Partido Manggagawa welcomes any genuine reduction in
poverty, but the government’s celebration of a “single-digit” 9.7% poverty rate
for 2025 cannot be separated from the reality millions of Filipino workers are
still living: prosperous on paper, poor in reality.
The PSA’s own poverty threshold — P14,634 a month for
a family of five — is the problem. A worker earning barely above this line is
instantly reclassified as “non-poor,” even while unable to afford decent
housing, transportation, healthcare, or education. This is not poverty
alleviation. This is poverty redefinition.
And by the government’s own numbers, most regional
wage boards can’t even clear that low bar. NWPC’s own summary of current wage
orders, as of August 5, 2026, shows minimum wages in nearly every region
outside Metro Manila falling below PSA’s national poverty threshold — even when
converted to a full month’s pay for a single worker with no dependents to share
the burden.
In BARMM, the country’s lowest-paid region, the daily
minimum wage of P411 to P436 translates to just P10,686 to P11,336 a month — up
to 27% below what the government itself says a family of five needs to escape
poverty.
Workers in Region XII, Zamboanga Peninsula, Eastern
Visayas, and Caraga fare little better, all logging wages 15-18% below the
poverty line. Even Western Visayas and Davao, mid-tier regions, fall short.
And these are the legal minimums — the floor, not the
reality for every worker. Contractualization, informal employment, and outright
non-compliance mean many Filipino workers take home even less than what these
wage orders mandate.
Worse, even the poverty threshold itself is a low bar.
IBON Foundation estimates the actual family living wage nationwide at roughly
P1,305 a day, or about P28,380 a month — nearly double the government’s poverty
line. By that measure, no region in the country, including NCR, pays its
workers enough to live decently, only to avoid being counted as poor.
This is the regional wage board system working exactly
as designed — and exactly as broken. Regional wage fixing under Republic Act
6727, the Wage Rationalization Act of 1989, is 37 years old this year. Nearly
four decades in, the system has produced not living wages but a hierarchy of
poverty wages, with entire regions officially condemned to earn less than what
the government itself defines as the poverty line.
DEPDev Secretary Balisacan credits nominal income
gains outpacing inflation for the national poverty improvement. But that
national figure hides a harder truth: region after region, the minimum wage
itself is a poverty wage, set by boards operating under a 37-year-old law that
was never designed to keep pace with the real cost of living.
This is precisely why the fight over Wage Order NCR-27
matters now more than ever. While the government spins record-low poverty
numbers, the Pasig RTC injunction continues to block a wage increase that
workers in Metro Manila desperately need. If workers in the capital region are
under siege, imagine the regions already left behind.
Partido Manggagawa reiterates its call:
- Lift the injunction on Wage Order NCR-27.
- Abolish the regional wage board system. Legislate a
national minimum wage indexed to the actual cost of living.
Numbers on a PSA table mean nothing to a mother
deciding between rice and rent — whether in Metro Manila or in BARMM.
PRESS RELEASE
22 August 2026
