The P40 increase in daily minimum pay for workers in Metro Manila approved this week cannot even buy a kilo of rice, a lawmaker said Friday. CDNDigital READ:
FOOD AID Residents of Sampaloc district in Manila receive 10 kilos of rice on Friday during the “Kalinga ng Maynila,” a local government program providing medical, legal and other assistance to residents. The food aid comes as some lawmakers and workers’ groups say the P40 wage increase in Metro Manila is not enough for their daily needs. —MARIANNE BERMUDEZ
But according to the Department of Labor and Employment, the new wage rates in Metro Manila “remain above the regional poverty threshold of P452 per day for a family of five.” The commercial price of rice is usually double the farm-gate price. Retailers in Metro Manila sell locally produced rice from as low as P35 per kilo to as high as P60, depending on grain quality.
The Trade Union Congress of the Philippines also agreed that the new wage increase was “totally disproportionate to productivity growth and inutile in bringing nutritious food to families’ tables.”“For more than three decades, labor productivity grew steadily and even exponentially, while minimum wages grew so little and so slow,” said TUCP vice president Luis Corral.
“While we feel that many micro industries will find it difficult to adjust, we will support it because this is the amount that we think is balanced,” Ecop president Sergio Ortiz-Luis Jr. said in a phone interview, adding that the new wage order was more acceptable than the legislated wage hike that had been proposed in the Senate.
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