The past weeks saw various protests against the impending hikes on train fares in Metro Manila, aggravated by the simultaneous hikes in other transport services, from toll rates to taxi fares, and hikes in basic commodities, from fuel to milk, to bread. Public utilities (controlled by private companies) are also set to increase their rates in electricity and water. In the next few weeks, schools are seen to propose increases in tuition and other fees, as they do annually this time of the year. All these hikes are under the willing sanction of the government, in the name of free market dogma and hypocrisy of neoliberal economics.

On the other hand, while the government accommodates all attempts at raising prices of services and commodities, it is adamant at insisting that wage increase is untimely thereby forcing millions of Filipino families against the wall as they cope and make do with their meager wages. With rising prices of commodities and services, the cost of daily living in Metro Manila is expected to breach the P1,000.00 per family (of six) per day threshold, while the minimum wage remains stunted at P404.00, often violated by profit-hungry businesses with the exceptions granted by the government. If you’ve heard about the death of the ten construction workers in Makati, you also ought to know that they were reportedly only being paid P260.00 a day. Watch this case study made by GMA 7″²s Saksi of a gasoline boy who earns P7,700 a month but has to spend an additional P700 if the hike on train fare continues jacking up his monthly expenses to P8,800. Hindi ko alam saan niya kukunin ang kulang. Wala pa diyan ang ibang price hikes.

Notwithstanding the legitimate grievances of small and medium enterprises, big businesses controlled by multinational and local tycoons and landlords are feigning imagined and prospective losses in order to justify their unreasonable refusal to any proposal to increase wages. At the same time, however, you see them posting record profits and reporting billions of pesos in overseas investments in business papers. Government even claimed that the economy grew by more than 7% last year. Business is booming, but ah, how odd, isn’t it hunger incidence is on the rise. It is a fact, in the present order, everything is in the interest of capital, everything is laid on the altar of free market economics and profit. There’s a reason minimum wage is minimum. Workers’ share in the wealth of an industry is kept to the barest minimum, an amount enough to keep a worker in threshold of survival, just enough to make him survive a for a day to be able to go back to work the next. There’s a reason wage is called “˜sahod’ in Filipino. Sumasahod lang ang manggagawa sa kung ano nag matitirang mumo while profiteers feast on the wealth that the workers have created.

As with any situation, the government is supposed to balance the interests of all parties concerned. In this kind of situation, however, where balancing of interests will inevitably lead to the irreconcilable contradiction between public service and private profit, the choice of a genuinely pro-people government should be clear. Ordinary people have unjustly been compromised long enough.