up and will continue to increase in 2010 until 2012 under the salary standardization law.
Arroyo cited that under her nine and half years in office, employment rose from 27 million in 2001 to 36 million at present, or about one million jobs created for each year.
She said industrial strikes have also gone down dramatically from 300 in 1998 to four in 2009 and zero for 2010, and this has given rise to more investments, more jobs, higher productivity and higher wages.
The President also boasted of her reform programs that have spared the country from the debilitating effects of the global financial crisis and the food crisis.
Arroyo thanked the numerous labor federations and unions and other sectors for crafting the Labor Agenda 2010-2015, which sums up the labor expectations of the different economic sectors in the next five years.
These expectations include higher wages, more secure working conditions and their objection to contractualization, better recognition for labor unions and organizations of the informal sector, women, children and others, as well as a better labor justice system.
President Arroyo said the government will work hard "to achieve these expectations within my term."
Initially, to address complaints on the inadequate labor justice system, the President said the country now has 46 labor arbiters that will ensure a faster processing of labor cases pending with the National Labor Relations Commission. (JMR/With JCZ of Sun.Star Davao/Sun.Star Pampanga/Sunnex)