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| CAGAYAN DE ORO. In an ongoing construction along the Cagayan de Oro riverbank, Johnny measures these steel bars. On Friday, the Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board-Northern Mindanao held a public consultation on the P89 wage hike pushed for by the workers in the region. (Harold Jess Siason, Liceo intern) |
CAGAYAN DE ORO -- Workers in Northern Mindanao are pushing for the P89 wage increase in the region to cope with the soaring prices of basic commodities.
On Friday, April 17, the Department of Labor and Employment (Dole) regional office, through the Regional Tripartite Wage and Productivity Board (RTWPB), and the National Economic Development Agency (Neda) and Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) conducted a public hearing to provide stakeholders a platform to discuss the impact of the daily minimum wage increase petition.
With the petition, the daily minimum wage will be P395 from the current P306.
High economic growth
During the public hearing, Neda-Northern Mindanao Director Leon Dacanay Jr. updated the audience of the economy in the region since 2013. He emphasized that Northern Mindanao has maintained its P250 billion economic growth and its Gross Regional Domestic Product (GRDP) of P55.06 billion, which remains to be the highest among Mindanao regions.
Dacanay, who is also the vice chairperson of RTWPB-Northern Mindanao, said the value of rice production increased to 8.79 percent or 3.9 billion metric tons, resulting in the stabilization of the rice prices in the middle of 2014.
Dacanay cited that in the coconut industry, the nut production in the region has increased to 1.18 percent or P1.8 billion from 2013 to 2014, while the copra production remained stagnant with 0.03 percent or P438,852. The overall production of major crops like vegetables, fruits and root crops rose to 4.4 percent or 7.8 million metric tons last year.
But Dacanay said that despite the high economic growth, the magnitude of poor people continues to rise although the employment rate is relatively stable.
"Inflation rate continues to fall since the decline of the world oil prices that started in the middle of last year. However, the purchasing power of the peso declined by 3.6 centavos as of February 2015 from June 2013," he said.
Soaring prices of basic commodities
In the public hearing, the Associated Labor Union–Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (ALU-TUCP) presented its petition for the P89 increase and the reason why it should be granted to the workers.
According to Nicandro Borja, regional vice president of ALU-TUCP, 42 percent of a worker’s daily wage goes to food.
The 42 percent of the minimum daily wage in the city is P128.52. "And when you subtract that amount to P306, the amount left for the worker would only be P177.56 per day," Borja said.
With the continuing rise of the prices of basic commodities every day, workers are left destitute with what they can take home to their families given their minimum starvation “dying wage,” he said.
He added the daily minimum wage is insufficient especially that workers spend the expenses on the transport fare and meal plus the payment of electric and water bills.
If a worker has children who are students, their budget would be divided to the tuition, as well as the “baon” or allowance of the children, he said.
Aside from those expenses, a worker also spends for clothing, medicines and/or vitamins and and [of course] recreation, he added.
“And if their family does not have a house, they would [again] slash out their budget to paying the monthly rent,” he said.
No dramatic surge of prices on basic commodities
But the DTI said there is no dramatic incident where the price of the basic commodities has increased.
Lawyer Fel Lester Brillantes, DTI-Northern Mindanao chief of Consumer Welfare Division (CID), said that in the comparative price monitoring report from the second quarter of 2014 to the first quarter of this year, the products monitored like canned goods, instant noodles, iodized rock salt, flour and processed canned pork have maintained their suggested retail price (SRP).
The DTI considers a red flag when the increase of prices is more than 10 percent.
Brillantes said not all products are monitored by DTI because there are other implementing agencies like the Department of Agriculture (DA), which monitors prices of agriculture produce.
“In the case of the daily minimum wage of 306 pesos, investors may look at this as preference in choosing where to invest. And that is our advantage,” Dacanay said.
He added that the capacity of the region to give a wage increase depends to more than 95 percent of small and medium enterprises, which need to be taken into consideration.
Cagayan de Oro Chamber of Commerce president Cerael Donggay said the P89 minimum wage increase is too much.
“The increase should not be too drastic to prevent an adverse effect to the business sector. Maybe a P4 increase will do,” Donggay said. (Sun.Star Cagayan de Oro)
