Readycon Trading and Construction Corp., the construction firm behind a court order that froze Metro Manila’s P85 minimum wage hike, was named months earlier in a congressman’s corruption exposé linking it to one of the country’s biggest government contractors, Rep. Edwin Gardiola.
On July 23, Readycon went to the Pasig City Regional Trial Court seeking to block NCR Wage Order No. 27, contending that the increase—P60 effective July 25, with another P25 beginning January 2027—was beyond its capacity to pay. The presiding judge granted a temporary restraining order on July 30, a move labor groups have condemned as illegal.
This isn’t the first time Readycon has drawn scrutiny. In November 2025, Batangas 1st District Rep. Leandro Leviste accused Gardiola of “pre-ordering” more than P20 billion in Department of Public Works and Highways contracts ahead of the 2025 national budget. Among the projects on Leviste’s list, which he said originated from the DPWH, was a P514.25-million road project in Tuy, Batangas, awarded to Readycon.
Leviste said the Tuy project, though sitting in his own district, was “proposed by and implemented for Gardiola,” a claim he attributed to DPWH officials and to Gardiola himself. He described Gardiola as “the top DPWH contractor in Congress today,” saying the finding could be “the missing link” the Ombudsman and the Independent Commission for Infrastructure need to establish bid-rigging.
The TRO came despite President Bongbong Marcos reaffirming in his fifth State of the Nation Address his administration’s push to raise wages nationwide through regional wage boards.
The order has drawn strong pushback from workers, who staged protests outside both the Pasig RTC and the Department of Labor and Employment, joined by lawmakers from across the political spectrum. Twenty-one senators, spanning both the majority and minority blocs, have likewise united to demand the order’s immediate lifting.
Article 126 of the Labor Code, as amended by Republic Act No. 6727, bars courts and other bodies from issuing injunctions or restraining orders against proceedings before the National Wages and Productivity Commission and regional wage boards.
