Palace says it is ‘legally impossible’ for government to set the minimum wage

Malacañang on Monday dismissed calls for the government to ease the impact of higher commodity prices by setting a new and higher minimum wage across the board, citing legal constraints.

Labor groups are blaming the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) Act for soaring prices of basic commodities.

“That is legally impossible because we cannot impose a national minimum wage now because the regional wage boards are created by law,” presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said in a press briefing.

Congress has to repeal the law and authorize a national minimum wage anew, Roque noted.

Signed into law in 1989, Republic Act 6727 abolished the old practice of legislating a national minimum wage and mandated the regional wage boards to set the minimum wage for each region.

Progressive lawmakers argued that the current system of determining minimum wages was unjust and inequitable, prompting the Makabayan bloc in the House of Representatives to file House Bill 7787 which seeks a P750 national minimum wage.

Minimum wages in the country range from P255 in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao to P512 in Metro Manila.

“Passing the National Minimum Wage bill would increase workers’ wages to P750 nationwide, which would serve as an immediate relief to workers and our families amidst the unabated price increases of basic goods and services brought about by the Duterte administration’s TRAIN law,” said Elmer Labog, chairperson of the national labor center Kilusang Mayo Uno.

“The TRAIN law has been a heavy and unfair burden on Filipino workers. It is robbing us of our meager wages and has resulted in an even wider gap between existing wage levels and the living wage,” Labog said.

Administration critics and some labor groups have been calling on the government to suspend the implementation of the TRAIN law amid rising fuel prices which impact the cost of basic goods and services.

The Department of Finance immediately rejected the proposal, saying suspending the reformed excise tax rates on petroleum products for 2018 is not the mechanism sanctioned by law.

“The suspension measure only takes effect when the average Dubai crude oil price based on Mean of Platts Singapore (MOPS) for three months preceding the scheduled increase reaches or exceeds $80 per barrel,” said Finance Undersecretary Karl Kendrick Chua.

Should the price of Dubai crude keep going up and the three-month average in the last quarter of this year hits $80 per barrel, the government said it will be ready to activate the suspension mechanism for the next increase in January 2019, the Finance department said. —VDS, GMA News