Senate sessions resume

MANILA, Philippines — The Senate will have its plate full as senators are poised to tackle a number of proposed measures and issues when the session for the 19th Congress resumes tomorrow, Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri said yesterday.

In an interview aired over dwIZ radio, Zubiri disclosed that when Congress resumes session tomorrow, the Senate will tackle several important issues, including malfunctions and electric outages at the airport, public order and security, blackouts in the Visayas and across-the-board wage increase of P150 for workers in the private sector.

Congress will be in session for four weeks following tomorrow’s resumption and will go on a break sine die on June 2.

Senators will also focus on priority bills from the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), the proposal for a virology institute and center for disease control (CDC) and the Maharlika Investment Fund (MIF), according to Zubiri.

“We will talk about many proposals. We will finish the internet transaction act. We will try to finish all the priority bills of NEDA and the Maharlika Fund. We will also focus on (the MIF); hopefully, we can also pass it before we take a break sine die,” he said in English and Filipino.

“The virology institute, CDC, we will also look at the priority bills of our colleagues, and we will also look at the happy bills,” he added.

The Senate president revealed that the upper chamber is also preparing to tackle the proposed 2024 national budget, which will be endorsed by President Marcos during his second State of the Nation Address (SONA) in July.

Zubiri noted that he would also personally appeal to his colleagues to support his proposal for a P150 across-the-board wage increase for workers in the private sector.

“We will also push for minimum wage increase. I hope I can get the support of my colleagues. Let’s help our workers,” he said.

The Senate leader added that Sen. Jinggoy Estrada has another proposal to complement his P150 across-the-board wage increase, which is to implement the measure gradually.

“(I proposed for) across-the-board (wage increase), but Sen. Jinggoy and I talked about whether we could look at a possible graduated increase scheme for MSMEs (micro, small and medium enterprises), then for big corporations, they will implement it,” Zubiri said.

“Because of inflation, the salary is not felt. Whoever you talk to, minimum wage earner, I have talked to some people, they claimed they are sleeping in their offices to be able to save and give something to their family. With due respect to the regional wage boards, they are very slow, their increase is very small. The last wage increase they approved was only P15 a day, an amount which you can’t even buy a small ice cream in a cone,” he added.

Many businesses are back to pre-pandemic levels, meaning they are again earning billions, which can be shared with their respective employees, according to the senator.

“Let us share with our employees. When you compute P150 a day for 1,000 employees, that is 22 days, that is P3.3 million a month. So after one year, that is only P39.9 million which will have a little impact on the billions of their earnings. It’s a drop in the bucket but will improve employees’ productivity,” he said.