The low inflation and economic growth during the Aquino administration failed to improve the living condition of millions of Filipino workers, a labor non-governmental organization said on Sunday.
In a statement, the Ecumenical Institute for Labor Education and Research (Eiler) said minimum-wage workers did not feel any improvement at all under President Aquino, as “there is no substantial uptick in the real value of their wages.”
In fact, Eiler said Mr. Aquino is leaving behind a “stagnant” real wage.
Real wage is defined as the value of the minimum wage when inflation is factored in. It represents the change in the purchasing power of wage across time using a base year.
“The real value of minimum wage in the National Capital Region was up by P14.46 to P363.64 in 2012. It has since stagnated, as the real wage in NCR last year [2015] amounted to P363.84. It’s even worse outside Metro Manila, as real wage in the regions dipped by P5.46 from 2011 to 2015,” Eiler Executive Director Anna Leah Escresa-Colina said.
“This means that there is no substantial increase in the very low minimum-wage levels across the country to overcome the already low inflation rate. This is why we support the call to peg the national minimum wage at P750/day,” Escresa-Colinda added.
According to Escresa-Colina, the pattern on stagnant wages has been consistent since 1998. “Real wage is virtually unchanged for 17 years now, except in 2000 and 2010, when the base year was changed.” Eiler also noted that the most of the minimum-wage increases granted by the regional wage boards are in the form of allowances not as increase on top of basic pay.
“In Calabarzon the regional wage boards issued measly increases in allowances guised in fancy labels, such as ‘conditional temporary productivity allowance’ and ‘socioeconomic allowance,’” she said.