Marcos: P200 legislated wage hike needs great deal of study

President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. wants further study on the proposed P200 legislated minimum wage hike amid calls from lawmakers for the Chief Executive to certify the bill as urgent.
In a chance interview in Pasay City Friday, Marcos indicated he wanted to look into how the proposed nationwide increase in the minimum wage will work with the localized recommendations of the regional wage boards across the country.
"The thing is we have a tripartite board that actually determines the increase in the wage. We still have to study it further to see how that will work together. Because...the tripartite body was a creation of Congress," Marcos said.
"With this, I don’t know how that’s going to work together. But we will see," he added.
Marcos acknowledged that there was a need to help the Filipino working class with inflation still a problem. However, he also raised the difficulty that a higher minimum wage will pose for small businesses.
He also raised the issue of the legislated wage hike being inflationary or a development that might result in higher consumer prices.
"Palagay ko naman there is a way to increase that but we have to resolve the legal issues. We have to resolve the economic issues. So, it still deserves a great deal of study," Marcos said.
Senator Joel Villanueva, chairperson of the Senate Committee on Labor, Employment, and Human Resource Development, called on Marcos to certify the Senate bill increasing the minimum wage by P100 as the end of the 19th Congress drew near.
This developed after the House Committee on Labor and Employment recently approved the P200 across-the-board daily wage hike. –NB, GMA Integrated News