MANILA -- Lawmakers belonging to the party-list group Gabriela filed a House resolution on Thursday urging President Benigno Aquino III to certify as urgent a measure providing for a P125-wage hike.
Gabriela Representatives Luzviminda Ilagan and Emmi De Jesus want House Bill No. 375, “An Act providing for a P125-daily across-the-board increase in the salary rates of employees and workers in the private sector and for other purposes,” to be certified as urgent to “alleviate the sufferings of poor Filipino families due to decreased purchasing power of the peso brought by the recent spate of increases in the prices of oil petroleum products.”
"The gap between Filipino workers' slave-like wages and the cost to live decently has become so wide. For the Aquino government to tolerate this is not only insensitive but inhuman,” the party-list lawmakers added.
The resolution stated that the minimum wage in Metro Manila being P404 is P553 short of the family living wage valued at P957 as of June 2010, according to the National Wages and Productivity Commission. (Kathrina Alvarez/Sunnex)