MANILA, Philippines — Labor groups on Monday urged the Supreme Court to settle the legal dispute over the P60 wage increase in Metro Manila after a Pasig court issued a preliminary injunction blocking its implementation.
The Federation of Free Workers (FFW) and NAGKAISA Labor Coalition welcomed the government's move to seek reconsideration of the Aug. 13 preliminary injunction issued by Pasig Regional Trial Court Branch 152 against NCR Wage Order No. 27.
They also asked the Supreme Court to act on their pending Petition for Certiorari and Prohibition, which questions whether a regional trial court may stop a wage order despite the existing wage-setting and review process.
The groups' planned filing before the Supreme Court was postponed Monday because of bad weather.
“The filing was delayed by the rain, not the fight. A pleading can wait for better weather more easily than a minimum-wage worker can wait for the P60 needed for food, transportation and medicine,” FFW and NAGKAISA said.
FFW and NAGKAISA also welcomed what they described as Labor Secretary Francis Tolentino's initiative to personally push for the government's motion for reconsideration.
“It is better to personally file a motion than simply be sad about it — because the P60 needs a legal defender, not merely sympathy,” the groups said.
The labor groups also pointed to a separate proceeding before Navotas Regional Trial Court Branch 287 involving the same wage order, warning that different courts could issue conflicting provisional rulings.
“There is already a pathway established by law: the Wage Board sets the wage, while the NWPC is the statutory avenue for review. But the RTC intervened. Now, there is not just one — there is Pasig and there is Navotas,” the groups said.
The groups urged the Supreme Court to provide a definitive ruling on the dispute.
“One Wage Order, one fundamental jurisdictional question, one authoritative answer,” they said.
