A group of freshman lawmakers in the House of Representatives is forming a bloc to advocate for legislation that would abolish regional wage boards and establish a uniform daily pay for workers across Metro Manila and the provinces.

House Bill 55, or the proposed “Equal Pay for Equal Work Act,” aims to close the significant gap in daily take-home pay between private sector employees in the capital and those in other regions by instituting a standard, national basic wage.

This would mean provincial workers, regardless of their location, would receive the same daily minimum wage as their counterparts in Metro Manila.

Currently, the daily minimum salary for private workers in Metro Manila is P695, following a P50 increase approved by the National Capital Region Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board (RTWPB) on 30 June which took effect 18 July.

Each region in the Philippines has its own RTWPB, created under the Wage Rationalization Act (RA 6727), which sets minimum wage rates based on factors like the cost of living in each area.

Due to the generally lower cost of living in most provinces compared to the National Capital Region, provincial workers often receive substantially lower wages despite performing similar labor.

For instance, the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao has the lowest minimum wage at P361, significantly less than the economic think tank IBON Foundation’s estimated daily family living wage of at least P1,200.

Albay Representative Raymond Adrian Salceda, the bill’s proponent, stated it is “high time” to end these “regional disparities” by establishing a single national basic wage as the statutory floor applicable across all regions.

He revealed ongoing discussions among first-term lawmakers to form a coalition, tentatively dubbed the “Fair Wage Bloc,” to build support for the bill’s passage in Congress.

“We are already talking to other freshmen. I do not have to lead this. What matters is that we have a bloc, formal or informal, that consistently pushes this forward,” Salceda said, adding he expects the bloc to have “a good enough number” of members.

If passed, the bill mandates a gradual adjustment of wages in each region over five years until they conform to the set national basic wage.