The national average family living wage has risen by more than P125 since 2001. Since then there have been trickles of wage increases – which were soon eaten up by runaway inflation.
Based on March 2008 data from the NWPC, the national average family living wage stands at P770 ($18.32 at the April 25 exchange rate of $1:P42.04) a day.
The highest regional minimum wage at present is P362 ($8.61) for the National Capital Region (NCR), which has a regional daily family living wage of P858 ($20.41). The region with the lowest minimum wage rate is the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), with only P200 ($4.76) even as it has a regional daily family living wage of P1,186 ($28.21).
During his three terms as representative, Beltran was able to file three bills for a legislated minimum wage hike. He first filed a wage-hike bill in 2001, as a representative of Bayan Muna (People First). It never did go beyond first reading.
The second, HB 345 – which Beltran filed as Anakpawis representative – was approved at the plenary of the House of Representatives by a vote of 151-0 on Dec. 20, 2006. Sen. Jose “Jinggoy” Estrada – son of Arroyo’s predecessor – was sponsoring a counterpart bill at that time.
The next month, however, HB 345 was recalled upon a motion filed by Cavite Rep. Crispin Remulla, purportedly to allow further debate and deliberation. Malacañang supported this move of the House of Representatives, and the younger Estrada deferred sponsorship of the counterpart Senate bill.
If HB 345 had not been recalled and its counterpart Senate bill was also passed, the national average minimum wage would have gone up to P408.67 ($7.96 at that year’s average exchange rate of $1:P51.31). But that would have still been short of what the family of six would need on a national average to survive daily, based on 2006 data from the NWPC.
“It is but just that there be an immediate wage increase,” Labog said. “This should be done at the soonest possible.”
Rice crisis
Even without more recent figures from the NWPC, it is easy to conclude that the cost of living has risen sharply since last March, given that rice prices have jumped in the last few weeks.
The socio-economic think tank IBON Foundation has blamed the present rice crisis on the government’s adherence to neoliberal economic policies, which the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank (IMF-WB) – two institutions organized as a result of a conference in Bretton Woods by the victors of World War II, thus the moniker Bretton Woods Twins – are imposing on Third World countries.
In particular, IBON cites the enactment of the Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Act (AFMA) in 1997 as having worsened the country’s dependence on rice imports and thus a major contributor to the country’s present rice crisis.
As of 2006, the country’s rice imports have reached 1.7 million metric tons – more than twice the 722,000 metric tons recorded for 1997.
Meanwhile, NFA rice procurement has dropped from 7.95 percent of total palay production in 1977-1983 to only 0.05 percent in 2000-2006. The NFA’s original mandate is to procure at least 12 percent of palay production. Rice procurement is increasingly being dominated by traders.
Urgency
“It is but just that there be an immediate wage increase,” Labog said. “This should be done at the soonest possible.”
Unlike in ordinary times, even some business leaders have expressed support for wage-hike demands aired by various labor groups, demonstrating the urgency of a wage increase amid the rice crisis. For instance, Makati Business Club executive director Albert Lim, interviewed recently by the Philippine Daily Inquirer, has said the wage-hike demand is something they “may support” at this time.
Labog sees this as something that is but logical, considering the nature of the times.
“They can no longer deny that workers’ wages can no longer cope with rising prices of goods and services,” Labog said. “They would be put in a very defensive position if they oppose demands for a wage increase at this point. So they have articulated positions that are not opposed to wage increases. The question is by how much they are willing to increase workers’ wages.”
“We maintain our stand for a P125 wage increase,” he also said. (Bulatlat.com)
