PH workers are so screwed

IT is so depressing that workers’ demonstrations, much less protest actions during the recent May 1 (“International Labor Day”) commemoration, were muted.

Filipino workers are the most exploited proletariat in comparable countries in the world, with labor’s share of national income diminishing from its 57 percent peak in 1950 to 45 percent in 2023, and average wage rising barely 10 percent in the past 16 years.

With such a crunch, it is a wonder there has been no social revolution in this country.

In fact the biggest lie told about the Philippine economy is that its growth has been benefiting Filipinos. It does not. For decades, we have built a system that expands output while keeping wages largely in check. The headline numbers improve, governments boast of resilience, and yet the incomes of those who actually generate that output barely move. That is not a temporary distortion or a policy mistake. It is the predictable outcome of how our economy is structured —and who controls it.

It also shows the real sad story of democratization triggered by EDSA I that ended the 13-year Marcos dictatorship. The decline in workers share of the national income, in fact, started after 1986. People Power in reality enhanced capitalist/landlord power.

The proof is in the simplest numbers. Average wage (indexed to 2010) rose to just 110 by 2025 while GDP per capita rose to 176. This means GDP per capita rose 76 percent. Wages rose barely 10 percent. That divergence is not noise. It is the central fact of the Philippine economy.

Labor share

It is the same sad story in terms of labor’s share of national income. From accounting for 57 percent in 1950, workers’ wages made up only 45 percent by 2023. Conversely, capital’s share expanded in the same period from 43 percent to 55 percent.

Computed by author from government data.

The apparent “intersection” around 1980 simply marks the moment when a long-running trend reached parity — before decisively tilting toward capital. From then on, the system ensured that capital would take an increasing share, while labor’s share declined.

This is not uniquely Filipino. It is the natural trajectory of capitalism: capital accumulates, concentrates and takes a larger share unless forced otherwise. The difference is that other countries built mechanisms to counterbalance this tendency. The Philippines did not.

Similarly, all capitalist economies exhibit some gap between productivity and wages, roughly the salary a worker gets and the value he produces. But the Philippines stands apart in scale. Others built mechanisms — industrialization, labor strength, tighter markets — that forced wages to follow productivity. The Philippines did not. The Philippines’ productivity-wage gap is highest in Southeast Asia, at 68 points, with Indonesia at a far second at 50 points.

Computed by author from government data.

The Philippines has built an economy that ensures wages will lag. It abandoned industrialization before it could mature and shifted to services — call centers, retail, construction — sectors that expand by hiring more workers at low wages rather than by raising pay. A call center grows by adding agents, not by doubling salaries. A mall expands by opening more outlets staffed by minimum-wage workers. Construction absorbs labor but does not permanently raise productivity. In such a system, output rises — but wages do not.

The labor market reinforces this outcome. The Philippines has a chronic oversupply of workers, as a result of poverty in the rural areas, especially in the dying coconut industry. Employers do not need to raise wages because labor is easily replaceable.

What is striking, however, is not just that labor is abundant, but that the institutions that should strengthen it have been weak or neutralized.

Lowest

Unionization in the Philippines is among the lowest in Asia. Only a small fraction of workers belong to unions, and collective bargaining covers an even smaller share. Workers negotiate individually, not collectively. In countries where labor is organized, wage increases are not granted — they are forced. In the Philippines, that force barely exists. I haven’t heard of the militant Kilusang Mayo Uno or the Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino in a long time. Former CPP (Communist Party of the Philippines) chairman Jose Ma. Sison even ordered the killing of these two organizations’ fiery leader Popoy Lagman. Gone are the likes of towering labor leaders like Crisanto Evangelista, Amado Hernandez, Felixberto Olalia Sr., Ernesto Herrera (the only labor leader who became a senator in the post-war era), and Crispin Beltran.

Instead, what passes for the “Left” today is championing not unionism, but the perpetuation in power of the Marcos clan, as evidenced in their support for the impeachment of Vice President Sara Duterte.

The contrast is stark. South Korea has institutionalized bargaining across industries. Malaysia and Singapore coordinate wage-setting mechanisms. Even Thailand maintains structures linking labor representation to wage outcomes. The Philippines stands out not simply for low unionization, but for its fragmentation and irrelevance in key sectors.

A most revealing fact, however, is not just that capital gets a larger share — but how few people divide that share. There are 50 million workers, claiming 45 percent of national income, while the top 750,000 capitalists and landlords mainly divide the remaining 55 percent of the GDP. The top 1 percent of the population of 750,000 earns 80 times more per person than the average worker; the top 0.1 percent earns 300 to 400 times more.

Put in concrete terms, the imbalance is staggering. A Filipino worker earns roughly P20,000 a month. That figure is often cited as proof of progress. It is not. The official poverty threshold for a family of five is about P13,000 to P15,000 monthly, which means P20,000 is only marginally above poverty — and that is before rent, transport, schooling and medical costs. Spread across a household, that income is not security; it is survival.

Compare

Now compare that with those who divide the capital share.

A member of the top 1 percent effectively captures the equivalent of P1.5 million to P2 million monthly. Move higher, and incomes rise from P5 million to P10 million for the top 0.1 percent, and P10 million or more for the small oligarchic core.

Let’s be more concrete: A recent report by Philstar columnist Iris Gonzalez on the Lopez clan dispute revealed that the top five ABS-CBN executives had salaries of P214 million in 2025 (P207 million in 2024). That translates to an average of P3.5 million per month per executive — for a company that lost P20 billion from 2020 to 2023. What if ABS-CBN was making a profit? Note those are averages, and the top honcho Gabby Lopez could be making P10 million a month.

Fifty million Filipinos on the average work for P20,000 a month. A few thousand collect P10 million. Our capitalism is worse than feudalism.

Ownership structures ensure this outcome. Key sectors — banking, utilities, real estate, retail, infrastructure — are controlled by a handful of conglomerates. In such a system, competition does not force wages up. Profits can expand without sharing gains.

At this point, one would expect Congress to confront these realities. It has not. How could it? In the first place the chairmen of the two committees on labor in the Congress don’t come from the working class nor have they been champions of it. Fidel Nograles at the House of Representatives is a corporate lawyer, while the chair at the Senate is know-nothing Jinggoy Estrada, who is now grappling with a second plunder charge.

Legislative

Legislative attention is repeatedly diverted to political spectacle and these days to Vice President Sara’s impeachment, while the fundamental issue — why growth does not translate into wages — remains unaddressed. Policies are often piecemeal: subsidies, token wage adjustments, temporary programs. These do not alter the structure. They merely soften its effects.

At the same time, public office itself has become entangled in the system of wealth concentration. The incentives are not aligned toward reform but toward participation in the existing order. Sen. Panfilo Lacson — who has cultivated a graft-free image that he has never accepted pork-barrel money — turns out to have quadrupled his net worth four times from P58 million in 2020 to P245 million in 2025. (https://ift.tt/xj1vfk3); that of Senate President Vicente Sotto grew from P78 million to P189 million, and President Marcos’ from P960 million to P1.4 billion, making him the country’s first billionaire president.

Even organizations claiming to represent workers have failed to counterbalance this structure. The Communist Party has turned out to be a fake party, focused on capturing political power rather than on building institutions to pressure wages to rise. Party-list groups that claim to be socialist or labor-oriented are in the forefront of the impeachment moves against Sara Duterte.

In the 1970s, analysts described the Philippines as a “social volcano,” a society on the brink because of inequality. Sacadas — seasonal sugar cane workers — dramatized the inequitable distribution of wealth. Today, day laborers — which make up the vast number of workers — are urban sacadas. Today wealth is more concentrated, the gap between productivity and wages is wider, and wage stagnation is more entrenched. If the country was volatile then, it is more so now.

History suggests that such conditions do not remain stable. When growth is not shared, it produces political backlash. As American economist and former labor secretary Robert Reich has argued, the widening gap between productivity and wages helped fuel discontent and contributed to the rise of populist politics, including the movement led by Donald Trump.

The Philippines now faces a similar trajectory, but with weaker institutions and deeper structural inequality. The Philippine economy has not failed. It has succeeded — in producing growth that concentrates gains and suppresses wages. What’s the use of a nation if its production benefits only a very small few?

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PH workers are so screwed
Source: Breaking News PH