In a year-end action today, a delegation of workers and students rallied at the SSS Building along Osmena Boulevard in Cebu City to demand a one-year extension of individual jeepney franchises extension and the passage of the bill for a P150 wage hike.
“At
the stroke of midnight today, 148,000 will lose their livelihoods. This is
conservatively estimated as one operator and one driver for the 74,000 jeepneys
units which have not been consolidated either into cooperatives or
corporations, according to the Land Transportation and Franchising and
Regulatory Board. This is a significant number, comprising an additional 7% to
the 2,090,000 officially unemployed Filipinos as of October 2023,” stated
Dennis Derige, Partido Manggagawa (PM)-Cebu spokesperson.
Speakers at
the rally included the president of the labor union at Lami Foods and a leader
of the Guadalupe Women’s Collective. Members of the Cebu chapters of PM and SENTRO
joined the picket.
Derige explained that “In 14 out of 17 regions, minimum wages were
increased by PhP 30 to Php 40 in the second half of this year, bringing them to
a high of Php 610 in Metro Manila to a low of PhP 368 in Zamboanga Peninsula.
However, the equivalent real wages remain depressed. The PhP 33 hike in Central
Visayas raised nominal wage to PhP 468 but the equivalent real wage is only PhP
397. That is, PhP 468 in 2023 can only buy the equivalent of PhP 397 in 2018,
or a gap of PhP 71.”
He added that “The difference between nominal and real wages is a result
of inflation over the years: wage hikes have not kept up with the rise in
prices and so workers’ purchasing power has been depleted. The nominal versus
real wage gap ranges from PhP 63 in Zamboanga Peninsula to PhP 108 in Central
Luzon. Thus the necessity for Congress to plug the gap by enacting the bill for
a PhP 150 salary increase.”
PM is calling for a just transition for jeepney operators and drivers in
the implementation of the modernization program.
“The government claimed that 200,000 new jobs
were created as a result of investment pledges accruing from the President’s trips
abroad. Assuming this is true—the administration still needs to explain how
they guessed these figures—it is almost matched by the number of traditional
jeepney operators and drivers who will lose their livelihood as a result of the
cancellation of their individual franchises. The President does not need a 58%
hike in his travel budget to PhP 1.4 billion to generate new jobs, he just
needs to extend the individual franchises so that existing livelihoods are
preserved,” Derige insisted.
Photos and a video of the rally can be accessed here: https://www.facebook.com/partidomanggagawa/posts/pfbid0T7NQBtzk5mcHnHjCwrdawUnmXS7V9vvZgTco5wBqWuPPcznf2djmJS1trumeNfm9l and https://www.facebook.com/partidomanggagawa/videos/1567012827390462
Press Release
December 31, 2023
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