The Philippine Senate building. (PNA file photo by Avito Dalan)
MANILA – The directive by President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. to regional wage boards to review pay rates in their respective areas earned the Senate’s support on Thursday.
“I am one with our President in calling for the Regional Tripartite Wage and Productivity Boards to do a regular review of our minimum wages and for the National Wages and Productivity Commission to ensure that the boards do so,” Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri said.
But Zubiri proposed that a legislated minimum wage hike would be the best gift President Marcos could give to the workforce.
He is referring to the PHP100 Daily Minimum Wage Increase Act which was recently approved in the Senate.
“In tandem with this, I also urgently appeal to our President to consider Senate Bill No. 2534, or the PHP100 Daily Minimum Wage Increase Act, which will be a massive step toward giving our hardworking laborers the living wages that they deserve. Perhaps it can even be certified as urgent, given the continued spike in the prices of goods owing to inflation,” he said.
Zubiri, who is the primary author of the measure, is hoping for a counterpart bill from the House of Representatives to “be immediately felt across the sector.”
Senate Majority Leader Joel Villanueva also welcomed the President’s move “to ensure that the salaries of our workers will be able to sustain their daily living.”
Villanueva also thanked President Marcos for highlighting the significance of landmark labor laws like the Trabaho Para sa Bayan Act and the Enterprise-Based Training and Education Framework Bill in job creation and addressing skills mismatch.
“For our part, we have been pushing for the passage of Senate Bill No. 2140, which seeks to establish (a) living wage as the basis to determine the daily minimum wage pursuant to the mandate in our Constitution,” he said.
Meanwhile, Senator Francis Tolentino also lauded the President’s directive saying this would help workers in their struggle with inflation.
“I support the said PBBM initiative to enable our workers to cope with the current inflation bearing in mind the employers’ sustainable business position,” Tolentino said in a statement.
But at the same time, the senator is calling for a price freeze for basic commodities, including rice, for the duration of the El Niño.
Senator Jinggoy Estrada, who chairs the Committee on Labor, said the President’s directive, which he supports, will not hinder their approved PHP100 daily minimum wage increase.
“Sa huli, kung mapapagdesisyunan ng mga Regional Tripartite Wage and Productivity Boards (RTWPBs) na mayroong supervening condition para magpalabas ng panibagong wage order ang ilang rehiyon, malaking kaluwagan ito sa mga kababayan natin na pilit na pinagkakasya ang kanilang buwanang kita sa lumalaking gastusin ng kanilang pamilya (In the end, if the Regional Tripartite Wage and Productivity Boards can decide that there is a supervening condition for some regions to issue a new wage order, this will be a great relief to our compatriots who are trying to fit their monthly income with the growing expenses of their family),” Estrada said in his statement.
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