The clamor for tax reforms has long been aired by many sectors. Between its refusal to fully support tax reform initiatives in Congress and its failure to provide decent living wages, the government has not done enough to help the country’s workforce keep up with the rising costs of essential goods and services, Sen. Francis “Chiz” Escudero said.
For us workers, we have to rely on our legislators to speak in our behalf and we are happy the good Senator did this for us.
Escudero pointed out that “the salaries of an estimated 1.4 million government workers remained stagnant in the last three years despite the ever-increasing cost of basic commodities.” Meanwhile, private sector employees have received minimal pay increases in the last five years.
In April, the National Wages and Productivity Commission—the key policy-making body on wages, incomes and productivity in the private sector—implemented a P15 adjustment in the daily minimum wage in Metro Manila, raising the minimum pay to P481 for workers in the non-agriculture sector.
It was the fifth wage adjustment since President Benigno Aquino III assumed office in 2010, when the minimumdaily salary in the nation’s capital region was P404.