House deputy minority leader Rep. Bernadette Herrera has offered suggestions to reform the country’s wage system and give some sectors a daily minimum wage of about P1000—starting with healthcare frontliners in the private sector.
Representative Herrera noted that
“the minimum wage laws and regulations allow for classifications of workers. There are distinctions: agricultural workers, non-agricultural workers, administrative and clerical workers, industrial zone workers, and household workers.”
“I, therefore, suggest a new wage category for healthcare workers, including health professionals. This category should have a national minimum wage rate that should be at least 50 percent higher than the highest rate in NCR,” the Bagong Henerasyon Party-list Representative said.
“If it were entirely up to me, the daily minimum wage of an entry-level healthcare worker in the private sector should be at least P1,000 a day or P22,000 per month for at least 22 days of work in a month. Given current economic conditions and the essential and crucial role of health care workers, P1,000 a day is a just minimum wage at entry level. The wage rates of those at higher than entry-level, should, of course be higher,” Herrera said.
The lawmaker, however, said affordability could be an issue which
“many private hospitals would probably complain or protest that they cannot afford P1,000 daily minimum wage rate and the higher rates for those with higher ranks.“
Herrera said,
“the solution to this that I see is a direct wage subsidy from both the national government and the local government—with P400 coming from the national government and P100 from the local governments that are cities and first-class municipalities.”
She explained,
“the budget for the P400 x 22 or P8,800 can be divided, with some lodged with the DOLE (following the CAMP model of wage subsidy given during the pandemic) while some can be a direct subsidy budget lodged with the Small Business Corporation of the DTI which already has a wage subsidy program in place.”
The veteran legislator said,
“a probable source of national funding would be a percentage tax or specific tax on products high in sodium and high in sugar. The sin taxes for health programs funding would be the relevant precedent for this approach. The local source of funding would be a percentage of the LGU IRA.”
“There is another form of subsidy for which there are precedents being implemented at DOTR and DepEd: service contracting. Service contracting is what made the EDSA bus carousel happen through DOTR. Service contracting has been done by the DepEd since the 1980s in the form of education service contracting by which students that cannot be accommodated in congested public schools are entrusted to private schools, with the ESC funds going to where the ESC students are transferred,” Herrera said.
Herrera has also pushed for the House
“to expand the coverage of lawmakers’ medical assistance referrals to include private hospitals. This way, private hospitals can augment their finances with the funds coming from the lawmakers’ referrals.”
“Another approach I suggest is for the Development Bank of the Philippines to establish and sustain a concessional loan facility program for private hospital facilities and manpower development. This way, private hospitals, especially those in financial distress, can access affordable DBP funds to improve their services and afford higher wages for their staff,”
“A third approach is to ask the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank, and Japan International Cooperation Agency for a sectoral transformation loan facility of $500 million at least and targeted to improve private medical facilities, especially those in the provinces,” Herrera said.