House approves P200 increase in minimum wage

The House of Representatives on Wednesday approved the bill granting a P200 increase in the daily minimum wage for workers in the private sector on its third and final reading.

The House approved the measure with 171 yes votes, zero no votes, and one abstention during Wednesday’s plenary session.

Trade Union Congress of the Philippines party-list Rep. Raymond Democrito Mendoza said the House’s approval of the measure showed that it was the House of the People.

“TUCP founder, Atty. Democrito Mendoza, in his book, wrote that the TUCP has been thrust into the limelight during the 1989 campaign for a higher minimum wage, leading the charge in successfully pushing Congress to pass a P25 wage hike at a time," Mendoza said.

"Thirty-six years later, we carry on the struggle and make history once more by passing the bill on P200 daily minimum wage increase, authored by the TUCP and my colleagues, the first ever legislated wage hike in nearly four decades,” he added.

“This [passage of wage hike] is about lifting over five million minimum wage earners out of poverty and giving them a fighting chance at a life of dignity and prosperity,” Mendoza said.

Mendoza then recalled the 16-year fight for the daily wage hike for minimum wage workers in the private sector, which he admitted could be frustrating and exhausting at times.

“I have stood in these hallowed halls, fighting as a labor leader and a lawmaker who carried with me the hopes of every struggling worker. There were even times when I felt frustrated, a voice in the wilderness, but we kept the faith. Under the leadership of House Speaker Martin Romualdez, we accomplished no other Speaker in the past 36 years has dared to do,” Mendoza said.

“We are righting the historic wrong of barya-barya from broken regional wage boards,” he added.

(It is time to correct the pittance of wages that the regional wage boards give.)

Akbayan party-list Representative Percival Cendaña said that the P200 daily wage hike was "a life vest" that would keep low-income workers afloat amid the increases in the prices of basic commodities.

“Our yes vote is a life vest for our people who are already drowning in high prices of basic needs such as water, electricity, and goods. It is only right that we reciprocate our workers’ sacrifice,” said Cendaña, one of the authors of the measure.

'Well-deserved'

House Assistant Minority Leader Arlene Brosas of the Gabriela party-list said the increase, which would be the first in 36 years, was something that workers long deserved.

“Now is the time to finally break the long years of legislative inaction,” Brosas, one of the authors of the measure," Brosas said.

Cavite Rep. Jolo Revilla, also an author of the measure, said the increase will be followed by similar measures that will alleviate the plight of the workers.

"This is just the beginning of uplifting the lives of our people," Revilla said.

The House version of the legislated wage hike offers a higher increase than the P100 approved by the Senate.

The House and the Senate will have to reconcile the differences in a bicameral conference committee before transmitting the enrolled bill to Malacañang for President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr.'s signature to become a law.

The House and the Senate have until June 13 or the last session day of the 19th Congress to reconcile their differing versions of the wage hike measure and ratify the reconciled version for the bill to be ready for the President’s signature. 

Otherwise, the bill has to be refiled next Congress. –NB, GMA Integrated News