Category: advocacy

HUWAG IBOTO

sa susunod nilang pagtakbo – ke for president, ke for senator, ke for barangay tanod – HUWAG IBOTO

ang mga senador na ito: LOREN LEGARDA, CHIZ ESCUDERO, PING LACSON, MAR ROXAS, MANNY VILLAR, PIA CAYETANO, KIKO PANGILINAN, DICK GORDON, BONG REVILLA, at ang bise-presidenteng ito: NOLI DE CASTRO, who cannot see, who refuse to see, that by endorsing commercial products for television, or by advertising their so-called achievements long before campaign season, or by making movies, they stoop to the level of entertainers hungry for public adulation and reveal themselves to be ruled by narrow self-interests not befitting the high offices they hold.

lubog sa utang

received from the Freedom from Debt Coalition two FDC documents.

a comprehensive brief of the philippine debt and fiscal situation, and a listing of illegitimate debt cases. both too lengthy to post here but at least i can update my figures.

at php 41.26 exchange rate, outstanding nationalgovernment debt is

US $ 89.24 BILLION or Php 3.712 TRILLION

debt service for 2008:

  • php 295.75 BILLION for interest payment
  • php 328.34 BILLION for principal amortization
  • php 624.09 BILLION total

in contrast here’s the Department of Budget & Management’s proposed spending for

  • education php 181.86 billion
  • health php 22.90 billion
  • agriculture & agrarian reform php 41.18 billion
  • environment php 10.06 billion
  • military php 61.42 billion
  • total php 317.42 billion

wonder no more why gma refuses to lift taxes on oil and electricity. in her book, mas importanteng magbayad ng utang (para makautang muli) kaysa dinggin ang hinaing ng taongbayan.

evat & the national debt

totoo yata ang tsismis na pabalik-cabinet si dating senador ralph “vilmasantos” recto, also known as the author of the evat law. why else would he be on anc talking about the evat on fuel and electricity and saying na hindi ito dapat i-lift dahil kailangan ni gma ang napakalaking datung na ito (some P90 billion) panggastos sa “development projects”.

yan na yan din ang say ni gary teves (na matagal nang natsitsismis na pa-exit na at papalitan mismo ni vilmasantos recto).

Finance Secretary Margarito Teves is bent on keeping the 12-percent Value-Added Tax (VAT) on oil products and power citing the need for government to collect revenues.

Teves, who spoke to reporters after a press briefing by the World Bank, said that the high oil and power costs as well as rising food prices is just a temporary situation. Tweaking a law, he said however, would be a more permanent measure.

“Well legally, it’s their (Congress’) prerogative,” Teves said, “But let’s remember that we have to have the revenues to be able to spend for various projects.

The finance chief instead proposed two things: first, for all power utilities, including Manila Electric co. (MERALCO) and National Power Corporation (NAPOCOR), not to pass on System Loss charges to consumers.

“If there’s no System Loss, there will be no VAT on this to pay,” said Teves.
The second is for all collections from VAT on oil and power to be used for “targeted spending” to help vulnerable sectors cope with the high costs.

Government estimates VAT collections from petroleum products to reach P73 billion this year, while VAT from power is projected to hit P12.6 billion.’

interesting the proposal that evat collections be used this time for “targeted spending to help vulnerable sectors cope with the high costs.” i suppose ito yung “development projects” ni vilmasantos recto.

question is, where did evat collections of 2005, 2006, and 2007 go? saan ginamit ang datung?

sa kaka-google ko i found the answer in a january 2008 manila times article by the freedom from debt coalition:

The reason why the government is hell-bent in defending an aggressive consumption tax measure (R-VAT) is in order to beef-up revenues. The Department of Finance (DOF) itself admitted that 70 percent of the revenues generated from R-VAT would go to debt service in the first six months of implementation, with only 30 percent going to social services and infrastructure programs.”

ah, so the rvat/evat collected in 2005, 2006, and 2007 went pala mostly to debt payments. but this time daw it will be going to teves’ “targeted spending” on vilmasantosrecto’s “development projects”? ganoon?

take note. the national budget for 2008 is a whopping php 1.23 TRILLION bucks!

how much of that is going to debt payments? according to the website of the department of budget and management:

php 269, 847, 000, 000.00 for interest payments
php 328, 341, 000, 000.00 for principal amortizations
php 598,188, 000, 000.00 total

that’s almost php 600 BILLION bucks! practically half of the budget! OMG. OF COURSE gma needs that php 90 billion from the evat on fuel and electricity. OF COURSE it’s going to debt payments as usual, ‘wag na tayong bolahin about “targeted spending” and “development projects”.

in fact, the total national debt has been growing and growing and growing under gma, but what does she care. hindi naman siya ang magbabayad. say ng fdc:

As of end-August 2007, the National Government (NG) Outstanding debt was pegged at P3.871 trillion, or US$81.91 billion. The bigger part of this debt was acquired domestically (55.98 percent), with Treasury Bonds debt pegged at P1.55 trillion. This is worse when Mrs. Arroyo acknowledged that the country was suffering from a fiscal crisis. In 2004, National Government debt was P3.81 trillion.

Our situation is rendered even more precarious with National Government contingent liabilities reported as having reached P537 billion by 2007, much of it foreign currency denominated. Contingent liabilities are commitments by the national government, expressed or implied, to directly assume the liability of another entity should it be unable to honor its obligations. Thus, contingent liabilities are potential debts. . . .

In truth, the total debt service is higher, not lower, contrary to the Arroyo administration’s claim. A close look at the proposed 2008 budget will reveal that payments for the principal amortization of debts actually went up by 6 percent, or P18.842 billion. Combined with the total of interest payments and principal amortization, debt expenditure actually went up by P11.296 billion, belying any claim of less expenditure for the debt. . . .

The Arroyo administration broke two major fiscal records-first, for being the most aggressive if not the most addictive borrower, and second, for being the largest payer of debts. From 2001 to 2006, Mrs. Arroyo borrowed a total of P2.83 trillion shaming the total P1.51 trillion combined borrowings of the Aquino, Ramos and Estrada administrations spanning 14 years.”

hay naku. definitely, absolutely, we the people must make the debt problem a central issue in the 2010 elections. for the sake of our children and apos, we want national leaders who will free us from debt by following these recommendations of the fdc:

  • audit all our debts so we have an accurate comprehensive picture of our humongous debt problem
  • promote critical study, analysis, and consensus
  • repeal the automatic debt service provision of the Revised Administrative Code of 1987

tama na. sobra na. palitan na.

utang na loob

say ni senator nene pimentel, his con-ass cha-cha proposal to shift to a federal form of government needs to be discussed because it is what’s best for the country — federalism will stimulate economic growth in the regions and therefore the insurgency will dissipate and disappear. as in, no problem.

ano ba yan. sounds like a fairytale. why not speak the truth na lang, the truth that what congress really wants to do, intends to do, is to tinker with, amend, junk, if possible, the economic provisions of the constitution because they think, they are so sure, that the limits to full foreign ownership are the reason why we aren’t getting as much foreign investments as thailand and indonesia and vietnam, thats why daw we’re not growing.

i suggest that we all read walden bello‘s latest essay “In the shadow of debt: the sad but true tale behind a quarter century of stagnation,” posted both in the inquirer and freedom from debt coalition websites.

bello’s research and analysis confirm my pet theory that the key to economic growth — yung totoo, yung mararamdaman ng buong bayan, hindi lang ng mga kapitalista — is to STOP being a “model debtor country” and instead do as other heavily indebted countries have successfully done:

Thailand…pushed down interest payments from eight percent of government expenditure in 1980 to two percent in 1995 and raised capital expenditures from 23 percent to 33 percent. . . . Argentina’s five-year string of 10 percent annual GDP growth is due principally to President Nestor Kirchner’s courageous act of unilaterally writing down-that is, paying about 25 cents of every dollar owed to bondholders-on most of that country’s foreign debt and channelingthe money saved to domestic investment….

“Contrary to doctrinaire free-market economics, institutional economists argue that government financial resources devoted to building physical or social infrastructure or shoring up domestic demand ‘crowd in’ rather than ‘crowd out’ private investment, including foreign investment. For instance, one key study of a panel of developing economies from1980 to 1997 found that public investment complemented private investment, and that, on average, a 10-percent increase in public investment was associated with a two-percent increase in private investment….

“There is no doubt that government capital spending crowded in foreign investment in Thailand and the lack of it crowded out foreign investment in the Philippines. And there is no doubt that, as KunioYoshihara asserted, ‘This difference in the flow of foreign investment from [Japan, Korea, and Taiwan] produced a significant disparity in growth performance of the two countries during this period.

“Like all clear-thinking investors, the Japanese were not going (are not going) en masse to a place where infrastructure was (is) decaying and where the market was (is) depressed and poverty was (is) increasing owing to a political economy shackled by structural adjustment and battered by the priority given to repaying the foreign debt. They were (are), in short, not stupid.”

so there. hindi charter change ang dapat nating pinag-uusapan. not at all. ang dapat nating pinag-uusapan ay ang pagbabago ng debt policy natin. we spend on the average half of the budget on bayad-utang and bayad-interes para lang makautang uli. ano ba yan. enough na please of the model debtor strategy that has only made a basket case of our economy.

of course there will be resistance, as usual, but these are unusually hard times, the interests of a few cannot must not prevail any longer over the interests of nation. this could be a matter of survival, a matter of life and death. if the palace and congress are truly after what’s best for the country, then this, not charter change, is the way to go. they owe us.