P10 Peso-wage increase: a mere glob of the multinational's super profit

Cesar Renerio
Spokesperson
NDF-North Central Mindanao
July 30, 2004

The NDF-NCM deeply sympathized with the mass of workers in Northern Minadanao in their strong resentment to this P10 wage increase granted by the puppet agency RTWPB as dictated by Macapagal-Arroyo. This is the result of Macapagal-Arroyo�s call for �belt-tightening� directed to no other than the masses of workers, peasants and urban poor.

The latest wage increase is but a mere glob of the capitalist�s huge profit. To the capitalists it is cheaper to bribe the presidency along with their cohorts in the DoLE and RTWPB than to grant the P125 across-the-board increase demanded by the workers. Thus the P20 and P10 wage increases approved by the RTWPB is an insiduous collusion between multinationals and of bureaucrat capitalists represented by the foremost puppet of US imperialism Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

The �political will� widely perceived by many as the key to Macapagal-Arroyo in solving the problems of our society is nothing but hollow paeans unfounded on baseless rhetorics. Political will is the rational consciousness, the cultural aspect, emanating from what economic standpoint one belongs. Macapagal-Arroyo is the chief representative of landholding clans and comprador class in the Philippine society. Her viewpoint regarding to solving our problems is very much different from that of the workers and peasants. She therefore has no political will unless she has to sacrifice the interest of her class by doing the contrary to what her class dictates.

So we cannot expect Macapagal-Arroyo to have the slightest semblance of a political will tantamounting to going against the interest of her class. She cannot therefore genuinely implement land reform because her class dictates that by doing so she would have to face the piercing opposition of her landed peers. We cannot expect genuine land reform implementation from a president that carries the interest of the landlord and comprador class. Thus, they have suspended the implementation of CARP not because of its failures but to give way for multinational interests in doing business in our country.

Thus she is reluctant to grant the P125 increase demanded by the workers because doing so would pit her against her bourgeois comprador peers� interests and its imperialist master. From the P125 across-the-board wage increase demanded by the workers only P20 is granted in the NCR and P10 in the provinces.

With the present daily minimum wage in Metro-Manila pegged at P280 and the family living wage pegged at P594 daily what can a P20 increase do to make food and non-food requirements for a family of six meet? Much more the P10 wage increase in other regions? The gap between wages and cost of living is so wide. And as the new wage increase is being reflected only in the ECOLA this implies that the wage increase will not have a consequential increase in the worker�s benefits and therefore doesn�t have an impact on the workers� painstaking labor, assuming of course that the minimum wage is conscientiously followed by employers.

All these has been part of the structural adjustment--- the bitter pill that the IMF has forced the Filipino people to swallow, a set of measures that typically include the removal of restrictions on foreign investment, the abolition of public subsidies and labor rights, reduced state spending, fixed wages, deregulation, lower tariffs, tighter credit, encouragement of export-oriented industries, lower marginal tax rates, currency devaluation, and the sale of major public enterprises.

With this grim situation the Filipino people should not harbor illusory hopes that someday by some quirk of fate the US-Macapagal-Arroyo regime would grant favor to the producers of wealth of our society and the makers of history. First and foremost their liberation from the stranglehold of foreign monopoly capitalists lies in their hands and to no other else.

Workers of the Philippines Unite! Expose and Oppose this blatant trampling of our rights by US Imperialism and its number one lackey the US Macapagal-Arroyo Regime! Persevere and Advance the People�s War to a higher level!

Reference:
Mark Reyes,
Media Liaison Officer
Cellphone Number: +63926-416-6821
E-mail Address: [email protected]