TRAIN makes workers poorer – ALU-TUCP

CEBU, Philippines — The Tax Reform Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) Law has put minimum wage earners and informal sector workers into deeper poverty in just a few months of its implementation due to the increase in the prices of goods and services.

Alan Tanjusay, ALU-TUCP spokesperson in a statement, said that they noticed the erosion of wage’s purchasing power move quickly downwards by 6 percent in just a matter of two months from January to February upon the effectivity of TRAIN.

"This extraordinary devaluation of monthly salary is significant to the informal sector workers earning less than P12,000 a month and the minimum wage earners receiving less than the same amount,” Tanjusay said.

He said that the TRAIN Law implementation has increased the excise tax on fuel and sweetened beverages as well as in prices of government documents.

ALU-TUCP cited that in a monitoring of prevailing prices by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas and the National Wages and Productivity Commission released on February 9, 2018, the real value or the buying power of the country’s 17 regions total average daily nominal minimum wage of P329.35 is now only P210 a day.

It added that based according to the Philippine Statistics Authority, the published standard amount needed by a family of five to survive within poverty line in 2015 is P9,064.

"We urge government’s immediate and quality response to save and prevent these workers, who help build our economy and who are producers of goods and services to make our economy competitive, from falling through the cracks,” Tanjusay said.

With the inflation rate hitting 3.9 percent by the end of February 2018, ALU-TUCP is expecting it to rise by the end of the month in the light of impending increase in the cost of electricity, rice, fish, sardines, vegetables, condiments and prices of gasoline.

The March 15 meeting between ALU-TUCP and President Rodrigo Duterte on the group’s proposed P500-government monthly subsidy was moved to March 22.

ALU-TUCP has proposed to Duterte an amelioration program called Labor Empowerment and Assistance Program (LEAP).

Under the program, minimum wage earners will receive monthly a P500 worth of grocery items to help the workers cope with the rising cost of living caused by the TRAIN Law. —MBG (FREEMAN)