Wage hike passage before 19th Congress ends? Speaker says: ‘We’ll see’

Speaker and Leyte Representative Martin Romualdez on Monday did not give guarantees on the passage of the proposed legislated wage hike for minimum wage workers in the private sector before the 19th Congress adjourns on June 13.

“Well, we'll see. We'll see,” Romualdez told reporters when asked if the House version of the bill hiking the minimum wage by P200 will be passed before Congress ends sine die after two weeks.

“We'll leave it up to the process,” he added.

The House version offer a higher increase than the proposed wage hike of 100 already approved by the Senate on third and final reading.

The House version, however, has only hurdled committee level approval at this point.

And since the House and the Senate have different versions of the bill, the Bicameral Conference Committee composed of the House and Senate lawmakers will still need to reconcile the bills first, approve it, and send it to President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos, Jr. to be signed into law.

If the wage hike measure is not signed into law by June 13, it will have to be refiled again next Congress, which starts on July 28.

In a separate statement, the The National Wage Coalition called on the House of Representatives to approve the P200 legislated minimum wage hike as soon as possible.

“For our economy, employers, and most especially the workers of this country, most of whom have no union and no collective bargaining agreement, the passage into law of the ?200 legislated wage hike is the only logical and just path forward as a social, economic, and moral imperative,” the coalition composed of the Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino (BMP), Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU), Nagkaisa! Labor Coalition (NAGKAISA!), and the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) said.

“This wage hike is the only hope to rescue both present and future generations from the cruel and harsh reality of getting paid a minimum wage for working for a living yet wallowing in abject record-high self-rated poverty and involuntary hunger where they cannot even feed their family, send their children to school, go to hospital for medical emergencies, or even live with dignity,” the coalition added. — BM, GMA Integrated News