The labor goup Partido
Manggagawa (PM) is calling for wage hikes from employers and a new round of cash
assistance from the government in response to the spikes in prices of food
prices and job losses. Today, the Department of Labor and Employment reported
that half of reported layoffs last year occurred in the last quarter of 2020.
“The working poor and unemployed
Filipinos need immediate relief through a combo—umento mula sa kapitalista at ayuda
mula sa gobyerno,” declared Rene Magtubo, PM national chair and a Marikina city
councilor.
PM is calling for a P100 across-the-board
wage hike for workers to recover the lost purchasing power since the nominal
wage of P537 in Metro Manila has already been eroded to P434 in real wage terms
according to the National Wages and Productivity Commission. Together with
this, the group is asking that families of the unemployed and informal workers
should be given a cash assistance of P10,000 a month.
Expenses for food comprise
50% of the budget of poor Filipinos thus the price hikes have a grave impact on
nutrition, hunger and well-being. Before the pandemic, PM’s own cost of living
survey already reached P1,300 a day, more than double the P537 minimum wage in
Metro Manila. Thus PM advocated then an “Apat na Dapat” set of measures to
address the gap in wages and cost of living: wage hikes, social security
subsidies, tax exemptions and price discounts. It is also challenging Congress
to drop the charter change bid and instead discuss the legislation of a minimum
wage hike.
Data from the Philippine
Statistics Authority showed that prices of meat and vegetables have risen by
50% to 275% this month compared to January of 2020, before the lockdown due to
the covid pandemic were imposed. “Poor Filipinos are reeling from the double
whammy of job losses and price increases. No wonder the number of Filipino
families going hungry ballooned to 7.6 million according to the September 2020
Social Weather Station survey. This is almost double the 4.2 million hungry
families in May which was at the height of the lockdown. This is due to the
combo of forced leaves, mass layoffs and price hikes. Thus cash must be put in
the pockets of the working poor, the jobless and the hungry,” Magtubo explained.
“This combo measure is
similar to the stimulus program of newly-elected US President Joe Biden who has
announced a $15 per hour minimum wage together with $2,000 in checks for
taxpayers. The Philippines should act in just as boldly since we have been
ravaged as much as the US by failed policies to contain the pandemic,” Magtubo
insisted.
He added that “According to
the prestigious medical journal Lancet, the Philippines falls in the bottom
third of countries in terms of managing the pandemic. Also the International
Monetary Fund predicts that the Philippines will suffer the worst economic
decline in the next five years due to the severe lockdown implemented. Thus the
time to act is now!"
January 22, 2021
