House not keen on backing Senate’s wage hike

MANILA, Philippines — Officials of the House of Representatives are not keen on supporting the Senate-approved P100 legislated wage hike, citing reasons such as the capacity of employers to implement the measure.

“It’s a good and a popular bill. But if we increase the salaries, the employers should be able to bear and be able to implement this,” Deputy Majority Leader Rep. Janette Garin pointed out at a news briefing yesterday.

“The problem in our country is that 98 to 99 percent of our business sectors are MSMEs (micro, small and medium enterprises). So, the question begs to be asked: how many businesses are going to shut down because of this?” Garin asked.

She then posed the possibility of streamlining personnel if only to comply.She explained that salaries of all workers are sourced from private funds, not from government coffers, noting that state workers only account for 1.6 million of the country’s total workforce.

Economist Reps. Joey Salceda and Stella Luz Quimbo, along with Deputy Speaker David Suarez, are not also keen on approving the bill, citing the same reasons put forth by their colleague Garin.

“We already have a workable arrangement with the regional wage boards. We cannot say that this is not responsive. There is no unintended consequence. If only we are to divide the giant firms, that may work. But this will affect the MSMEs, they won’t be able to afford that,” Salceda said.

Quimbo, for her part, declared, “Companies would just pass on the additional cost to the prices of goods and services, so we will have an inflationary problem.

“We will have cost-push inflation. Yes, you will temporarily satisfy our workers, who are also end-consumers. But eventually, the raise in their salaries will be eaten up by high prices,” she said.

Suarez said the issue of having a bigger economy has to be addressed first to have more money, more industry players, and more maneuverability in terms of labor laws and practices.

Labor Secretary Bienvenido Laguesma noted that DOLE is not against any effort to increase the purchasing power of workers employed in private companies but stressed the need for a thorough and careful study of the proposed legislated salary