5th SONA: Salary of 24.4 million workers still can’t cope with rising cost of basic needs

By TUCP-NAGKAISA
July 25, 2015

QUEZON CITY – Five years into the administration of President Benigno Simeon Aquino III, there are still an estimated 24.4 million poor Filipino workers’ whose income still cannot cope even with the barest cost of basic food and non-food needs set by the government’s National Economic Development Authority (NEDA).

The biggest group of labor federation in the country the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines-Nagkaisa (TUCP-Nagkaisa) said they are baffled why Aquino remains reluctant to raise the wages of poor working people amid results of government’s Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) survey conducted in July 2014 and released on March 2015 showing big disparity between family income and barest expenditures.

Informal sector workers

The poverty threshold set by NEDA for 2014 was at P8,778 a month for a family of five to survive. However, in the first semester of 2014, average incomes of poor families were short by 27 per cent of the poverty threshold.

According to the NEDA, poverty threshold is the minimum income set by government as required to meet basic food and non-food needs for a family of five to ensure that one remains economically and socially productive.

It showed poor workers in the informal economy, estimated to be at 21 million, who received less than the mandated minimum wage, were found to earn average monthly income of measly P6,408. This means they needed P2,370 more per month to move out of poverty in that year.

“This is an actionable set of information on the part of the President. It’s very alarming that a huge problems confronting workers who fell through the cracks has not been acted upon ever since. Right now, they are coping on their own, coping by the means available to them and we feel they are totally excluded from the agenda sharing the profits,” TUCP-Nagkaisa spokesperson Alan Tanjusay said.

Workers in the informal economy include construction workers, farmers, vendors, jeepney, bus, tricycle, pedicab drivers, conductors, salesladies, barbers, street-sweepers and garbage collectors.

Minimum wage-earners

For minimum wage earners in Metro Manila, a disparity of P1,082.31 a month from the prescribed P8,778 poverty threshold amount last year. PSA computation show the real value of P466 minimum wage for the National Capital Region (NCR) last year was P356.64 a day or P7,695.69 a month.

This year, the current value of the current highest minimum wage of P481 is only P371.64 a day or P8,176.08 a month – still aP601.92 short compared with the 2014 P8,778 threshold.

Today, TUCP-Nagkaisa estimated the mid-year poverty threshold at P9,177 a month, Tanjusay added.

Implications of gaps

The impact of a widening gap between income and expenditure, he said, largely contribute to the increasing ranks of underemployed Filipinos now numbering to close 11 million working people.

The gap also undermines the effectiveness of Aquino’s ongoing flagship poverty alleviating programs including the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) Program otherwise known as Pantawid Pamilya Program (PPP) being implemented by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), the Community-based Employment Program and the Sustainable Livelihood Program by the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE).

Labor group proposed menu of solutions

Gerard Seno, executive vice president of the 61-year old Associated Labor Unions (ALU) said the latest ideal minimum wage should be at P1,068 a day to cover the fast rising costs of prices of basic food and non-food needs can be achieved through a priority legislated wage hike measure or through a uniform decision of regional wage boards.

“That is why with less than a year in office, we are still hoping President Aquino to make tough policy decisions in raising Filipino family income both at the formal and informal sector workers. As a leader, he must ensure that the country’s growth is widely shared with the workforce who provided the backbone in building and sustaining the vibrant economy in the last five years of his administration,” said Seno.

On the other hand, Seno said aside from increasing government and private sector wages, Aquino can otherwise alleviate the impact of the economic burden by lowering the cost of power and ensure its reliable supply, minimize contractual job scheme in private and public sector, and allow government employees to form unions and bargain collectively.

Minimum wage-earners’ discount card

He added the ALU has submitted in March 2014 a proposal for Aquino to use the Executive department’s annual excess budget to subsidize informal sector and minimum-wage workers with a P2,000 worth of rice, groceries or medicines a month using an electronic debit card.