Thank you to all our laborers!

They fuel all the economies of this world. They are all over giving their eight hours or more of blood, sweat, and tears. They have made a few very rich but they themselves have remained poor. The world owes them so much, yet very few remember to say thank you to all our laborers, especially on this first day of May!

 For their labor, what have the workers gotten so far? "Generally," insufficient income and irregular employment.

Certainly, our laborers deserve more, much much more. Yet, once again, employers reason out that they cannot afford to grant any wage hike to the laborers this time around. Or ever?

That is difficult to understand. If times were so hard, most businesses would have folded up years ago. If times were so bad, business would not have declared any profit. Those that did not truly have profits could not have survived a day longer in business. It is hard for labor to accept the yearly resistance of business to give wage increases. It is harder still to accept why wage increase is not required of any business that declares profits each year.

What has government done for labor so far? Apart from the lip service of asking wage boards and employers to consider wage hikes, so far the laborers have not gotten their much-deserved wage hike. This government has not guaranteed as well the workers' annual wage hike or improvement of their labor conditions.

In the midst of the continuing food crisis, the neglect of our laborers by government and business becomes more conspicuous. How long can the laborers tolerate this negligence, this indifference and insensitivity to their plight? Not forever.

Congress said it is rushing a tax exemption bill and it has tried to pass the cheaper medicine bill but the latter got derailed when its principal authors objected to having their original proposal watered down. The tax exemption bill may be good for a number of low-income earners but it will not give the much-sought after relief for the laborers as the bill has to pass through the House, then the Senate, then the President before it can be implemented. That process may well proceed till Labor Day next year or the following years.

Is it possible for Congress to consider immediately eliminating all or portions of the withholding tax requirement for all workers? Can government be forced to require a substantial amount of the withholding tax to be used solely, exclusively, for welfare projects for taxpayers? The welfare projects can be in terms of housing, medical, health insurance, food and other subsidies.

 Cannot GMA and Congress request for a debt moratorium and mandate that the OFW remittances be used exclusively to directly help the farmers, the fisherfolks, and the laborers of this country?

 Cannot the House Representatives and the Senators immediately return their pork barrel or be mandated by court to use the pork barrel solely for welfare, rather than for infrastructure projects, except for irrigation and immediately required food production projects?.

 Cannot GMA and her government require a ban on all purchases of expensive vehicles or better still, for all the expensive vehicles, including those of the LGU officials and offices, to be resold, the balance of which deposited as wage hikes for the low-salaried employees?

 What this government is not doing is sharing/returning what they have gotten from public coffers back to the people who most need the assistance direly.

 How long must the laboring Filipinos wait for much-needed genuine government concern and assistance?

*  *  *

Email: [email protected]