JINELYN P.
CALOÑA
Wages lose value, fail to cope with price hikes
By: Jovic Yee
BRAVE MAN: He is Bobet Abela of Sta. Cruz, Palanas
works daily at Winter’s Farm just to support the
needs of his family though sometimes his salary is
not enough he never give up those trials that he
encountered every day.
A labor group on Friday said the reason workers could
barely make ends meet was the real value of their
wages now could only buy products at their 2017
price levels.
Based on a computation made by the Sentro ng
mga Nagkakaisa at Progresibong Manggagawa
(Sentro), for a worker in the National Capital Region
(NCR) to recover the value of his wage that was lost
due to inflation, at least P28.17 should be added to his
daily wage of P512
LIVE, FIGHT AND SURVIVE: He is Sandy Mahinay, 24
years old, married with one child. He tried his best
just to cope up the value of his wage lost due inflation
ARRIESGADO-SEVILLENO NHS
Not an increase
Sentro’s resident economist, Czar Joseph Rolly
Castillo, noted, however, that this did not necessarily
follow that they wanted only this amount to be added
to the minimum wage, since such an amount could not
be considered an increase.
“What it will do is only to align the current
wage with the current prices,” Castillo said.
Earlier, Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III said
that the NCR wage board might implement by
October a P20 wage adjustment.
The Associated Labor Unions-Trade Union
Congress of the Philippines (ALU-TUCP) said this
proposed “paltry” adjustment was “demeaning” to
workers and “insensitive” to their plight.
Minimum wage earners are bearing the brunt of
increasing prices of basic commodities, which were
being blamed on a tax reform package that removed
taxes from workers’ pay but imposed higher taxes on
some basic goods.
DILIGENT AND HOTTEST WOMAN: For all the things
the hands of this mother have held the best for her
babies and family. She is Lorgina Aguilar, 41 years old
with six children. She always make something for
them
Insult

“If the wage board will officially announce a P20

wage hike adjustment, the workers will be very angry
rather than be happy,” ALU-TUCP spokesperson Alan
Tanjusay said.

Castillo said that given the high cost of

commodities and the erosion of the value of the
minimum wage, the proposed P20 wage adjustment
was not enough for a worker to revert to the same
purchasing power he had last year.

“There is a huge gap between the current level of

prices and the P512 daily minimum wage, which
distorts the real value of wage,” Castillo said.

“Hence, the urgent task of the government is to

increase the daily wages by at least P28.17 just to
recover from the inflation and later, real wage increase
should be added,” Castillo said.

Currently, labor groups have pending petitions to

increase the daily minimum wage to as much as P750.
But over the last few months, regional wage boards
across the country gave adjustments of only P9 to P56
to supposedly help workers cope with rising costs of
basic goods and services.