The Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) has renewed its call for the swift passage of House Bill No. 88, which seeks a ₱200 across-the-board daily minimum wage increase for workers.
The measure, authored by TUCP Party-list Rep. and House Deputy Speaker Raymond Democrito C. Mendoza, is scheduled for discussion this week in a public hearing of the House Committee on Labor and Employment.
The same bill was approved on third and final reading by the House of Representatives during the 19th Congress.
“Mr. President, if your Administration is serious about rebuilding public trust, then it must begin where public frustration is deepest: in the empty wallets of Filipino workers and their families. Minimum wage adjustments in scraps and tranches, given by broken, obsolete regional wage boards that hold public hearings but determine the amount of wage increases behind closed doors, will only exacerbate our people’s disillusionment. The Senate and the House are now the workers’ battlefield for a legislated wage hike, but Malacañang is far from powerless. The President can and should certify the measure as urgent. At the very least, he should direct his economic managers not to block or kill the legislated wage hike, but rather treat it as an investment in workers’ productivity and our national economy. The President should also instruct new Labor Secretary Francis Tolentino to talk to the labor sector and to commit to faithfully implementing the legislated wage hike once passed by Congress, no ifs and no buts,” Mendoza said in a statement.
Mendoza appealed as he cited the latest Social Weather Stations survey conducted from March 24 to 31, which showed the Marcos administration posting a “poor” net satisfaction rating of -13.
The rating was the administration’s lowest since President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. assumed office in 2022 and the lowest recorded by any Philippine administration since 2010.
In the same survey, the Senate received a “moderate” +11 net satisfaction rating, while the House of Representatives posted a “moderate” +13.
“Both chambers of Congress already approved a legislated wage hike during the previous Congress, particularly just last year. And there is no compelling reason for this measure to suffer delay or, worse, denial, unless raising workers’ wages is simply not being treated as a national priority. But we cannot be the House of the People if we are not for the workers of the country and their call to legislate a wage increase after nearly four decades of epic failed provincial rates. And so, we trust that the leadership of both the House and Senate will not only prioritize but closely coordinate to expedite the legislated wage hike to the renewed satisfaction and trust of our people who voted and sent us to Congress in the first place,” Mendoza said.
Mendoza also cited Section 48 of the Rules of the House of Representatives, which allows the fast-tracking of priority bills that had already been approved on third reading in the previous Congress.
TUCP said the proposed wage increase should be treated as a national priority, arguing that workers continue to bear the impact of inadequate wage adjustments under the existing regional wage-setting system.