“He made a tacit admission that a sizeable volume of travel expenses had been incurred for non-essential activities, and that energy had been consumed with no regard for costs.

The United Nations has no more money to spend. It has a deficit of at least $230 million and may run out funds soon — that’s what UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said to the international media.

Guterres revealed that UN member states have only paid for 70 percent of the world body’s expenses, which includes salaries for 37,000 employees and official travel expenses. Those expenses, according to Guterres, do not include what the UN spends for its peacekeeping operations, which for the 2018-2019 fiscal year cost it $5.4 billion.

About 22 percent of the UN budget is shouldered by the United States.

To address the deficit, Guterrez says that UN conferences and meetings will have to be postponed in the meantime. He added that official travel will be restricted to essential activities, and energy consumption must now be kept to a minimum.

The UN’s money problem was all over the news last month, but nobody in the Philippines seemed to be alarmed, President Rodrigo Duterte in particular, who has been at odds with the UN International Criminal Court (UNICC) and the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC).

Both UN bodies are critical of the President’s war on illegal drugs. The UNICC wants to investigate what it calls extrajudicial killings arising from the President’s anti-drug war. Likewise, the UNHRC passed a resolution calling for a similar measure.

President Duterte resented the UN bodies’ interference in his anti-drug war and sees the same as an affront against the sovereignty of the Philippines. Manila has officially withdrawn its membership in the Rome Statute, the treaty which established the UNICC. It assailed the UNHRC resolution on the ground that it does not enjoy the support of a majority of the member-states which comprise the council.

The explanation offered by Guterres is very revealing. By ordering “that official travel will be restricted to essential activities” and that “energy consumption must now be kept to a minimum,” he made a tacit admission that a sizeable volume of travel expenses had been incurred for non-essential activities, and that energy had been consumed with no regard for costs.

Having wasted money on unnecessary official travel expenses of its diplomats and personnel, as well as on excessive energy use, the UN has only itself to blame for running out of money.

Sure, member-states are required to pay for the UN’s expenses, but why would a member-state be willing to tender such payments if the UN only squanders its budget on useless expenses?

UN diplomats and personnel travel expensively. With the current restriction on official travel, it is doubtful if UNICC or UNHRC diplomats and personnel will be willing to spend their own money just to come over to the Philippines to investigate the alleged incidents of human rights violations in the country.

The reluctance, perhaps even refusal, of UN member-states to pay their dues to the world body may be attributed to the failure of the UN to live up to expectations. It has a mandate to prevent war and violence, but it has been unable to stop the fighting in many parts of the globe.

As examples, there is an ongoing war in Syria, and there are frequent clashes between India and Pakistan over disputed territory. Despite UN sanctions, North Korea still threatens the world with its nuclear arsenal.

The UN was unable to stop Russia’s bullying in the Ukraine, the maltreatment of a Muslim minority group in Myanmar, the violence in Libya, the unprovoked killing of Kurds in what used to be Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, and the genocide in Indonesia at the end of the Suharto regime.

China is threatening to seize Taiwan by force if necessary, and the UN has not said anything about that. The world is at the mercy of Somali pirates in the east coast of Africa, whose operations make world oil prices very expensive.

UN agencies want to meddle in President Duterte’s war on illegal drugs, but they do not care to investigate the Mamasapano massacre in Maguindanao, or the rape and murder of Filipino domestic workers in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

All that, ought to explain why the UN has no more money.