Rising hunger and poverty make wage hike and price controls more urgent

“Mr. President, you should not be shocked that the Filipino workers and people are going hungry and dying when you are consistently ignoring calls for a significant wage hike while partying with big capitalists and oil sharks.”

This was the response of labor center Kilusang Mayo Uno to news that President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III was shocked by the recent Social Weather Stations survey indicating the rise of hunger and poverty rates in the country.

The SWS survey revealed that 20.5% (4.1 million families) have gone hungry at least once in the past three months, up from 18.5% (3.4 million families) recorded in November 2010, while 51% (10.4 million families) considered themselves poor, up from 49%.

“These statistics only show that the implementation of a substantial wage hike and government control of prices of oil and other basic commodities are urgent measures. The Aquino regime should be ashamed of waiting for a 5% inflation rate before considering increasing wages and doing something about the non-stop rise in prices,” said Elmer “Bong” Labog, KMU chairperson.

“These also prove that the much-ballyhooed conditional cash transfer (CCT) program is a failure and does not in any significant way alleviate hunger and poverty in the country. The CCT is proving to be more of a counter-insurgency tool, a means for the military to create the illusion that the government is caring for the poor,” Labog said.

“Dole-outs and ‘papogi’ moves cannot solve the basic problems of the country. What we need are economic policies that truly benefit the workers and people and not the profit-making of big capitalists,” he added.

“To at least provide immediate relief to the Filipino workers and people, the Aquino regime must push as priority House Bill 375 which will legislate a P125 across-the-board nationwide wage hike and HB 4317 which will repeal the Oil Deregulation Law. We will intensify our actions in the coming days to push for the passage of these bills,” Labog said.