Ecop, exporters warn of fallout from wage hike By Andrea E. San Juan @andreasanjuan
& Jovee Marie N. Dela Cruz @joveemarie
E
THE WORLD »A14
PENTAGON TO GIVE UKRAINE $300M IN WEAPONS EVEN AS IT LACKS FUNDS TO REPLENISH STOCKPILE
ROTARY CLUB OF MANILA JOURNALISM AWARDS
2006 National Newspaper of the Year 2011 National Newspaper of the Year 2013 Business Newspaper of the Year 2017 Business Newspaper of the Year 2019 Business Newspaper of the Year 2021 Pro Patria Award PHILIPPINE STATISTICS AUTHORITY 2018 Data Champion
MPLOYERS and exporters on Wednesday expressed reservations regarding the proposed national wage hike, saying it could widen existing inequalities across various sectors of the Philippine economy, while making it harder for business to recover prepandemic growth levels. In his position presented during the hearing of the House Committee on Labor and Employment, Employers Confederation of the Philippines (ECOP) Director-General Jose Roland Moya underscored the potential risks the proposed wage hike poses to the vast majority of workers in the informal economy, which con-
stitutes approximately 80 percent of the Philippine workforce. For its part, the Philippine Exporters Confederation Inc. (Philexport) warned the government against imposing an increase in the minimum wage. While Philippine exports rebounded in January and are poised to grow this year on the back of electronics, mining and service exports, the wage hike could dampen the growth of the country’s earnings from outbound shipments, the group said. Despite the country’s earnings from outbound shipments posting a 9.1 percent growth in the first month of the year, Philexport President Sergio R. Ortiz-Luis Jr. told this paper that hiking the minimum wage can affect exports as it would hit the manufacturing sector and the supply chain. To sustain the trend of the country’s ex-
ports, the Philexport chief warned against such hike saying, “Huwag lang sila magkakamali tataasan ’yung minimum wage, magkakalokoloko na naman ’yun. ’Yung inflation natin. Kasi ’yung mga manufacturing tatamaan eh. Tsaka ’yung supply chain.” In contrast, the country’s service exports could be a bright spot amid economic headwinds. “Service exports, notably IT-BPM, are typically more resilient during economic slumps, less impacted by supply chain issues and manufacturing slowdowns,” Ibpap told the BUSINESSMIRROR in a Viber message. Pending in the lower chamber, House Bill 514 and HB 7871 proposed a P150 daily increase, while HB 7568 pushed for a P750 acrossthe-board increase. The Senate recently approved on third and
final reading a bill for a P100 hike. Moya underscored the potential risks the proposed wage hike poses to majority of workers in the informal economy, including street vendors, home-based workers, domestic workers, construction laborers, informal transport workers, and agricultural workers. “These are just a few examples, and the informal sector in the Philippines is diverse and encompasses a wide range of occupations and activities. Common challenges across these sectors include job insecurity, low wages, long working hours, limited social protection, inadequate safety standards, and lack of access to benefits,” he said. Moya emphasized that while the formal sector might benefit from the proposed increase, it could widen existing inequalities. Continued on A
BusinessMirror
EJAP JOURNALISM AWARDS
BUSINESS NEWS SOURCE OF THE YEAR (2017, 2018, 2019, 2020) DEPARTMENT OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
2018 BANTOG MEDIA AWARDS
A broader look at today’s business
www.businessmirror.com.ph
Q
Thursday, March 14, 2024 Vol. 19 No. 151
P. nationwide | sections pages | 7 DAYS A WEEK
RECTO VOWS BALANCE BETWEEN TAX, GROWTH Butch Fernandez
BSP to banks: Put national ID atop list of govt IDs
@butchfBM
& Reine Juvierre Alberto @reine_alberto
A
S expected, Finance Secretary Ralph G. Recto breezed through his confirmation hearing on Wednesday, as he vowed to work closely with lawmakers in ensuring tough scrutiny of revenue measures and plugging leakages, while financing growth and investing enough in human development.
In his opening statement where he addressed the cochairmen of the CA panel handling his nomination, Recto, himself a threeterm congressman and senator, defined his job briefly: “While his job requires a Finance secretary to be a dealer of hope, he must also be a teller of truth.” He assured lawmakers that the “revenue measures we have sent to Congress comply with that maxim. They maximize the gains, minimize the pain, institute fairness and fiscal consolidation.” Being a former lawmaker himself, he said he well understood the instinct of the legislature that “for every tax proposal, your immediate reaction is not of ratification, but restraint.” However, he indicated he and his DOF team and all other relevant agencies were willing to defend each measure. He expressed hope that “together we can develop strategies to efficiently mobilize fiscal resources and prevent leakages so we can finance growth, manage debt and protect our people in these challenging times. All these, while sustaining investments in infrastructure and human capital development.” On inflation, which continues to stay the hand of monetary authorities, “we will continue to employ measures that will shield consumers, especially the vulnerable, from the pain of elevated prices,” Recto said. After all, he added, “inflation is an unlegislated tax the people should not bear. But in my mind, the best way to inculcate tax obedience is
By Cai U. Ordinario
T
FINANCE Secretary Ralph Recto gestures as if to show thanks to members of the bicameral Commission on Appointments which swiftly acted on his nomination as new DOF chief in a hearing on Wednesday, March 13, 2024, at the Senate Session Hall, where he once served three terms as senator. ROY DOMINGO
HE Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said banks and other BSP-supervised financial institutions (BSFIs) should place the national ID at the top of the list of acceptable government IDs. In a statement, the BSP said measures must be enhanced to ensure the broad acceptance of the PhilID as a valid and sufficient proof of identity and age in all financial transactions, subject to authentication. BSFIs, BSP said, may use the PhilSys Check identity authentication tool to verify if the data stored in the QR code match the information printed on the face of the ID. “The BSP has identified the national ID as a driver of financial inclusion in the country by serving as proof of identity for opening formal transaction accounts,” the BSP said in a statement. Meanwhile, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) welcomed the issuance released by the BSP to prioritize the PhilID and ePhilID in the list of accepted IDs in financial transactions. “We, at the PSA, express our appreciation for the continued support of institutions in the acceptance of PhilIDs and ePhilIDs,” said PSA Undersecretary Claire Dennis S. Mapa, PhD, National Statistician and Civil Registrar General. “In the same way that we encourage registered persons to utilize their PhilID or ePhilID in their transactions, we also urge our relying parties to honor the IDs issued by the Philippine Identification System [PhilSys] as valid proof of identity in their establishments,” he explained. The BSP, through Memorandum No. 2024See “BSP,” A
GAS HYDRATES DETECTED IN MANILA TRENCH By Jonathan L. Mayuga @jonlmayuga
A
TEAM from the UP Diliman College of Science National Institute of Geological Science (UPD-CS NIGS) has discovered evidence of gas hydrates, potentially a great alternative energy source but also posing a geologic and environmental threat, in the Manila Trench in the Pacific Ocean. Elisha Jane Maglalang, Dr. Leo Armada, Madeleine Santos, Karla May Sayen, and Dr. Carla Dimalanta believe that gas hydrates may be abundant in an area the size of Palawan island in the Manila Trench which is located west of the islands of Luzon and Mindoro. Their study is the first to investigate these substances in Philippine trenches, pioneering gas hydrate research in the country. The trench reaches a depth of about 5,400 meters, in contrast with the average depth of
the South China Sea of about 1,500 meters. The scientists explained that much like carbonated drinks are water infused with carbon dioxide, gas hydrates are ice mostly infused with methane, a natural gas used as fuel. Gas hydrates are ice-like substances that usually only form beneath the seafloor, where the pressure is high and the temperature is just below the water’s freezing point of 0°C. Because gas hydrates contain huge amounts of carbon and methane, they can be a great alternative energy source. “The western Philippines has vast potential for this unconventional energy resource,” the researchers said in a statement. They discovered that a total area of around 15,400 square kilometers in the Manila Trench, or about the size of Palawan, could contain gas hydrates. They estimate these substances might be around 200 to 500 meters below the seafloor.
A potential geologial and environment theat GAS hydrates can be a geologic and environmental threat. Gas hydrates are unstable solids and will dissociate and melt when the conditions in which they form change, usually during earthquakes. “Worryingly, the Manila Trench is an active margin, responsible for numerous earthquakes in Western Luzon. When gas hydrates melt, it will agitate the seafloor, possibly triggering submarine landslides and tsunamis,” the scientists said. Moreover, methane can harm the environment when released into the atmosphere. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming, and just one cubicmeter block of gas hydrate contains as many as Continued on A
See “Recto,” A
PESO EXCHANGE RATES US 55.4000 Q JAPAN 0.3753 Q UK 70.8954 Q HK 7.0813 Q SINGAPORE 41.5853 Q AUSTRALIA 36.5972 Q SAUDI ARABIA 14.7717 Q EU 60.5411 Q KOREA 0.0423 Q CHINA 7.7126 Source: BSP (March 13, 2024)