DOLE to implement P40-wage hike in Northern Mindanao in 2 phases

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY, Philippines – Workers in Cagayan de Oro and neighboring Misamis Oriental towns will receive the first tranche of their daily minimum wage on June 18.

The Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board (RTWPB-10) has approved a P40-increase in daily minimum wages of non-agricultural workers in the city and the towns of Tagoloan, Villanueva, and Jasaan in Misamis Oriental.

But the P40-wage hike will be in two phases – from P365 to P390 or an initial P25-increase in June, and to P405 a day by December 16, said Albert Gutib, Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE)-Northern Mindanao director.

The daily minimum wage of non-agricultural workers in five other Northern Mindanao cities and five towns in Bukidnon and Misamis Oriental will also be increased in two tranches.

Like Cagayan de Oro, workers will see in June a P25-increase in their daily minimum wage in the cities of Malaybalay, Valencia, El Salvador, and Ozamiz; and the towns of Opol and Lugait in Misamis Oriental, and Maramag, Quezon, and Manolo Fortich in Bukidnon.

From P358, it would be increased to P383 in June, and to P405 by year-end in these areas.

Agricultural workers across Northern Mindanao will also receive a P40-increase in daily minimum wages in two phases by December.

For domestic workers, the RTWPB approved a monthly wage increase of P500 for domestic workers in the region. In the region’s cities and first-class municipalities, the current monthly rate is P4,000.

“The minimum wage increase will apply to all minimum wage earners in the private sector within the region, regardless of their position, designation, or status,” Gutib said.

Gutib said one of the factors the RTWPB considered was the rate of Northern Mindanao’s recovery from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The business establishments are slowly recovering,” Gutib said.

Arsenio Sebastian III, the management sector representative in the RTWPB, said some hotels and restaurants in the region had offered only a P15-increase in daily minimum wages.

Workers in the region last saw a wage increase in November 2018, and the DOLE said 75% of employers followed the RTWPB’s order until the pandemic hit.

“We suspended the writ of execution in the last two years because of the pandemic,” Gutib said.

In March, the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) filed a petition for a P413-daily minimum wage increase in Northern Mindanao. That would have brought the minimum wage in the region to at least P700 a day. – Rappler.com