This policy brief evaluates the effectiveness of the Philippine minimum wage-setting framework under Republic Act No. 6727 amid heightened inflation. It weighs the trade-offs between proposed national legislated wage hikes and decentralized adjustments managed by the Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Boards. Based on labor data and input-output simulations, the study indicates that an across-the-board legislated national wage hike would inevitably have adverse outcomes on employment, inflation, and economic growth. Yet the current regional system has demonstrably failed to keep pace with the rising cost of living, leaving millions of workers with stagnant or eroding purchasing power. The brief therefore advocates for a genuinely responsive wage policy system to strengthen worker welfare and preserve business viability. This approach proposes phased, regionally calibrated adjustments targeting high-capacity hubs and areas with severe real wage erosion; limited inflation indexation to prevent future wage erosion; time-bound credit and productivity support for micro, small, and medium enterprises; targeted social safety nets to protect displaced and informal workers; and a real-time monitoring and evaluation dashboard to ensure minimum wage policy remains highly adaptive to changing economic conditions.