The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
President Aquino will leave his successor with P6.4 trillion in national government outstanding debt, P4.16 trillion of it in borrowings made during his term, according to the fiscal watchdog, said the Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC), a budget watchdog.
Equally divided among the projected 103 million population this year, each Filipino, including the newborns, would have an outstanding debt of P66,486.26 —including P4,251 in government-guaranteed debts.
“Aquino not only failed to curb the country’s poverty and debt burden; he also turned out to be the biggest loan addict, and was a total failure in addressing the Philippines’s entrapment in a cycle of debt dependence,” the FDC said.
By the watchdog’s figures, Mr. Aquino has even eclipsed former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo as the biggest borrower among the country’s Chief Executives, from 1986 to the present, despite Arroyo’s being in power for nine years.
The FDC said this unresolved debt problem has resulted in the government’s failure to meet its obligations to the people, or social debt as a percentage of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP).
FDC said Mr. Aquino’s social debt in education and health alone already amounts to P7 trillion.
“Philippine leaders since 1986 have merely continued this dependence on debt and non-prioritization of the welfare of the people because of blind adherence to prescriptions of country and multilateral lenders. It is time for us, the voters, to rise up and stage an electoral insurgency against debt and its role in perpetuating poverty and inequality,” the FDC said.
The FDC demands the repeal of the automatic appropriations for debt servicing, repeal of the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (Epira), tax and fiscal justice to ensure priority government spending for the people’s needs and welfare, climate justice, and housing and essential public services.
Dr. Walden Bello, who resigned as a legislator in protest of Mr. Aquino’s alleged double standards, said it is “criminal” that debt payments get the first cut in the national budget before appropriations are made for social and economic services.
“This vicious cycle of debt and ballooning social debt will continue as long as the government resorts to new borrowings to pay for old loans, including those tainted with fraud and corruption, and with the existence of the law on automatic appropriations for debt servicing,” Bello said.
The FDC said that for 30 years, or from 1986 to 2015, the continued implementation of the policy on automatic appropriations for debt servicing has resulted in an average of 27.21 percent of annual public revenues automatically earmarked for interest payments, while principal amortization has eaten up an average of 67.61 percent of government’s new borrowings. JERRY MAGLUNOG