These are the demands already laid out in the pending House Bills No. 253 and 3015 which the partylist group Anakpawis wants passed soonest in the House amid rising costs of basic needs and growing poverty incidence.
“We all know that the Filipino worker is submerged in deep poverty and hunger, and so we challenge the House leadership to help facilitate the passage of the bills”, Anakpawis Rep. Fernando Hicap said in a statement.
He said current wage levels are no longer enough for the subsistence of common Filipino folk, especially the 1.6 million Filipinos whose income is much less than the government’s threshold income level of P8,778 per month.
Figures from the National Wages and Productivity Commission indicate that the highest among daily minimum wage levels is that of the National Capital Region at P481, while the lowest is in the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) at P250.
The current minimum wage in Central Luzon is P349 while in Calabarzon, it’s P362.
Hicap noted recent government data showing that poverty rate in the country rose from 24.5 percent to 25.8 percent.
“The number of poor Filipinos has continued to increase despite the government’s setting of a much lower threshold and contrary to the rosy picture that it has been trying to project,” Hicap said.
Hicap also noted government data indicating that prices of basic commodities have increased by 5.6 percent.
“The cost of living is evidently swelling, but wage has been stuck at the lowest levels. Pay hike is long overdue,” he said.
Anakpawis also lamented that the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Ministerial Meetings slated this month in Manila would tackle how to make the Philippine labor market more competitive which, he said, “is an academic way of referring to depressing workers’ wages.”
