The poorest who need housing the most are left out in the 4PH Program

Photo by Rappler

 

Urban poor groups, on the eve of President Marcos Jr.’s second State of the Nation Address (SONA), criticized the administration’s social housing program for its being “overly dependent” on private developers and “downright discriminatory” against the poorest of the poor.

 

Declared as the administration’s flagship program, the Pambansang Pabahay Para sa Pilipino (4PH) aims to produce one million “affordable” housing each year to address the cumulative housing backlog of some 6.8 million.

 

But leaders of urban poor organizations in a joint statement declared: “The program is neither affordable nor equitable for the poorest among the homeless Filipinos. Pagkatapos ng anim na taon, maaring nagkabahay ang mga naka-aangat pero ang mahihirap ay hindi,” stated the groups.

 

The urban poor network explained that under this private-led housing development program, only the lower to middle-income families can avail of the ₱1.1 - ₱1.5 million housing loan from Pag-ibig as the poorest of poor, estimated to be 1.7 million of the 6 million beneficiaries, cannot afford a monthly amortization of at least ₱4,000.

 

Housing loans under 4PH is significantly higher than the current loanable amount of up to ₱750,000 for socialized housing under Pag-ibig, with a monthly amortization of ₱2,445/month available for minimum wage earners and low-income families.

 

But informal settler families (ISFs) live under vulnerable conditions of unemployment and underemployment as most of them work in the informal economy with irregular income, the groups said.

 

The ₱4,000 estimated monthly amortization the groups said was based on the 1% interest rate which is the only cost that will be assumed by the government. Pag-ibig imposes a 3% interest rate for socialized housing loans but under the 4PH, only 1% shall be paid by the applicant. The rest of the costs in building the units will be assumed by private developers but which shall also be charged to household beneficiaries through Pag-ibig.

 

But because the proposed housing design is high rise, the urban poor leaders said additional costs for the maintenance and operations of said buildings like elevators and other amenities shall be borne collectively and may incur additional monthly dues of ₱2,000 per household. This would mean a family’s total monthly expenditure for housing at ₱6,000.

 

“Records would show, however, that even for existing NHA projects, only 22% of informal settlers are able to meet the monthly amortization of ₱300. ₱6,000 is twenty times higher than the current NHA cost, making the 4PH an impossible dream house for the poorest of the poor. Hindi pa nagsisimula ang proyekto ay disqualified na ang mahihirap,” said the group.

 

Alternatives

 

Citing a dire need to address the burgeoning housing crisis, the urban poor leaders said they are willing to work with the government with an alternative mechanism that they would like to propose.

 

These include a major proposal for the government to make land acquisition and site development for socialized housing a grant to drive down the cost further and make the program more affordable for the poorest of the poor.

 

The groups also want the framework of “People’s Plan” adopted by the government through the enactment of the People’s Plan bill filed in Congress to ensure that ISFs are not merely treated as “market” in the socialized housing industry but as major partner and participants for realizing the social objective of eliminating homelessness in the country.

 

It is in the People’s Plan, they said, that a flexible housing program can be formulated democratically which may include, among others, lower cost and mixed-use development of the housing estates.

 

Lastly, the groups are also opposed to extending the NHA Charter because of the agency’s failure to solve the housing problem for decades and the recent creation of DHSUD. As an alternative, they propose that the housing projects under the NHA be distributed free for the beneficiaries in the same way lands were condoned for agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs) in the rural areas.

 

“Kung ang ARBs sa kanayunan ay nabigyan ng Pangulo ng condonation at emancipation sa kanilang mga utang, maari din itong gawin para sa mga ISFs ng kalunsuran,” the group concluded.

23 July 2023

Urban Poor Leaders Network

For more info you may contact:

 Ver Estorosas

Alyansa ng Maralitang Pilipino

09423690337

 

Rodel Rubias

HOA Resettlement Alliance

0928 729 6269

 

Jonathan Chua

Laban ng Maralitang Sektor

09610230159

 

Nestor Yaranon

Kilos Maralita

09239770681

 

Vicente Barlos

President

Alliance Peoples Organization in  Lupang Arenda (APOLA)

09437091266

 

Jonjon Elago

President, ULAP-Confed

09218202998

Ahead of SONA, labor group slams factory closures at Mactan Export Processing Zone

The labor group Partido Manggagawa (PM) slammed the retrenchment of some 4,100 workers at Mactan Apparel Inc. and its satellite companies. “These are factory closures, not just mass layoffs. Even though the economy is growing, workers are suffering. More than 4,000 breadwinners have lost their jobs and their families will now have to deal with all the difficulties of joblessness,” declared Dennis Derige, spokesperson of the Cebu chapter of PM.

 

He added that “With President Bong Bong Marcos Jr. due to give his State of the Nation Address (SONA) on Monday, we demand of him: Trabaho at bigas sa Bagong Pilipinas! Kung walang trabahong regular and walang murang bigas, bigo ang Pilipinas sa iyong pamumuno.”

 

PM stated that the call for job security, wage hike and cheap prices are among their calls for the counter-SONA protest on Monday. A petition for a P100 minimum wage hike has been filed in Cebu and Bohol. The wage boards have set hearings on the P100 petition on July 26 in Metro Cebu and August 10 in Bohol.

 

Different labor groups are mobilizing hundreds of workers, students and urban poor for the counter-SONA. PM, along with groups SENTRO and Akbayan, will assemble in Plaza Independencia at 8:00 am on July 24. Then they will march onto the Cebu City Freedom Park and finally merge with other organizations for the main program in Metro Colon.

 

Mactan Apparel Inc. and its sister companies, MAI Printing and FIT printing are closing down. The three factories make sportswear exclusively for the global brand Adidas and is part of the Sports City conglomerate, which is the biggest employer in the Mactan Export Processing Zone. The retrenchment at Mactan Apparel is the third wave of mass layoffs at Sports City. Some 4,000 workers were laid off across the different Sports City garment factories in September 2022 and another 4,000 in September 2020 at the height of the pandemic.

 

“We call on global brand Adidas to explain why their supplier factories are closing down. Adidas should step up, be transparent and clarify to workers who made their sportswear why they are losing their jobs. Do not make the usual alibi for not doing anything that your supplier is complying with the minimum standards set by law. If Adidas is indeed a good corporate citizen, then it must exercise responsibility for the loss of livelihood of 4,000 workers,” insisted Derige.

 

PM also argued that the series of mass layoffs and factory closures at MEPZ exposed the vulnerability of a development model founded on foreign investment and export production. “We need a paradigm shift away from export orientation. Economic and social development should be founded on a planned industrial policy that prioritizes domestic production even as it takes advantage of export markets,” Derige explained.

Press Release

July 20, 2023

P40 wage hike mirrors the state of poverty workers will continue to suffer under Marcos

The P40 increase in the NCR minimum wage ordered by the Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board (RTWPB) mirrors the state of poverty workers endured exactly one year after and will continue to suffer under the Marcos Jr. administration. This wage growth, to say the least, neither can bring the poverty rate down to 9% by the end of his term nor lift the country up the upper middle-income status by next year as prophesied by his economic managers during his first State of the Nation Address (SONA).

 

Today’s real value of the adjusted P610 in daily minimum wage is only about P516.51 or even lower than the current nominal wage rate of P570. Also, the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) computation of P18,000 new monthly minimum wage for NCR workers was incorrect because it simply multiplied P610 by 30 days when in truth, private sector workers work only for 5 to 6 days per week or 22-26 days per month. That translates to a monthly take home pay of less than P13,420 for those in 5-day workweek and P15,860 for those in 6-day workweek after the mandatory deductions for social security.

 

To illustrate further, because the regional wage boards do not order another wage hike within a year after the last wage order, the total for one year from this P40 increase in daily wage at 5-day workweek would only amount to P10,560 (P40 x 22 days x 12 months). Again, this annual take from the P40 wage hike is even lower than the 2021 monthly poverty rate of P12,030 in NCR which by the way is far lower than the SWS ‘self-rated’ poverty of 40% of total families in the region.

 

Accordingly, the P40 wage hike didn’t even meet half of the P100 wage recovery petition of the Kapatiran ng mga Unyon at Samahang Manggagawa (Kapatiran) on the sole basis of soaring inflation. In short, this amount of increase can neither be considered as a sensible measure to address poverty and inequality as this, in any way, does not move wages closer to the social objective of providing our workers a living wage as well as fair share from their growing productivity as provided under the 1987 Constitution.

 

Malacañang and Congress, therefore, must share the duty of rectifying the mistake of relegating wage determination to the regional wage boards which places workers’ cost-of-living last among the many criteria they consider in determining wage orders.  This failure of RTWPBs to go beyond poverty wages now brings us to demand Congress to expedite the passage of the P150 across-the-board wage hike now pending before the two Houses. In addition, our policymakers should now consider repealing RA 6727 which created the RTWPBs and replacing it with a new national mechanism that is more responsive to the social objective of raising the workers standard of living.  

 

Another way for the government to ensure improvements in the living standard of workers is to allow them full freedom in exercising their rights to unionize and negotiate better benefits and working conditions with their employers. These rights, the government fully knows, are grossly undermined by existing security policies such as demonization and red-tagging of union activities by the NTF-ELCAC and on the economic side, the normalization of ‘endo’ and other labor contractualization schemes.

 

Absent fundamental reforms on these policy areas, the next five years under Marcos will just add another half-decade of misery for the Filipino workers.

30 June 2023

Workers push for P100 hike at wage board hearing

 

Representatives of labor groups attended the NCR wage board hearing today while workers, many women, held a festive protest outside the Philippine Trade Training Center in Pasay. The group Kapatiran ng mga Unyon at Samahang Manggagawa filed a petition for a P100 raise in minimum wages on December 6, 2022 but deliberations only started this month.

 

“Like Mayon Volcano, workers are restive over the high prices and low wages. The NCR wage board should grant the demand for a wage hike if it wants to calm the seething social volcano,” asserted Judy Miranda, secretary general of Partido Manggagawa (PM).

 

She added that “As of January 2023, workers have lost P88 in the value of the P570 minimum wage due to inflation. Thus, P100 is necessary to recover the purchasing power of workers’ wages. The NCR wage board and the Department of Labor and Employment has dragged its feet on the wage hike demand for half a year already. We say, P100 dagdag sahod, now na!”

 

Some 100 members of PM, Kapatiran, Women Workers United, UWIN, and the Organisasyon ng Manggagawa sa EMI-Yazaki picketed the wage hearing. They had a boodle fight featuring kangkong and tokwa which are what measly wages can afford today. Using whistles, they also held a noise barrage to catch the attention of the wage board. “Workers are suffering from starvation wages. Instead of a living wage, workers are paid a libing wage,” Miranda insisted.

 

Similar petitions for a P100 salary increase have been filed in Regions 4-A, 6 and 7. There are also pending bills for a P150 legislated across-the-board wage hike in both houses of Congress.

 

PM also belied the arguments of employers that a wage hike will lead to higher inflation and more unemployment. “These are just horror stories peddled by employers without basis in science. Studies have shown that wage hikes do not result in any significant inflation or unemployment effects. Moreover, wage increases for workers in the formal sector also lead to higher pay for our kababayans in the informal economy, a phenomenon called the lighthouse effect. This disproves the allegation of employers that a wage hike will only benefit 10% of workers and disadvantage the other 90%. We ask that employers moderate their greed so that everybody benefits from a salary increase,” Miranda explained.

 

The group clarified that the wage hike demand is merely wage recovery. “We are not yet even talking of workers claiming a just share in the fruits of their labor. From 2001 to 2016, real wages stagnated but labor productivity increased by 50% and the GDP doubled,” Miranda maintained.

Press Release

June 21, 2023

Partido Manggagawa 

Photos can be accessed at https://www.facebook.com/partidomanggagawa/posts/pfbid0rEFb8Q445cnu6Cs2kvJpu7AemU5D7vhdib3Wfj61uc9RTT6igtEEcU5NyEfwsJp6l

MEDIA ADVISORY: Workers to picket scheduled NCR wage hearing this afternoon

MEDIA ADVISORY

Partido Manggagawa

21 June 2023

Contact: Judy Miranda

09175570777

Request for coverage

Workers to picket scheduled NCR wage hearing 

A picket/rally will be held this afternoon, in time for a scheduled public hearing on wage petitions filed before the NCR Regional Wage Board to demand immediate issuance of a wage order.

When: June 21, 2023

Time: 1:00 PM or before the 2PM public hearing

Where: Philippine Trade Training Center, Roxas Blvd cor. Gil Puyat.

Photo ops available (boodle fight and noise barrage).