LETTER

P15 not enough for round trip fare

The issuance of the Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board – Cordillera Administrative Region last May 27 granting a P15 increase to the cost of living allowance (COLA) for employees within the BLIST (Baguio, La Trinidad, Itogon and Sablan ) is another show of insensitivity to the real economic conditions of the lowly-paid workers. Obviously, the RTWPB did not again base their said increase on the real plight of the workers not only here in the BLIST areas but in the entire Cordillera region.

The Cordillera workers in general are receiving wages that are not enough to cope with the actual standard cost of living which is already reaching to P800 for the family of six. It’s true that the minimum wage here in the region will rise to P260 a day for workers in the non-agricultural sector and P243 in the other areas of the Cordillera, but it is still far away from the actual needed expenses for a worker and his family for a day.

It is not even enough for a worker’s round trip fare going to his work and going home as the fare hike was already implemented. Worst, the workers like the rest of the Filipino poor can no longer have a stable 3 meals a day as the price of the Filipino staple food rice, is too much. With the sky-rocketing prices of oil and other petrol products causing the prices of basic commodities and social services to continuously rise up, the workers will never have a decent life.

Last year, the region’s workers received the lowest increase in the country. The militant workers under the flag of KMU-Cordillera still demand a true living wage that can feed the workers and their family. The workers have all the rights to be given such to buy food, medicines, clothing and shelter and to be able to send their children to school as they are the ones molding the economy through their hard works. They should be given what is due to them in order to live decently. KMU strongly upholds the long cry for a P125 wage increase across the board nationwide.

The workers of the Cordillera like their colleagues all over the country waited for a long period of time for the passage of the said demand into law. P125 wage increase was proposed through a bill principally authored and passed by ANAKPAWIS Party List Crispin “Ka Bel” Beltran in 2001 when he is then one of the first representatives of Bayan Muna Party List but until his death on May 20 and burial on May 28, it was never approved. At present, it is again hanging in the house of congress as House Bill 1722.

KMU and other progressive workers’ organizations together with the progressive party lists and democratic organizations and sectors will push through with the demand for the legislation of the P125 wage increase. This also will be part of our pledge to continue the fight of Ka Bel for peoples’ rights and welfare. P125 Wage Increase Across the Board Nationwide pa rin!

We don’t need petty increases as prices of necessities rise fast. We demand for the abolition of the wage boards as we ask for wage increases to be done nationwide and not according to regions!

Aldwin Quitasol
Spokesperson
Kilusang Mayo Uno Cordillera