TUCP's Mendoza urges Marcos admin to increase minimum wage amid rising inflation

The Marcos administration should find ways to increase the minimum wage of workers amid the rising prices of basic commodities, Deputy Speaker Raymond Mendoza of the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) party-list said Wednesday.

Inflation clocked in at 6.1% in June, marking its fourth straight month of acceleration and the highest reading in over three years since October 2018’s 6.9%.

In light of this, Mendoza said that the P570 minimum wage in the National Capital Region for non-agricultural workers is insufficient to support a family of five.

"We feel that [P570] is very low, and the P33 [hike given last April] was already gobbled up by rising prices of commodities and fuel," Mendoza said in a CNN Philippines interview.

Based on the Philippine Statistics Authority's data as of December 2021, there are 26.14 million Filipinos who live below the poverty threshold, or those whose monthly household income is P12,082 or below for a family of five.

"P570 is never enough for a family of five. There's transportation cost, [cost of] online services due to absence of face-to-face classes [in schools due to the pandemic], and food. You need P60 per person per day for food according to the Food and Nutrition Research Institute," Mendoza said.

"Is it policy now to actually give out wages that are not survivable for a family of five? We should talk about how we are going to bring it to that number," he added.

The Marcos administration has pledged to bring down the poverty rate to 9% by the end of its term in 2028, a goal found by Albay Representative Edcel Lagman to be "more imaginary than imaginative."

"Unlike the GDP (gross domestic product) growth target which had been previously achieved, the 9% poverty incidence target has never been achieved in the past," the opposition lawmaker said in his privilege speech on Tuesday night.

"We can only say good luck to the administration's admirable endeavor to bring down poverty incidence to 9% by 2028. In all candor, the administration’s poverty reduction target may be more imaginary than imaginative," he said. —VBL, GMA News