EDITORIALS

Wage boards, workers and establishments

In commemoration of Labor Day, Malacañang has endorsed to regional wage boards petitions filed by labor groups for the pay increases of workers in the country’s 17 regions so they could cope with high costs of rice and other basic commodities following the reported surge in the global prices of oil and rice.

Labor Secretary Marianito Roque had bared that petitions for wage increase ranged from P60 to P150 while the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines has asked for an P80 across-the-board wage increase for Metro Manila workers.

The regional tripartite wages and productivity boards were earlier ordered by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to work overtime to reach a decision on the wage levels in their respective regions. The President said she saw the urgency to speed up the deliberations on the wage issue due to the rising prices of commodities.

The 17 regional wage boards were tasked to monitor and assess the wage situation across the country based on national and regional socio-economic indicators. But the decision to raise or not to raise wages will depend on the regional boards based on their assessment of the economic needs of the workers, the capacity of the employers to pay a wage increase, and the development requirements of the region.

Normally, wage increases must be a balance between protecting the purchasing power of low-income workers and preserving existing jobs. Since 1989, the minimum daily wage in Metro Manila was adjusted 15 times and the increase granted ranged from a low of P12 to a high of P26.50. At present, the National Capital Region’s existing wage rate is P362 per day after the latest increase of P12 per day granted by the Board last Aug. 28, 2007.

Raising wages of workers is a must but then, some establishments have been forced to close shop because of this. A healthy balance is needed between workers and establishments to ensure that the latter would develop economically which would redound to the benefit of workers and the populace.


Going after rice hoarders

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has served notice to rice hoarders and law enforcers that she will not settle for less than a “jail-the-culprits” drive against saboteurs of the country’s rice supply.

This, as the joint task force composed of the National Bureau of Investigation and the National Food Authority is investigating rice-hoarding cases. Late last month, the President directed the NBI and the DOJ to assist the Department of Agriculture and the National Food Authority in the “investigation of hoarders and price manipulators of rice.”

The presidential directive led to the creation of the Joint NBI-NFA Task Force on Anti-Rice Hoarders to identify rice hoarders and file charges against them

Aside from the joint NBI-NFA task force, the DOJ also created its own Anti-Rice Hoarding Task Force to “adopt prompt, expeditious and urgent measures to stop and prevent rice hoarding and related crimes as these are considered pernicious acts of economic sabotage.”

The ARHTF was formed to “handle proceedings on inquest, preliminary investigation and prosecution of all cases relating to unlawful acts or omissions inimical to the preservation and protection of the country’s rice supply under Section 29 of Presidential Decree No. 4,” which provides for the “development of the rice and corn industry.”

But despite the President’s personal push, the joint probe team has filed thus far only 22 charges and arrested only three suspected rice hoarders. On the other hand, as of April 29, the ARHTF “has filed five complaints involving 18 individuals wherein only two complaints were submitted for inquest have already been resolved while three complaints are now pending preliminary investigation,” according to an ARHTF memorandum to DOJ Secretary Raul Gonzales.

The government is projecting it is fighting poverty by going after rice hoarders but for the skeptics, the “rice crisis” was a deliberate ploy of government to make the media stop reporting cases of corruption involving top government officials. Meanwhile, majority of the people are experiencing hunger and poverty while the wrangling goes on.