The P50 minimum wage increase which was recently approved by the Metro Manila wage board does little to provide workers with an immediate relief amidst the cost of living crisis and to move closer to a living wage as mandated by the 1987 Philippine Constitution.

While the P50 wage hike is the highest increase ever granted by the Metro Manila wage board, and may signal a corresponding increase in the country’s regions, it is still a meager wage increase, barya-barya, not a significant wage increase that can give workers an immediate relief.

Thus, the Employers Confederation of the Philippines (ECOP) is wrong in saying that this increase will “put to rest” efforts to legislate a wage hike. The still-meager wage increase shows that the wage boards are truly incapable of increasing workers’ wages and that legislation is necessary.

The P50 Metro Manila wage hike shows that President Ferdinand Marcos Jr only listens to employers who are greedy for profits and is insensitive, manhid, to the suffering of the country’s workers. Marcos Jr refuses to balance employers’ interests and workers’ rights amidst the cost of living crisis.

In his recent media interviews, ECOP President Sergio Ortiz-Luis repeated hoary lies, mga gasgas na kasinungalingan, about workers’ demands for a wage hike. He said that wage and salary workers are a minority, and that wage hikes do not affect, and are even detrimental to, the rest of the population.

Ortiz-Luis’ compartmentalized thinking is mind-boggling. When workers receive a wage hike, they don’t keep the money under their pillows; they spend it. Small vendors, farmers, fishers, tricycle drivers, and the other working populations that he mentions will indirectly but definitely benefit from a wage hike.

Ortiz-Luis also said that a significant wage hike, like the P200 proposed in Congress, will result in inflation, company closures or mass layoffs. That won’t happen if employers will show some compassion to workers, share the burden of the cost of living crisis, and allow a meager reduction in their profits.

Independent think-tank Ibon Foundation’s computations show that the P50 wage hike is equivalent to only 0.4% of employers’ expenses and 2.5% of their profits. Employers can definitely give more, if only the government compels them to see the wisdom of a living wage for workers.

Like his predecessors, Ortiz-Luis makes it appear that labor cost is the only burden borne by employers. He should listen to small Filipino employers, who say that high taxes and corruption, poor infrastructure and heavy traffic, and stiff foreign competition are the real challenges to their businesses.

The ECOP leadership should demand that the Marcos Jr government address the issues faced by small businesses, rather than simply press down workers’ wages to the detriment of workers’ rights. Surely, Filipino workers and their advocates will continue to demand a legislated wage hike.