Photo: Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board-National Capital Region
MANILA (September 22) — FOR Metro Manila’s minimum wage families, the stalled wage increase is no longer just a labor dispute or court case—it is ₱3.3 billion in income that labor groups say has not reached workers’ households.
That money could have paid for food, daily transportation, medicine and school expenses, but workers have yet to receive the first ₱60 tranche of the latest NCR wage increase.
The Nagkaisa Labor Coalition estimates that about 1.1 million minimum wage earners have collectively missed around ₱3.3 billion in additional wages from July 25 to September 21, or 50 working days excluding holidays.
That is roughly ₱3,000 per worker during the period.
The question now confronting government, employers and the courts is not only when the wage increase will take effect, but how long workers and their families can be made to wait for income already granted under a wage order.
A wage increase approved—then stopped
The Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board-NCR issued Wage Order No. NCR-27 on June 23, 2026, granting a total ₱85 daily increase in Metro Manila’s minimum wage.
The order was published on July 9 and was scheduled to take effect on July 25.
Its implementation was deliberately phased:
· July 25, 2026 — ₱60 increase
· January 20, 2027 — additional ₱25 increase
The first tranche would have raised the daily minimum wage for non-agricultural workers from ₱695 to ₱755, with the full ₱85 increase eventually bringing it to ₱780.
But before workers could receive the increase, the Pasig City Regional Trial Court Branch 152 issued a preliminary injunction stopping implementation of NCR-27.
The wage order has therefore not simply been “delayed.” A wage adjustment approved through the regional wage-setting process was scheduled for implementation, then became the subject of a court injunction.
The cost of waiting
Nagkaisa said the continuing injunction has a direct household cost.
Every day the ₱60 increase remains unavailable means money that workers cannot use for necessities while household expenses continue to accumulate.
“While the wage hike implementation remains pending, expenses continue to pile up,” Nagkaisa said, describing the estimated ₱3.3 billion as money that could have gone toward food, transportation, medicine and tuition.
The figure turns an otherwise technical wage-and-court dispute into a concrete measure of what workers say they are losing while implementation remains suspended.
Workers demand answers
The delay also brought Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) members to the Department of Labor and Employment main office Monday afternoon.
The labor group staged a lightning rally demanding action on the wage increase and criticized DOLE’s handling of the stalled order.
KMU accused Labor Secretary Francis Tolentino and the government of blocking what it described as an inadequate wage increase amid a severe economic crisis.
The accusation is part of KMU’s position and was not independently established in the information provided.
For workers, however, the immediate concern is measurable: the ₱60 increase was supposed to start July 25, but the first tranche remains unpaid.
And while the court challenge moves forward, the bills do not stop.
Food still has to be bought. Workers still have to commute. Medicines still have to be paid for. Children still have to stay in school.
For minimum wage families, the continuing delay is therefore not an abstract question of wage policy. It is a question of who bears the cost while government decisions and court proceedings run their course.
