By CESAR JOLITO III
A labor group has strongly criticized the national government for excluding private minimum wage earners from cash assistance programs, calling for their immediate inclusion amid rising living costs.
In a Labor Day protest statement dated May 1, Wennie Sancho, secretary general of the General Alliance of Workers Association (GAWA), urged the government to extend emergency wage subsidies and financial aid (ayuda) to low-income workers in the private sector.
“Having a job is not the same as having enough,” Sancho said, emphasizing that employment does not guarantee financial stability, especially under current economic conditions.
GAWA, representing workers across Negros Island Region and Western Visayas — including factory employees, sales personnel, security guards, janitors, fast-food crews, and business process outsourcing agents — argued that minimum wage earners are unfairly excluded from government assistance programs solely due to their employment status.
The group noted that while sectors, such as transport workers, farmers and fisherfolk, have received targeted subsidies in 2025 and 2026 to cushion the effects of fuel price hikes, agricultural costs and climate-related disruptions, minimum wage earners have been left out.
Sancho said this exclusion raises constitutional concerns, citing the equal protection clause under Article 3 of the 1987 Constitution.
He stressed that the policy effectively penalizes formal sector workers who are tax-compliant, while creating incentives for informal labor arrangements.
GAWA also pointed to the declining real value of wages in the region.
Although the nominal daily minimum wage in Western Visayas stands at P550, the group estimates its effective value has dropped to around P412.50 due to inflation driven by higher energy costs, transport fare increases and rising food prices.
“Minimum wage earners face the same surge in expenses as other sectors,” Sancho said.
“Using employment as a basis for disqualification ignores the reality that wages are no longer sufficient to meet basic family needs,” he added.
The group is calling for the retroactive inclusion of private minimum wage earners in all existing and future ayuda programs starting the first quarter of this year.
It anchored its appeal on the state’s mandate under Article 13 of the Constitution to provide full protection to labor.
Sancho further warned that the government must move beyond symbolic gestures during Labor Day and implement concrete measures to support workers.
“Labor Day is not a holiday for speeches — it is a reckoning,” he said.
“If the state recognizes labor as a primary socioeconomic force, then it must protect it with resources, not rhetoric,” he added.
The protest, addressed as an open letter to Ferdinand Marcos Jr., was filed without prejudice to possible legal and administrative actions that workers may pursue under existing labor laws./CJ, WDJ