House freezes wage hike bill

Apparently bowing to pressure from President Arroyo and the business community, the House of Representatives has frozen the bill that seeks a P125 across-the-board wage hike for private sector workers.

Nearly two months after approving Bill 345 on third and final reading, the House has not submitted it to the Senate because Deputy Minority Leader Jesus Crispin Remulla has presented a motion to reverse the approval.

The motion, which Remulla presented when Congress resumed session two weeks ago after a three-week Christmas break, has not been acted upon up to yesterday.

Congressmen are not expected to take it up either today, the last session day before the three-month election campaign.

In fact, Remulla’s motion has been added to a long list of "unfinished business" in the half-inch-thick Order of Business (OB) for House plenary sessions.

The unfinished business portion of the OB is where the chamber’s leadership relegates matters that it wants to sit on. Some items in this portion have been there for nearly three years now.

According to Majority Leader Prospero Nograles, even if the House approved Bill 345 on third and final reading last December, it cannot transmit the measure to the Senate without the Remulla motion being resolved first.

Militant party-list representatives have been appealing for the withdrawal of Remulla’s motion so the bill can be sent to the Senate, but their pleas have fallen on deaf ears.

They claimed that their colleagues’ change of heart on the wage hike was prompted by the collective opposition of the President and businessmen to the proposed salary increase.

Under the bill, the adjustment would be paid in three installments: P45 on the first year, P40 on the second year and another P40 on the third year.

Any increase that the regional wage boards have given would be deducted from the proposed wage hike. Thus, according to Minority Leader Francis Escudero, only P15 would be given on the first year since the wage boards have already granted P30.

"We are quarreling over an additional P15, which our employers can surely afford and which our workers deserve," Escudero said.