P16.00 increase for BARMM private workers set
BANGSAMORO NEWS UPDATES • 10:30 AM Thu Jun 16, 2022
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By:
John M. Unson
Officials show the printed copy of the new wage order for the Bangsamoro region. (John Unson)
COTABATO CITY - Officials approved Wednesday a wage order increasing by P16.00 the daily pay of private sector workers in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.
Members of the Bangsamoro Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board (BTWPB), chaired by BARMM’s labor minister, Muslimin Sema, signed the order Wednesday in a simple rite at the regional capitol here.
Sema said the P16.00 increase was premised on consultations with representatives from the business and labor sectors in BARMM’s five provinces and cities.
The Bangsamoro region covers the provinces of Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur, Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi and the cities of Cotabato, Marawi and Lamitan.
“We can’t peg the increase, in the meantime, to a bigger amount because the employers are still recovering from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. If we raise the daily wage higher, chances are employers would have to retrench workers to cope up,” Sema told reporters who covered the approval of the wage order.
With the P16.00 increase, the minimum wage for industrial, manufacturing, construction, and other technical workers in BARMM shall now be P316.00 daily.
Those in Cotabato City and in the 63 barangays in North Cotabato that are covered by BARMM as Special Geographic Area, or SGA, are to receive P341.00 from employers.
Workers in the agriculture sector shall now get P306.00 daily wage, based on the new BARMM wage order.
Agriculture sector workers in Cotabato City and the 63 North Cotabato barangays comprising the SGA ought to receive P316.00 daily pay from employers as stipulated in a matrix in the wage order.
The wage order was signed by Sema, trader Haron Bandila as representative of the Bangsamoro employers sector, workers’ representative Jonathan Acosta and BARMM’s Trade and Investment Minister Abu Amri Taddik.
Bandila said there were extensive consultations with stakeholders prior to the crafting of the BTWPB’s wage order mandating a P16.00 increase on daily wages of private sector employees in the Bangsamoro region.
“Hopefully the business climate in the region will improve as we get through the challenges and constraints brought by the COVID-19 pandemic,” Bandila, a merchant, said.
He said the BARMM leadership is concerned with the plight of private sector workers in the autonomous region.