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
