On Wednesday, the Senate passed on second reading Senate Bill 2534 that was authored by majority of its members.

“This is our Valentine’s gift to all our workers,” declared Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri.

Appearing at the Bagong Pilipinas Ngayon press briefing, ECOP president Sergio Ortiz-Luis Jr. said the country’s economists are not expected to back SB 2534, knowing fully well how it will impact on the country’s economy.

“Even economists have qualms over it. They say PHP30 or PHP60 increases are doable. But 100, that’s a catastrophe,” Ortiz-Luis stated.

He explained that management will have no other choice if wages are increased by P100 but to pass on the higher overhead to the consumers.

The ECOP head said another option open to employers is to “reduce your number of workers.”

He also pointed out that only ten percent of the country’s workforce will benefit from the P100 minimum wage adjustment because employers that can afford the amount are those engaged in medium to large scale companies.

“Inflation is now going down, slowly but surely and we are also increasing our employment rate. We should not introduce a problem that is not needed just to address a minority of our workers Ortiz-Luis said.

However, Senator Jinggoy Estrada said in his sponsorship speech that 4.2 million minimum wage earners in the private sector will benefit from the wage adjustment.

“While we recognize the wage hikes implemented recently by the regional wage boards, it appears that these have already been rendered useless because of the incessant increase in the prices of basic commodities,” said Estrada.