This story
was taken from Bulatlat, the Philippines's alternative weekly
newsmagazine (www.bulatlat.com, www.bulatlat.net, www.bulatlat.org).
Vol. V, No. 18, June 12-18, 2005
LABOR WATCH
Patience Wearing Thin for Workers
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo
faces a punishment worse than impeachment if she continues to ignore the demand
of workers for a legislated wage increase in the minimum daily wage by P125
($2.26). A party-list legislator argued that she faces the people’s wrath if
workers are left with no other choice but to take the issue to the streets.
BY AUBREY SC MAKILAN Progressive labor has
called for a P125 ($2.26, based on an exchange rate of P55.20 per U.S. dollar)
increase in the minimum daily wage since August 1999. Almost six years have
passed and concerned legislators have taken the cudgels for workers in this
regard. However, the bill is caught in the bureaucratic maze of the House. In the current 13th
Congress, Anakpawis Party-list, Bayan Muna and Gabriela Women’s Party (GWP)
filed House Bill (HB) No. 1063 while Zamboanga del Sur Rep. Roseller Barinaga
who is also chair of the House Committee on Labor and Employment sponsored HB
162. Both called for the P125 ($2.26) increase in the daily wage of private
sector employees. Since the major points of
contention had been discussed in the previous Congress, Barinaga’s committee
prioritized this measure and consolidated the two bills into HB 345. Last Oct.
26, the committee approved the bills for reporting to the House in an executive
session. After the committee report
was registered and numbered by the Bills and Index Service, it was included in
the Order of Business and referred to the House Committee on Rules. The latter
schedules the bill for consideration on second reading. However, Davao City Rep.
Prospero Nograles, the House Majority leader who chairs the Committee on Rules,
is one of those who blocked the deliberations on the P125 bill, Anakpawis Rep.
Crispin Beltran said. The majority congressman argued that HB 345 is not a
priority because it was not certified as urgent by the President. Beltran also said that the
authors of the bill filed a motion to refer the committee report to the plenary
for second reading and in the Order of Business. In the latter, priority bills
are first to be discussed, followed by Unfinished Business and then the Business
of the Day. Last April 13, Beltran and
Partido ng Manggagawa Party-list Rep. Renato Magtubo delivered their sponsorship
speeches. Beltran also proposed to transfer the bill from Business for the Day
to Unfinished Business. Due to the strengthening
mass movement and the consistent follow-up and bargaining with the opposing
block, the House majority promised to calendar the second reading of HB 345
after the bill on the increase in the value-added tax (VAT). Last April 26, Bayan Muna
Rep. Teddy Casiño told the plenary that Nograles made this promise on Feb. 28.
But there were no signs that this promise would be fulfilled. During that
session, Casiño’s inquiry on the status of the bill was answered with the
session’s suspension from 5:09 p.m. to 6:38 p.m. When the session resumed,
there was already no quorum. The latter also happened in the sessions last May 3
and 4 which resulted in suspension. The May 2 session, meanwhile, was similarly
suspended after the President declared it a special non-working day. Beltran said that the House
leadership's refusal to deliberate on the bill was “a grave insult and attack
against workers all over the country. It's an outrage that the House rolls out
the red carpet and extends itself to welcome visiting foreign dignitaries, but
ignores the pleas of Filipino workers and even bans them from expressing their
sentiments within the halls of Congress.” Last May 9, Beltran
reminded his colleagues that the authors of HB 345 agreed that plenary
deliberations will start on May 11. On that day, however, House worked on the
VAT bill until the wee hours of the night and passed it. On June 7, Beltran and
Barinaga objected to the deliberation of bills certified as urgent by the
President. They asserted that HB 345 should already be put on second reading.
Beltran argued that even if it was not a priority bill, it was in the Order of
Business for five months already, considering that the bill has been up for
second reading since January 17. Still optimistic Although the wage bill’s
fate is uncertain, Beltran remains optimistic. He said that even in the
interpellation on June 7, most of the points raised pertained to queries and
adjustments. One point raised came from
Camarines Sur Rep. Luis Villafuerte who asked if the payment of the P125 wage
increase could be through installments – P75 on the first year and the remaining
P50 on the next year. He also asked if the bill could consider the wage
increases approved recently by various regional wage boards. Meanwhile, Rep. Crispin
Remulla expressed concern over the agriculture sector. Citing agriculture as the
backbone of the economy, Remulla said that a legislated wage increase might
result in a bigger problem if the agricultural enterprises could not bear the
wage increase for agricultural workers. Beltran explained that
these queries could help in smoothening the debate on the wage increase, instead
of just voting against the bill. No choice but to
deliberate? In the opening of the
second regular session on July 25, the House leadership could not refuse to
deliberate on the wage bill since it is now part of the Unfinished Business from
the first regular session, said Beltran, adding that even if it the bill gets
rejected, they will refile it. At present, there are 57
signatories to the bill. One hundred nineteen out of the 236 members of the
House are needed to approve it. If ever the bill is passed
in Congress and the President would veto it, Beltran said that legislators,
along with the workers and their families demanding for the increase, would take
the issue to the streets. “If that’s the case, it is
now the mass movement that would really determine the outcome of the struggle
for the wage increase as well as the President’s fate,” Beltran, chair emeritus
of Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU – May First Movement) said. For the record In the past the bill on the
legislated wage increase met rough sailing in the House. In 1999 during the 11th
Congress, HB 1390 filed by Rep. Oscar Rodriguez and HB 8459 by Rep. Sergio
Apostol embodied the petition of progressive labor organizations to grant a P125
($2.26) across-the-board increase in the workers’ daily wages nationwide. In the
Senate, Sen. Juan Flavier filed a similar bill, Senate Bill 1759. The House Committee on
Labor and Employment recommended that the entire House deliberate on the bill.
However, the House leadership failed to calendar the bills. Beltran, who became a
member of the House in 2001 as Bayan Muna party-list representative, told
Bulatlat that the failure to deliberate was the reflection of the position
of the Estrada government, through the Department of Labor and Employment, not
to grant any wage increase as requested by the employers, particularly the
Employers Confederation of the Philippines (ECOP). In the 12th
Congress just five days after their proclamation, Beltran, along with other
Bayan Muna Reps. Satur Ocampo and Liza Maza, revived the bill by filing HB 2605
and filed HB 2606 seeking a P3,000 ($54.35) across-the-board salary increase to
all public sector employees. It was followed by four other congressmen who filed
HB 2623 with the same proposal. The committee, upon
deliberation of the two bills, came up with a consolidated bill numbered HB 4188
on June 10, 2002. It was deliberated until
the second reading through a plenary. However, after sponsorship speeches, the
deliberation of the bill was stopped in favor of finalizing the General
Appropriations Act. Although the bill was
archived at the end of the 12th Congress, the reelection of labor
workers’ defenders gave a new hope for the long-awaited legislated wage
increase. Bulatlat © 2004 Bulatlat
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Wage hike
legislation nears 6 years
Bulatlat