Try living on P645 a day

The recent minimum wage hike of P35 a day that would raise the minimum daily rate to P645 has drawn condemnation from virtually all sectors. This act was also unexpected because the Senate, under then Senate president Zubiri, had approved a P100 daily wage increase.

At the same time, House Majority Leader Manuel Dalipe had publicly said that the House of Representatives found that the Senate-approved P100 daily wage increase was not sufficient to meet the needs of the daily workers.

In fact, I thought that the House was planning to pass a higher daily wage increase ranging from P150 to P350, higher than the Senate-approved increase.

This would mean that the minimum daily wage would increase from P610 to a range of P710 to P760. Instead, the government’s new mandate is an increase from P610 to a ridiculous, measly P645.

My personal question is, who derailed the original proposed increases of both the Senate and the House of Representatives?

The business organization that usually opposes any form of wage increase is the Employers Confederation of the Philippines or ECOP. However, after the Senate had passed the Wage Increase bill, ECOP president Sergio Ortiz-Luis Jr. had announced that it was willing to comply with the Senate-approved wage increase. It is therefore shockingly “mysterious” that the final decision of the government was so low that it would hardly make any dent in the hardships of the labor sector.

I was also very much surprised because usually, the institutions that oppose wage increases are Congress and the employers. It seems to me that there must be other forces that lobbied against these increases and they were powerful enough – whoever they are – to go against the proposed wage increase.

The result of the originally proposed wage increase of P100 to P350 would still not be sufficient to assure the minimum wage worker of having a living wage. The commonly accepted living wage for the Philippines is P1,200 a day.

A living wage is what one worker and his/her family must earn on a daily basis to help cover the cost of their family’s basic needs. Today, families of individuals working in minimum wage jobs are making too little income to meet minimum standards of living. In order for a full-time worker to cover the cost of their family’s basic needs, the wage level must cover the specific costs of basic needs which include food, child care, health care, housing, transportation, education, clothing, water, electricity.

The Senate-approved wage increase would not even be able to achieve a living wage and therefore would not even be sufficient to give every worker enough to cover their family’s minimum and basic needs.

The Senate-approved minimum wage of P710 a day is still below the living wage. We also need to assume that the living wage will increase annually because of inflation.

However, there are some obviously powerful forces who have been heartless enough to still demand a lower increase in minimum wage than even the Senate-approved rate.

Hopefully, the public will be able to identify these heartless people so we can find out how much they are earning. We should challenge these people to try living on the daily wage of P645 that they have lobbied for.

I am sure that these unknown forces will be unable to live even on the accepted living wage of P1,200 per day.

Street homelessness

I have a recommended book for those opposing any meaningful increase in minimum wage and who profess to be Catholics, Protestants or Muslims. The book is “Street Homelessness and Catholic Theological Ethics” by James Keenan, SJ and Mark McGreevy. This was published in 2019 by Orbis Books, the publishing arm of the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers.

Orbis seeks to explore the global dimension of the Christian faith and mission. In the Foreword, the authors quote Pope Francis: “We can find no social or moral justification, no justification whatsoever, for lack of housing.” The book is based on the assumption that a house is not just a roof over one’s head. It is a place where a person can create and live out his or her life. Therefore, society must ensure social justice and provide the conditions that allow individuals the forms of justice in society, including the justice of housing.

The justice of housing includes the obligation to defend and to promote the right and the need of every person to live with dignity.

The book is a collection of essays divided into five chapters: Hearing the Voices of the Homeless; Encountering Particular Populations; Global and Ecclesial Strategies; Theological-Ethical Foundations; Local Responses.

Among the many essays is one that is entitled “A Methodical Proposal for Catholic Social Teaching.” There are a few examples of projects that can be done by the private sector. Among those cited is the Gawad Kalinga Housing Project. At the start of this essay is a quotation translated to English from the widow of a victim of extrajudicial killing in the Philippine war on drugs: “If only we had a better house, if our house had a stronger door, it would not have been easy for the police to enter and shoot my husband.”