The Center for Trade Union and Human Rights (CTUHR) condemns the Department of Trade and Industry’s (DTI) statement that P500 would suffice for a Filipino family’s noche buena meal. The statement is a justification for low wages and is simply out of touch with reality and unacceptable amidst the soaring prices of food.

In late November, DTI Secretary Cristina Roque, citing current prices of food, said that a family of four can have a decent noche buena, the cherished Christmas Eve celebration for Filipinos, for a mere P500. Various labor groups, research institutes and commentators have criticized the statement for being insensitive to the poor and for showing the government’s detachment from reality.

Roque said that P500 would be enough for a family to eat Christmas ham, spaghetti, fruit salad and pandesal. Many have criticized the DTI’s projected noche buena not only for ignoring the prevailing prices of the ingredients, but also for excluding traditional noche buena favorites such as queso de bola, fruits, beverages and desserts.

From the DTI’s warped standards, a P500-worth of noche buena is already a feast, when compared to P64, the amount it cited in October as enough for a person to eat three decent meals a day. The DTI’s claim about a P500-worth noche buena actually exposes the utter absurdity and falsity of the P64 daily meal claim, and the entire framework of the DTI’s cost of living computations.

We demand the immediate junking and replacement of the DTI’s cost of living computations. The principle that should guide such computations is a decent living standard for Filipinos, especially in relation to the 1987 Constitution’s guarantee of workers’ right to a living wage. The computation should encourage the government to work for the progressive realization of this right, rather than justify low wages and the violations of this right.

Changing the cost of living computations should encourage the government and employers to not simply disregard workers’ demands for a wage hike beyond the loose change being given to workers at present. They should listen to and study demands for a wage hike, whether for a significant wage increase or for a P1,200 daily minimum wage, premised on the current family living wage according to independent think-tank Ibon Foundation.

Christmas is about compassion for workers and the poor, and the DTI secretary’s statement is totally against that. Compassion should be an opening for the government, employers and all Filipinos to affirm workers’ labor and human rights, and to re-examine whether government policies actually serve workers’ rights or simply justify their violation.