TACLOBAN CITY- The proposed new wage order for workers in the region has yet to be approved by the National Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board (NTWPB).
However, it might just come before the end of the month or first week of February, Reynaldo Soliveres, regional director of the Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity (RTWPB), said in an interview.
“The central office is carefully studying the proposed wage order to ensure that this will not result to any diminution of benefits and salaries,(of the workers),” Soliveres said.
“But we expect a high possibility that they will approve it. So, if they can have the meeting early, we expect this will be approved within the end of January of early February,” he added.
Under the proposed wage order, contained under Wage Order Number 19, workers in the region are to receive an increase of P10 to P25 of their daily minimum wage.
The increase amount will depend on the sector and the number of workers.
At present, private workers of the region receives P260 as daily minimum wage.
Based on the proposed Wage Order Number 19, establishments with 10 workers and below are expected to have an increase of P10 of their daily minimum wage while those with 11 workers but not more than 30 are expected to have an increase of P15 a day while those with 31 and above workers could receive an increase of P25.
A P7 cost of living allowance (Cola) contained of the 2015 wage order is also to be put in effect under the proposed wage order.
Soliveres said that varying increases of daily minimum came about in response to the impacts of supertyphoon “Yolanda” that hit the industries in the region.
“We classified the industries and we also provided corresponding increases based on the categories because based on the data from NEDA (National Economic and Development Authority) and PSA (Philippine Statistics Authority), region 8 has yet to fully recover from the onslaught of Yolanda,” Soliveres said.
The proposal to have a new wage hike was a “moto propio” act by the wage board in the hope that workers in the private sector could live decently while at the same time, without compromising the financial capacity of the establishments.
“The employers are supportive on this proposed wage order (as evidenced) during our consultations and public hearings,” Soliveres said.
Once approved by their central office, the proposed wage order will be published in a regional newspaper and will take effect 15 days after the publication. (JOEY A. GABIETA)

GOVERNMENT CENTER, PALO, Leyte- There will be no condom distribution in any school here in the region.
This was assured by a health official saying that there is no reason- as of now- for Eastern Visayas to be included among areas in the country where condom would be distributed in high schools.
“Eastern Visayas is not among the regions identified by the Department of Health where condoms will be distributed in schools,”Boyd Cerro, regional chief of the epidemiology and surveillance unit, said.
Cerro said that the planned condom distributions in schools will only be done in regions where cases of HIV-AIDS are high just like those in the National Capital Region.
And in the case of Eastern Visayas, its HIV-AIDS cases only account “less than 1 percent of the total cases of the country.”
The planned distribution of condoms by the DOH is part of its effort to address the growing HIV-AIDS cases of the country.
However, the Church has expressed its opposition to the plan saying it could encourage the youth, in particular, to engage in premarital sex.
Cerro said that since the department started tracking down the HIV-AIDS cases in the country in 1984, Eastern Visayas has only 370 such cases.
But the health official admitted that the HIV-AIDS cases in the region are increasing.
Last year, 84 individuals were detected to have acquired the disease transmitted mainly due to sex.
“But the (84 cases) were the only ones that we in the department have monitored. The number could be higher considering that there are those who did not report to our office,” Cerro said.
Last year, about six individuals died due to the complications caused by the virus.
The last to have died due to the disease was in December.
In 2015, there were about 89 cases with eight deaths.
Cerro said that the rise of HIV-AIDS in the region was traced to “risky sexual behavior” of those who acquired the disease.
Risky sexual behavior refers to having multiple sex partners and without using protection like condom.
“But what is saddening is those who acquired it were still young or from 15 to 24 years old,” he said.
Cerro advised those who engage in risky sexual activities to stop it if they could do it. Otherwise, he suggested for them to use condom or abstain from engaging in sex.
(JOEY A. GABIETA)

ORMOC CITY- A 16 year old boy accidentally shot another 13 year old boy inside a farm house in this city on the night of December 30.
The victim, whose name was withheld, was hit on his stomach by the suspect, identified only as Wilson, who works as a guard of a farm house located in Barangay Sabang Bao, this city.
The mother of the boy, Marites Mahinay, also works in the same farm house owned by Gravila Rele.
Based on the investigation of the Ormoc city police, the victim was playing the caliber 38 gun reportedly owned by the 16 year old.
But upon seeing the boy playing his gun, the suspect grabbed it but he accidentally pulled the trigger, hitting the boy at his right stomach. He was immediately brought to the Ormoc District Hospital for treatment where the suspect was arrested by the police.
While the incident happened on the night of December 30, the mother of the victim reported it only on the following day, Inspector Rito Pallomina, chief of the police station 2, said. It was not clear how the suspect obtained the gun.
It was learned from Pallomina that they would file appropriate charges against the suspect.
(ELVIE ROMAN ROA)