ARMM minimum wage raised

AN INCREASE in the basic compensation of minimum wage earners in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) has been approved by the regional wage board though the amount has yet to be set, an official said.“Right now, the board in still on the process of deliberation on how much to increase, but definitely, it has already decided to give increase for the minimum wage earners,” Lilian Ruth C. Cabanban, secretary of the Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board (RTWPB)-ARMM, told BusinessWorld in an e-mail last week.

She said the board arrived at the decision after conducting motu proprio, or on its own initiative, public consultations last July 1-12 on a possible minimum wage adjustment in ARMM’s five provinces, namely Basilan, Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi. The current basic wage rate in the region is P222 per day with a P10 cost of living allowance (COLA).

Asked whether they would be applying the new two-tiered wage system (TTWS) on their new wage order, Ms. Cabanban said: “For this one-year period, the board decided not to follow the two-tiered wage system since our prevailing wage rate at P222 basic pay plus P10 COLA per day has lagged behind , so much so that the management sector could hardly cope up with the supposedly increase of P35 per day to reach the floor wage required at P267 per day which is also the poverty threshold in the region for a family of six (6).”

In a TTWS, there is a mandatory floor wage rate (first tier) and a performance-based pay increase scheme (second tier).

Ms. Cabanban said they are targeting to publish the wage order by middle of next month so it would take effect by Sept. 2, when the one-year moratorium on issuing a new wage order to supersede the last one, expires.

Meanwhile, the Employers Confederation of the Philippines (ECOP) filed last week its second appeal on the National Capital Region (NCR) Wage Order 17, which took effect last June 4 and mandated a P30 COLA increase and the integration of the old P22 COLA into the basic pay of minimum wage earners in the region.

Reiterating its arguments in its first appeal, the group said in a statement that the National Wages and Productivity Commission (NWPC) erred in upholding the RTWPB-NCR wage order as reasonable and not excessive.

“The Commission erred in declaring that this is not the first time that RTWPB-NCR gave a P30 per day increase by citing Wage Order No. NCR-09 which also gave a P30/day increase,” ECOP President Edgardo G. Lacson was quoted as saying in the statement.

He pointed out that the NWPC failed to consider that the NCR Wage Order 17 “further increased total labor cost per day.”

The commission, in its June 28 decision on ECOP’s first motion for reconsideration, dismissed the group’s appeal on the basic wage rate adjustment.

It stated that there was grave abuse of discretion on the part of the RTWPB-NCR in issuing the order, citing the consultations conducted by the board with the public, the Department of Trade and Industry and the National Economic and Development Authority.

This was what the RTWPB-NCR basically stated in its comment to the employers group’s second appeal, said the Board Secretary Aida T. Andres in a telephone interview yesterday. She said they filed their comment with the commission last week.

Sought for comment, NWPC Executive Director Ciriaco A. Lagunzad said the commission will be discussing the appeal next week. –AUBREY E. BARRAMEDA, Reporter, Businessworld