Editorial: 14th month pay sounds good but...

Editorial: 14th month pay sounds good but...

FOR A government that wants to push the development of micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) also ironically creates policies that could potentially choke them to death.

Senate President Vicente Sotto III on Monday filed a bill requiring employers to provide a 14th month pay to the Filipino workers in the country.

"The 13th month pay is gobbled up by Christmas expenses. We need extra earnings in the middle of the year to help ordinary workers in school and medical expenses," Sotto said in a statement.

The proposed bill "covers all non-government rank and file employees regardless of their employment status, designation and irrespective of the method by which their wages are paid provided that they have worked at least one month during the calendar year".

SB 10 proposes that "the 14th month pay shall be paid not later than December 24th of every year". The Bill also suggests that the minimum amount of the 14th month pay shall not be less than 1/12 of the total basic salary earned by the employee within the calendar year.

For employees, this may sound good. Who would not want an additional bonus within the year? This financial help can go a long way.

However, in crafting laws like this, our lawmakers must also think about the businesses themselves, especially the MSMEs. According to the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), MSMEs account for around 99 percent of businesses in the country.

Many MSMEs are barely making ends meet with the different costs they have to deal with. An increase in their operational costs will do more harm than good. It will come to surprise if MSMEs would start shutting down for being unable to meet the increase in doing business. When these MSMEs will shut down, Filipinos would start losing jobs and unemployment will spike.

The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI) must also look closely into this law. The senator must also heed to warnings and comments of the two if it will negatively impact the economy.

The intentions of the law are good on the side of the working Filipinos but this may cause dire consequences for the economy and the labor sector of the country. Before the law is passed or crafted, it must be studied thoroughly, which some lawmakers seem to fail at doing.

Laws crafted for the Filipinos must benefit everyone and not cause trouble.

Trending

No stories found.

Just in

No stories found.

Branded Content

No stories found.
SunStar Publishing Inc.
www.sunstar.com.ph