E. Visayas workers to receive P8 COLA

TACLOBAN CITY – Minimum wage earners in Eastern Visayas will receive a P8 cost of living allowance (COLA) starting Dec. 16.

The Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board announced the wage adjustment affecting over 1.6 million daily wage earners in Eastern Visayas in time for the 74th anniversary of the Department of Labor and Employment last Friday.

Under Wage Order No. 14, the P8 COLA for workers in the non-agriculture, handicraft, retail services, agriculture, and sugar sectors takes effect 15 days after it was published in a local daily newspaper last Dec. 1.

From P220 under Wage Order No. 13 issued in August 2006, the new daily minimum wage will be adjusted to P228 with the P8 COLA, which applies to daily normal working hours not exceeding eight hours.

”This is the best that we could do, which is to provide the P8 COLA. Instead of adjusting the basic salary, we just provided COLA,” said regional DOLE director Forter Puguon.

Puguon believes that small businesses in the region are capable of giving the P8 COLA to their workers since it has no “chain effect” on other related monetary benefits.

The new wage order exempts household or domestic helpers, persons in the personal service of another, including family drivers, and workers in duly registered barangay micro enterprises.