Central Luzon wage earners get P18.50 COLA

SAN FERNANDO, Pampanga — The Central Luzon regional tripartite wages and productivity board announced yesterday the granting of a cost-of-living allowance (COLA) of P18.50 to minimum wage earners in the region, except those in Bulacan and Aurora.

Employers agreed to integrate the new P18.50 COLA as well as the P20 COLA implemented last year into the daily minimum wage effective a year from now, translating into a P38.50 wage increase.

Lourdes Santiago, officer-in-charge of the regional wage board’s secretariat, told The STAR that the P18.50 COLA, which would take effect on Aug. 3, was arrived at during the final meeting of the board last Monday.

Bulacan workers, whose wages are higher than those in the rest of Central Luzon, will only receive a P14.50 COLA, and those in Aurora, P10 COLA, Santiago said.

"The wage rates in Bulacan are higher, so we just tried to level off the rates by granting a lower COLA for non-agricultural workers. In Aurora, the cost of living is lower than the rest of Central Luzon, so only P10 was considered," she said.

Santiago said the regional office of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) has issued Wage Order No. 12 to implement the new COLA for minimum wage earners.

"It will take effect 15 days after publication in a local newspaper, or on Aug. 3," she said.

Santiago said the new wage order took note of the objections of the labor sector, which had demanded a P75 wage increase.

"But the good news is that the management sector has agreed to integrate all the COLA benefits of the workers into their salaries a year after the implementation of the new wage order," she said.

This means that the P20 COLA granted to workers last year and the additional P18.50 this August will become part of their regular pay after one year, for a total of P38.50, Santiago said.

During the public hearings on the wage issue in various parts of Central Luzon, Santiago said the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) noted that the prices of basic commodities in the region have not significantly increased.

"The DTI said any increase in prices was traced only to the imposition of the 12 percent reformed value-added tax," she said.

At present, the highest minimum wage in Central Luzon is P243.50 for non-agricultural workers in companies with more than P30 million in capitalization in Bulacan.

In the rest of Central Luzon, except Aurora, the highest minimum wage is P239.50, while the rate in Aurora is P197.

The new COLA was arrived at after the regional wage board and other government agencies conducted public hearings in the cities of Angeles (Pampanga), Malolos (Bulacan), Olongapo (Zambales) and Cabanatuan (Nueva Ecija).

The labor sector is represented in the regional wage board by the Trade Union Council of the Philippines and the Federation of Free Workers, while the management sector is represented by the Personnel Management Association of the Philippines, the Employers Confederation of the Philippines, and the Metro Angeles Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Earlier, the House of Representatives approved a P125 legislated wage increase nationwide, but Malacañang rejected this as monetary and economic officials insisted that the move would adversely affect the economy, triggering runaway inflation and resulting in higher unemployment.

Malacañang said wage hikes should be left to the discretion of the regional wage boards.