Many of our previous national leaders had been using the government’s rapidly increasing debt from both domestic and international financial institutions as their crusade to be able to advance their respective political career. Almost all of them appealed to the emotions of the people to be able to win them to support such a crusade in the guise of being pro-people and win their support for their aspirations to be elected to higher posts, with some succeeding.
Lately, another self-righteous politician attempted to use the national government’s over P13.8 trillion debt to start gaining popularity from the ranks of uniformed personnel to start winning their support. Observers believe that such a revelation of what is already public knowledge is just a desperate move by someone who does not want to give up the excessive pension received from the government. The skyrocketing debt of the government was previously used by an aspirant for the highest elected position in the land to win the hearts of the people to support her cause and desire to become the next leader of the land during the May 2022 synchronized national and local elections where she, like this latest politician did, tried to present that the over 110 million Filipinos will be paying the said debt to the tune of over P100,000 each that grew to over P113,000 each if the payment will be done now.
The country’s debt to gross domestic product ratio (GDP) is now over 60 percent which for us is already alarming without considering the similar debt to GDP of other countries which are more developed compared to our beloved Philippines. Several developed countries have much greater debt to GDP ratio based on previous studies, like our rich neighbour Singapore with a debt to GDP ratio of 471%.
The government borrows money from internal and external financial institutions to finance social services, infrastructure development, among others to help in improving the growth and development of our national. A clear example on how the country’s debt has been or is being used is to fund the implementation of the government’s Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program to be able to improve the country’s human capital Another government endeavor where the proceeds of the government’s loan is being utilized is for the various railway and subway projects being implemented in strategic areas around the country to improve the mobility of people from the rural areas to the urban centers and vice versa.
Instead of claiming that our country is now heavily indebted, these crusaders should analyze whether our debt is gaining any return just like any good investment. If it is not gaining any return, then we consider the same as bad investment.
We pity those who are trying to muddle with the issue by stating that our children and their children’s children are already indebted even if they are still in the conception stage because of the country’s ballooning debt. Based on the studies of experts and those who really know and understand the real situation locally and internationally, only a small percentage of the taxes that we pay is being earmarked to pay the country’s domestic and international debts. People actually pay a small amount in the form of taxes where a portion of the same is used to pay the country’s debt comparing to the enormous benefit that we are getting from the numerous projects that are being financed by the said debt that is why let us not just be carried away by our emotions because of such misrepresentations being done about our country’s increasing debt.
More importantly, the country’s debt is not being individually paid. It is worthy to emphasize that nobody in their lifetime has ever paid national debt according to how it was divided by ignorant and stupid members of the fourth state and equally ignorant and stupid politicians who simply want to gain the attention of the people because of their waning popularity. There is no clear logic or point in dividing the national debt according to the number of population or the number of families because we do not individually pay our debt. Since that is not how our debt is pooled.
We should not make our people ignorant because of the sovereign debt. It is wrong to also project that incurring debt is inherently bad like what is being done and using good governance and corruption to cloth their ignorance about it.
