The Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) calls on the Senate for an expedited bicameral conference, ratification, and endorsement for the signing of the wage hike bill before the 19th Congress ends so President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos will have something truly meaningful to uplift the lives of Filipino workers in his July 2025 State of the Nation Address (SONA).
“We are eager to work urgently with our Senate counterparts to reconcile the House and Senate versions of the wage hike bills—₱200 and ₱100 respectively—and ratify the final version on the same day. We fervently urge Senate President Francis ‘Chiz’ Escudero and Senate Labor Committee chaired by Sen. Joel Villanueva to not deny the workers this much needed reprieve and to not succumb to the lazy economics of marketing the Philippines as a haven for cheap, unorganized labor to investors in ensuring their profitability instead of addressing the bigger business problems of high power costs, corruption, and ease of doing business,” stated TUCP Party-list Representative and House Deputy Speaker Raymond Democrito C. Mendoza, who will serve as one of the House bicam conferees.
Before the resumption of session, Senate President Escudero stressed the urgent need to pass priority legislation before the 19th Congress ends.
“No other single piece of legislation today would more directly improve the lives of Filipino working families than a legislated wage hike—be it ₱100, ₱200, or a middle ground of ₱150. We remind all social partners that the Senate and the House passed their respective bills without a "NO" vote. We trust, hope, and pray that this rare opportunity—transcending toxic political partisanship and cutting through the fear-mongering of elite employer groups and big business—will carry the day in the bicameral conference, leading to the swift ratification of the final wage increase as early as possible,” urged Mendoza.
The May 2025 Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey found that 92% of Filipinos believe the Senate should prioritize increasing the minimum wage, while 95% said the same for the House, underscoring the overwhelming public clamor for a legislated wage hike.
“No amount of tired, baseless scare tactics by big business—who shamelessly invoke MSMEs and workers in the informal economy as their human shields to protect their obscene profits—can silence this groundswell of support for the first-ever legislated wage hike in 39 years. This wage increase bill is the result of years of exhaustive public hearings and deliberations in Congress wherein economists, academics, civil society groups, informal workers, and minimum wage earners themselves testified to the imperative of raising workers' wages now primarily to lift over five million minimum wage earners out of poverty. Big businesses' unsubstantiated and deceptive doomsday scenarios of massive inflation, unemployment, and business closures supposedly due to a wage increase have been debunked and refuted time and time again in these hearings. In truth, higher minimum wages drive inclusive growth by boosting consumption, which in turn fuels business activity and creates more and better jobs for all,” explained Mendoza.
IBON Foundation, based on the largest survey of business establishments in the country, found out that a ₱200 wage hike would only account for 9–15% of annual business profits—from micro to large firms. We must not forget that there are existing wage exemptions already in place for Barangay Micro Business Enterprises (BMBEs), and billions in tax cuts and financial incentives already granted to corporations and MSMEs under laws like CREATE and CREATE MORE. Also, just like the Christmas bonuses and 13th month pay that boost consumer spending every year, minimum wage earners are more likely to spend the wage increase in the informal economy such as in carinderias, jeepney fares, market vendor sales, and sari-sari store essentials, hence raising the income of the informal economy.
“There is no grandstanding involved by doing our duty as representatives of the people and responding to their plea for a wage increase now. With due respect, it is not Congress but certain employer groups, big business, and armchair pundits who are being myopic and self-serving, doing a verbal overkill against the wage bill. The real threat to businesses and jobs is not the national wage increase bill but the insanity of keeping workers too poor, too sickly, and keeping their children hungry, through the broken regional wage boards that institutionalize the cheap labor policy. We have been in this situation for over three decades since the passing of the regionalization of wage fixing, and it has only proved a disastrous failure: workers trapped in intergenerational poverty with the so-called investments bonanza failing to materialize,” said Mendoza.
“We trust that President Marcos sees the legislated wage bill as mutually beneficial to workers, businesses, and the economy. The conventional wisdom being bandied around by some economists that higher minimum wages lead to lower employment has long been discarded as Nobel Laureates in Economics have established that higher minimum wages do not destroy jobs because they are not just a cost - they are an investment to boost demand and stimulate growth as it fuels more spending and creates more and better jobs. If we are to create a "Bagong Pilipinas," let us discontinue the practice of selling dirt cheap productive labor because it does not work anymore. The 36 years of regional wage fixing failed miserably. It mainly placed workers below the poverty threshold and no investment growth was triggered outside the developed regions. The economic managers are keenly aware that the other crucial factors for investments to enter are logistics, power costs and others. The ‘Bagong Pilipinas’ vision is incompatible with three decades long of a cheap labor policy, and the road to realizing that new Philippines begins with the pending wage hike. The legislated wage increase is the crucial first step towards a living wage for every Filipino worker,” underscored Mendoza.
