Unfortunately, this is the sad reality for most Filipinos.
At this point, we really can’t blame those who are now choosing to work either abroad or remotely due to high transportation costs and low wages in the Philippines. In a recent post on popular Facebook group, some local employees expressed their dismay at the uneven ratio of ‘pamasahe’ (fares) to ‘sweldo’ (salary), causing them to feel underpaid by their companies and undervalued by the government.
On popular Facebook group ‘How’s Your Byahe, Bes’ (HYBB), a user posted his experience on September 18th and explained how much money he always spends when going to work while receiving a low monthly salary.
“May mas worse pa bang daily fare sa akin? 70php for bus and 20php for LRT. 180 Daily fare. Whahahahaha tapos sahod na 20k+ lang [Is there a worse daily fare than mine? 70 PHP for the bus and 20 PHP for the LRT. 180 daily fare. Whahahahaha, and I only earn a salary of 20k+],” he said.
Shortly after, other group members flocked to the comment section and shared their sentiments regarding the issue. See some of the comments:
The Philippine Statistics Authority reported in 2020 that there are about a million minimum wage earners in NCR and 24 million all over the country. Yet, more than 800,000 employees and 8 million workers are paid below the minimum.
Despite the ongoing complaints, no concrete solutions for this problem have been proposed yet — which means Filipino workers might just have to wing it for now, and possibly again, in the coming years.
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