“Sahod itaas! Presyo ibaba!” But as chants demanding fair wages and economic justice echo through our streets this Labor day, a different kind of labor continues in silence. Millions of Filipinas and gender-diverse workers start their day not with placards, but with pots, laundry, and unpaid care duties. Tasks the world depends on, yet refuses to value.


Amid calls for a ₱200 daily wage increase, a bigger question looms: is it truly enough, and is it sustainable? While the proposal reflects the desperation of workers facing stagnant wages and rising prices, economic anxieties threaten to stall it. Small and medium enterprises (SMEs), which make up 99.6% of Philippine businesses, warn that abrupt wage hikes could result in layoffs or closures, especially as global market pressures and new U.S. tariffs further stoke inflation fears.

President Marcos Jr.  responded by citing that 16 Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Boards have already acted on wage hike petitions. The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), in turn, defended the President’s absence from labor dialogues, claiming that his cabinet secretaries are advancing the administration’s pro-worker agenda. Meanwhile, ​DOLE-7 regional director Roy Buenafe  emphasized the need for careful review, noting that sudden wage increases might harm the very workers they're meant to protect by crippling SMEs and raising unemployment.

Still, these discussions rarely account for the labor force whose contributions remain largely unmeasured and uncompensated: unpaid caregivers, disproportionately   women and LGBTQIA++ individuals. These Filipinos perform life-sustaining work without contracts or wages, in homes. Behind every hot meal, clean uniform, or healed fever is an invisible stitch: the quiet labor of women, mothers, grandmothers, queer siblings, and gender-diverse caregivers. Their hands mend clothes, soothe wounds, watch over children and aging parents, all while carrying emotional, physical, and financial burdens. These acts of care are essential. And yet, they remain economically invisible—relegated to the background like the stitches that hold our lives together. And yet, it is largely ignored, unmeasured in our GDP, and overwhelmingly shouldered by women and LGBTQIA++ individuals. They remain absent from policy discussions about wage reform and labor justice.

This is not mere erasure. It is exploitation. 

Labor is gendered and so is exploitation.

From the quiet exhaustion of care workers in homes and hospitals to the calloused hands that harvest sugarcane in Negros or sew garments in Cavite’s export processing zones, feminized labor forms the backbone of the very economy that neglects them. In the Philippines, 7 out of 10 unpaid family workers are women. They silently sustain livelihoods, maintain households, and fill the gaps left by a broken social safety net without formal compensation or protection. Despite being overrepresented in essential sectors such as care, retail, and education, women continue to earn significantly less than men. On average, a Filipino woman earns only 77.9% of what their male counterparts do. 

The margins grow even thinner for LGBTQIA++ workers. Many are funneled into creative or service industries, not always by choice, but because prejudice blocks access to leadership, technical, and professional roles. Trans women are denied jobs outright. Queer individuals face harassment or are passed over for promotions. The result? A tragic underutilization of talent and a national loss of productivity.

Even as the Philippine Statistics Authority reports a dip in unemployment to 3.8%, this masks the precarity of the reality that many workers face: job quantity may improve, but job quality, especially for women and gender minorities, remains poor. Many remain trapped in informal, low-wage, or contractual work without job security or social protection.

This is why we must demand more than a blanket wage hike. We need sustainable, inclusive labor reforms that recognize the full spectrum of Filipino labor experiences. One-size-fits-all policies fail to reflect the precarity of millions. The International Labour Organization (ILO) affirms that the care economy, dominated by women, remains grossly undervalued and underinvested in, despite being essential for sustainable development. A UN Women–ILO initiative highlights that gender-responsive macroeconomic policies and public investment in care infrastructure are key to unlocking women’s economic potential.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) similarly argues that inclusive labor markets are not only fair but are more efficient. Labor policies must account for access, fairness, protection, and worker voice. Anything less is incomplete. Workplace inclusion isn’t just an ethical imperative—it’s a matter of economic survival and national resilience.

Fighting for workers’ rights must mean fighting for gender justice.

To ignore the gendered dimension of labor is to reinforce the very systems that devalue work done by women and LGBTQIA++ individuals. Capitalism thrives on unpaid or “cheap” labor. Labor that is gendered, racialized, and often hidden. Patriarchy sustains this hierarchy by glorifying "masculine" work (physical, technical, managerial) while demeaning the “feminized” (care, emotion, and service) values and roles often associated with women and queer people, even as society heavily relies upon these.

If we are serious about building a just economy, then we must confront how the labor systems punish gender expression, reward conformity, and ignore life-sustaining labor.

So this Labor Day, we must expand the conversation. It is not enough to say “sahod itaas, presyo ibaba.” We must ask: Whose labor are we recognizing? Whose labor are we ignoring? Who gets paid, and who pays with their silence, sweat, and suffering?

We must end contractualization, which disproportionately affects women and queer workers in retail, education, and hospitality. We must pass the SOGIE Equality Bill  with full enforcement power—a measure that has languished in Congress for over two decades. We must ensure safe, inclusive workplaces that uphold dignity over discrimination. We must smash the glass ceilings that keeps LGBTQIA++ Filipinos from leadership roles and open all industries to all identities without prejudice. 

When we uplift the most marginalized among us, we build a stronger, fairer future. One where every Filipino, regardless of gender identity, is seen not as surplus labor, but as a full human being.

We cannot claim to fight for justice while enabling systems that punish gender expression, reward conformity, and devalue life-sustaining labor to remain intact.

Today, let us raise our fists not just for the visible, unionized laborers, but for the domestic helper in Quezon City, the trans performer in Manila, the queer designer in Cebu, and the single mother from your barangay who shoulders it all, unseen and unpaid.

Work is a right for all genders.

Care is work. Work deserves justice.

Recognize all labor. Demand justice now.