STATEMENT OF SENATOR JINGGOY EJERCITO ESTRADA ON WAGE HIKE BILLS
15 March 2023
It’s been only a year since the full reopening of the country’s economy following two-year extensive COVID-19 restrictions. Despite the projected strong economic rebound, we’re still struggling in trying to return to the pre-pandemic levels. The inflation rate, as of last month, showed that it has marginally slowed down to 8.6% from 8.7% in January 2023.
While I agree that a wage increase is needed, given the soaring fuel and food prices and the workers’ daily take-home pay is insufficient to meet their families’ daily needs, I think we need to strike a balance between the interests of workers and their employers who also suffered from the pandemic.
The backbone of the Philippine economy – the micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) – which comprise more than 95% of the enterprises in the country were hardest hit by the pandemic.
More than the issue of wage increase is the matter of job security which most of our workers have yet to attain. Thus, there’s a need to balance the needs of the workers with the capacity of the employers to ensure job preservation and job creation.
In discussing ways in which we can help both the workers’ and the employers’ sectors, we would like to listen to the comments and inputs from the tripartite sectors: labor, employer, and government, and look forward to a mutually beneficial result for both workers and employers.