“Tax-exemption for workers is good but this must be complementary to a substantial wage increase. Without a substantial wage hike, exemptions from taxes would hardly make a dent on the suffering of poor Filipinos. Tax is as constant as death and this regime has exacted money from workers through multifarious and malevolent schemes. As if our income tax wasn’t enough, they came up with the 12% Reformed Value-Added Tax (RVAT) and even proposes to increase tax on text messaging to further bleed dry the poor.”

According to the Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) Labor Center, recent data from the World Development Indicators (WDI) furthered justified the urgency of a wage hike. The WDI study showed 15 million Filipinos are living on Php 50/day while another 43 million lives on less than Php 100/day.

“But this is further compounded by the growing income gap between the poor and the rich in this country,” said Elmer “Ka Bong” Labog, re-elected National Chairperson of the KMU. “According to a recent study by the Ibon Foundation, the richest 20% of the population gobbles up 53% of the income pie while the bottom 20% receives only 4.63%.”

“To address the growing poverty in our country, along with our demand for a Php 125 legislated wage hike, there must be increase in employment opportunities, better social services like health care and money should flow to education to invest in the youth. As long as these basic elements are neglected, the situation is bound to get worse,” said Labog.

The labor leader also clarified that the recently concluded 9th Congress of the KMU charted new plans of action from 2007 to 2010. “The new leaders of the KMU are good mix of grizzled veterans and young leaders full of youthful exuberance. We need this fusion because the coming years would be very testing for the new leadership of the KMU. With extra-judicial killings happening left and right, persecution of activists and political opponents and the massacre of jobs and rights of workers, we have a tough time ahead of us. This is why we have underscored the issue of the growing number of sacked workers and we are coming up with programs on how to address this issue through socio-economic projects,” ended Labog.