Senate President Juan Miguel “Migz” Zubiri on Thursday expressed his dismay against Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) chief Bienvenido Laguesma, whom he said is becoming one of the “unpopular” secretaries of the agency.

Zubiri’s disappointment on Laguesma stemmed from the labor chief’s recent statements opposing the proposed regional wage hike for workers nationwide.

“I’m saddened and shocked to hear the statement of the Secretary of Labor in objecting to higher wages for the labor sector by rejecting our reasonable Minimum Wage hike bill that would increase by a modest 100 pesos across the board for all our minimum wage earners in the country,” Zubiri said.

The Senate leader said that fact he is defying President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.’s earlier order for a review of the prevailing minimum wage shows he has failed to protect workers’ interests.

“It is obvious by the President’s own statement on the review of wages is that the Secretary has failed to protect workers interests and would rather speak for the interest of the business sector, whom we, in the legislature have already given several tax breaks and incentives through recent legislation,” the Senate chief pointed out.

“For the President to say that the Regional wage boards should be activated again when they recently came out with those measly increases show that the wage boards are ineffective in dealing with the crisis that Laborers are facing today with high inflation and food costs,” he added.

“It should be the Secretary that should lead the way on this and not the other way around,” he further lamented.

Zubiri said Laguesma would have been better off leading the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and not the DOLE.

“He is slowly becoming to be one of the more unpopular Labor Secretaries the Department has had if he keeps up what he is doing,” Zubiri said.

“Maybe it would have been better if he became DTI Secretary instead, unfortunately for him the DTI is already being ably handled by its Secretary,” he stressed.