“Having a job is not the same as having enough”. So, the General Alliance of Workers Association (GAWA) is demanding for Emergency Wage Subsidy and ‘ayuda’ inclusion.
GAWA issued yesterday a formal letter of protest condemning the national government’s continued exclusion of private minimum wage earners from emergency cash assistance or ‘ayuda’ despite the prevailing economic crisis.
GAWA secretary general Wennie Sancho signed the protest on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of factory workers, sales personnel, security guards, janitorial staff, fast-food crew, BPO agents and other private sector employees earning statutory minimum wage in NIR and Western Visayas.
While workers in the transport sector, farmers and fisherfolks have received targeted subsidies and cash assistance in 2025-2026 to cushion fuel, fertilizer, and climate-related shocks, minimal wage earners have been categorically disqualified on the sole basis of employment status. GAWA asserts that this violates the principle of equal protection under Article III Section I of the 1987 Constitution.
Due to the erosion of their purchasing power, the current P550 per day daily minimum wage in Western Visayas has an effective real value of P412.50 due to cumulative inflation driven by energy cost, transport fare hike and food prices.
GAWA maintains that minimum wage earners bear the same burden of increase in commodity prices, electricity rates, and transportation cost as other sectors. The policy of using “employment” as a disqualification criterion penalizes formal tax-compliant labor and creates a perverse incentive towards informality.
In observance of Labor Day and pursuant to the State’s duty under Article XIII Sec. 3 of the Constitution to “afford full protection to labor”, GAWA respectfully demands the immediate inclusion of all private minimum wage earners in all ongoing and future AYUDA programs retractive to Q1 2026 in Western Visayas.
GAWA stressed: The government cannot invoke “employment” as a proof of sufficiency when the minimum wage no longer satisfies the basic needs of a family of five as defined by NEDA itself. To grant aid to one sector and deny it to another, when both suffer the same inflationary impact, is neither just nor constitutional.
Labor Day is not a holiday for speeches. It is a reckoning. If the State recognizes labor as a primary social economic force, then it must protect labor with resources, not rhetoric. GAWA puts the government on notice: minimum wage earners are not invisible. We are not resilient. We are running out of means. The government must act now.
This protest is filed without prejudice to other legal and administrative remedies available to workers under existing labor laws and statutes. The letter will be addressed to the President of the Philippines, His Excellency Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., considered by GAWA as “An Open Letter of Protest and Indignant on Labor Day”.*
