BISHOP BATS FOR HIGHER PAY FOR WORKERS

A Catholic bishop is supporting calls for a wage increase so salary earners could cope with the skyrocketing prices. Manila auxiliary bishop broderick pabillo said that President Aquino must allow workers to receive a "decent" salary increase to cushion the impact of rising prices of oil, transportation and other basic goods. The price of almost everything is increasing, so how can our workers cope? These capitalists cannot let our workers run dry, Pabillo, also chair of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines National Secretariat for Social Action told reporters in an interview. Last week Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz said workers should either get a wage increase or raise in their cost-of-living allowance (COLA) as a result of the recent price hikes brought about by the crisis in the Middle East. Baldoz noted that the purchasing power in Metro Manila had been eroded by P7.48 while the inflation rate in some regions had breached the government's target of 5% for 2011.  (Philippine Daily Inquirer, Monday April 11, 2011 News section p. A11)

Understanding this economical issue in our country, I would gladly approve of what the catholic bishop had proposed for. Living our everyday lives here in the Philippines lately has been such a catastrophic and somehow problematic way of living. We are currently experiencing and or facing an increase and an increase that is not meant in a good way for most of the country's total population. Our products, resources one by one have been slowly climbing up the economical line making it's prices very hard to attain and maybe even for some, unattainable anymore. Oil prices keep going up and up and our Government blames it on the ongoing crisis in other countries such as the Middle East territory of region. 

Due to the ongoing hike of oil prices, transportation fares also began to rise while keeping up with the other goods and products that we need for our survival. We as ordinary citizens, definitely cannot cope with these skyrocketing prices of resources unless our government administration deals with this problem immediately. As a response to the article posted by the bishop, President Aquino said that he had asked his economic managers to study how to mitigate the impact of the high prices on workers. Among the measures being eyed are the imposition of price controls, the reduction in the value-added tax (VAT) and a typical wage increase.

Pabillo said that the president's decision on the issue would either reveal that he is on the side of the laborers or the capitalists.

The government indeed needs to deal with these issues to make our a country a more peaceful economic society. They should approve the proposal of Bishop Pabillo but make a few adjustments as well to balance fairly the salaries and prices of our resources.