Iloilo 1st district Rep. Janette Garin (PPAB)

House Deputy Majority Leader and Iloilo 1st district Rep. Janette Garin said that an increase of P350 on the existing minimum wage would be more adequate than the proposed P100 by the Senate.

However, she says that the P350 hike is only possible with economic Charter change (Cha-cha).

“Ang tanong dun solusyon ba na magtaas lamang ng suweldo or ang solusyon ay gawing investor-friendly ang Pilipinas?” asked Garin.

(The question there is, is simply raising salaries the solution, or is making the Philippines investor-friendly the solution?)

“Buksan natin ang ating bansa sa mga foreign investor para maging posible ang pagtaas ng suweldo ng mga minimum wage earner,” she said.

(Let's open our country to foreign investors in order to make this increase in the salary of minimum wage earners possible.)

The proposed economic amendments of House members include the removal of the 60-40 equity rule embodied in the 1987 Constitution. This means that at least 60 percent of the business should be owned by a Filipino citizen while the rest can be owned by a foreign investor.

Ending such “restriction” may help boost the country’s economy and ultimately hike the wages of the labor force.

On Monday, Feb. 19, the Senate approved on third and final reading a bill that aimed to increase the daily minimum wage of workers in the private sector by P100.

Garin finds this proposal inadequate to provide for the essential commodities of a worker. She said this would also “injure the business sector”, mainly the micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs).

“Gagawa ka ng magandang batas pero ang dagok naman nun—ilan naman ang mawawalan ng trabaho, ilan naman ang mga kompanyang magsasara dahil hindi kakayanin ang pa-suweldo sa mga empleyado…Karamihan kasi ng mga negosyante sa Pilipinas ay maliliit, iilan lang dyan ang nasa malalaking kompanya,” the lawmaker said.

(You will make a good law but it will have setbacks—some will lose their jobs, some companies will close because they cannot afford to pay their employees... Most of the businessmen in the Philippines are small, only a few of them have large companies.)

According to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), of the 1,080,810 business enterprises in the country, 99.58 percent are MSMEs.

MSMEs also hold 63 percent of the entire labor force in the country.