“This P200 wage hike isn’t just about adjusting numbers. It’s about restoring dignity”
A WEEK before the 19th Congress adjourned sine die, I voted yes to House Bill 11376, which grants a P200 daily wage increase for our country’s minimum wage earners. I did it because it’s the right thing to do. Plain and simple.
For years, Filipino workers have been asking not for luxury, not for excess, but for enough—enough to put food on the table, to keep a roof over their heads, to send their children to school. But while prices have continued to rise—food, fuel, electricity, even school supplies—wages have barely moved.
That’s not fair. That’s not right.
This P200 wage hike isn’t just about adjusting numbers. It’s about restoring dignity. It’s about making sure that a full day’s work translates to a decent, livable life. If you work hard, you should not go to bed hungry. You should not have to choose between rice and medicine. You should not live one crisis away from total collapse.
Critics have raised concerns about the impact on businesses. I understand those concerns. But let’s also look at the bigger picture. When workers earn more, they spend more—on food, clothes, transport, basic goods and services. That money goes right back into our local economy, helping businesses grow and stay afloat. More purchasing power means more economic activity.
And the data supports this. According to research from the UP School of Labor and Industrial Relations (SOLAIR), the impact of a wage hike on inflation is very small, even negligible. That’s because inflation isn’t mainly caused by wages—it’s driven by supply issues, power costs, hoarding, smuggling, and inefficiencies in our systems.
We cannot keep blaming workers for inflation. They cannot be the whipping boys forever, especially when they are the ones carrying the weight of rising costs.
Some say this will cause job losses. But even Nobel Prize-winning economists like David Card, Joshua Angrist, and Guido Imbens have proven otherwise. Their research found no negative impact on employment after a wage increase. In fact, the last legislated wage hike in the Philippines—a P25 increase in 1989—was followed by a decrease in unemployment the following year.
There’s also the argument that this will drive away foreign investors. But the reality is, foreign investors don’t come to the Philippines just for cheap labor. They look for good infrastructure, affordable energy, skilled workers, and efficient government services. For the past 35 years, we’ve kept wages low through regional wage boards—and yet we’re still struggling to attract foreign direct investments. So clearly, it’s not just about wages.
Some will point out that this wage hike only helps formal workers—about 16 million people. But what about the 40 million in the informal economy?
The truth is: wage hikes help them, too. It sets a new standard, a benchmark for what fair compensation should be—a “lighthouse” effect. And when more people have money to spend, demand increases. This demand fuels informal sector growth. So yes, even tricycle drivers, sari-sari store owners, street vendors—they benefit too.
And here’s the most painful truth: almost all regional minimum wages in the country—except for NCR—are below the poverty threshold. That means even if you work full-time, you are still considered poor. That’s not just an economic issue. That’s a moral one.
It’s been 36 years since we last legislated a wage hike. Since then, our wage system has been left to regional boards that issue tiny “barya-barya” increases that do little to keep up with inflation. For decades, our workers have been asked to wait, to endure, to adjust.
But how much longer can they wait?
How many more years must they survive on wages that don’t even match 1989 levels when adjusted for inflation? Back then, what P89 could buy would cost more than P600 today. But minimum wages outside NCR are still far below that level.
This is why the P200 wage increase is not just an economic necessity. It’s a moral and social obligation. It’s about correcting decades of injustice. It’s about lifting more than five million Filipino families out of the poverty trap.
That is also why I voted yes—because I believe that no one who works full time should be poor. I believe in an economy that puts people first. And I believe that fair wages make for a stronger, fairer, and more resilient nation. As Saint Pope John Paul II reminds us in his encyclical Laborem Exercens, “Work is a key, probably the essential key, to the whole social question.” When we respect the dignity of labor by ensuring just wages, we begin to answer that social question with justice, compassion, and hope.
It’s time we stop treating labor as a cost to be minimized and start seeing it as the engine of our economy.
It’s time to give our workers what they rightfully deserve.
And that’s why I stand firmly behind the P200 wage hike.
