Deadliest addiction

Deadliest addiction | Daily Tribune

A stark injustice is that each of the estimated 113 million Filipinos effectively owes about P156,242 to the nation’s creditors from birth, without any choice in the matter, only to see public funds funneled into the pockets of elected officials.

Outstanding government debt as of December grew by a substantial 10.3 percent from a year ago to a new record high of P17.707 trillion.

Among the factors driving the surge in debt levels were new borrowings to finance the gaping budget deficit and a weak peso, which is mainly the product of political noise.

Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. chief economist Michael Ricafort explained that the depreciation of the currency increased the peso equivalent of debts generally denominated in US dollars.

The peso is now between 58 and 59 to the dollar, compared to 51 in 2022.

Ricafort said the debt upswing will persist in the coming months, with outstanding national obligations hitting new record highs as the government continues to rely on borrowings to plug the fiscal shortfall.

Catch-up spending after a lull due to the overall chilling effect of the corruption scandal will also pressure the government to borrow more.

Essentially, the public has lately been treated to a spectacle of the Marcos Jr. administration maintaining a borrowing spree to finance its pork barrel projects.

A big chunk of the budget goes to pork barrel and corruption, which means the borrowed money is not funding social services and protection for millions of poor and vulnerable Filipino families, helping millions of distressed farmers and fisherfolk, or supporting hundreds of thousands of struggling small businesses.

Debt surged from P12.79 trillion in June 2022, at the start of the Marcos Jr. administration, by P5 trillion during the first half of the current dispensation.

Gross borrowings are at a record P208.3 billion per month, compared to the combined clip of the previous Duterte administration at P130.6 billion and the late President Noynoy Aquino’s term at P61.5 billion.

According to the think-tank Ibon Foundation, the inflated debt was parallel to the uptrend in pork barrel indicators in the yearly budgets under Marcos.

For instance, unprogrammed appropriations, which consist of projects and programs without earmarked funds that are added to accommodate pork barrel projects in the budget, spiked from P251 billion in 2022 to P807 billion in 2023, P731.5 billion in 2024, and P531.7 billion in 2025.

Budget increases for flood control projects reflected the hunger for kickbacks, with P68.3 billion in 2023 and P69.6 billion in 2024, figures gathered by Ibon showed.

Flood control projects worth P283.2 billion in 2023, P352.8 billion in 2024, and P350.5 billion in 2025 are the most significant allocations in the country’s most corrupt budgets.

As the stench of rot has become hard to cover up, the pilfering of the budget shifted to so-called soft pork.

As much as P695.8 billion of the proposed 2026 budget is presidential and legislative pork.

The 2026 health budget, for instance, will be the largest on record after the Medical Assistance to Indigent and Financially Incapacitated Patients (MAIFIP) was ramped up, likely with pork.

MAIFIP received P51.6 billion, more than double its proposed initial budget of P24.2 billion for this year’s budget.

Compared to 2025, the 2026 allocation for MAIFIP is P10 billion, or 25 percent higher.

MAIFIP, for all its lofty objectives, is a soft pork barrel that allows local and national politicians to exercise patronage, as beneficiaries are often required to secure a guarantee letter from a politician to prove indigence.

Insatiable monsters that gnaw away at resources meant to benefit the population are being fed by the Marcos administration’s debt addiction.