The General Alliance of Workers Association (GAWA) issued a formal letter of protest on Friday, May 1, condemning the national government for excluding private minimum wage earners from emergency cash assistance, or “ayuda,” despite the ongoing economic crisis.
GAWA Secretary General Wennie Sancho, signed the protest on behalf of hundreds of thousands of private sector employees in the Negros Island Region (NIR) and Western Visayas on Labor Day, a press statement from GAWA said.
The “Open Letter of Protest and Indignation,” is addressed to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., he said.
The labor group asserted that this exclusion violates the principle of equal protection under Article III, Section 1 of the 1987 Constitution.
“The government cannot invoke ’employment’ as proof of sufficiency when the minimum wage no longer satisfies the basic needs of a family of five,” Sancho said.
He added that the current policy penalizes tax-compliant workers and creates a “perverse incentive” for laborers to move into the informal economy.
The group is demanding the immediate inclusion of all private minimum wage earners in ongoing and future “ayuda” programs, with the assistance being retroactive to the first quarter of 2026.
Sancho noted that the protest is without prejudice to other legal and administrative remedies, warning that Labor Day should be a “reckoning” rather than a holiday for speeches.
The group called on the state to protect labor with actual resources rather than rhetoric, stating that workers are “running out of means”.*
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