MANNY GONZALEZ. Back in the 1970s I was one of the very first bankers to nearly get fired over disagreements on how to gauge country creditworthiness. My superiors wanted to lend to Country X; I tried to veto the syndicated loan on the grounds that Country X had only one viable export (i.e., source of repayment for the loan). Guess who won. But I was wrong. Now the country has three big hitters in its export economy, and it runs a current account surplus (meaning in principle it has the means to pay down its debt).
1. Our 2022 deficit is roughly P 1.7 Trillion (P5 Trillion Expenses, P 3.3 Trillion income). This equals about USD 30 billion in round numbers, vs. current external debt of USD 110 billion.
2. The deficit will have to be funded with borrowings, or the government must print money.
3. Assuming we don’t just print money, the borrowings will have to be mainly foreign, because borrowing all of that locally (equal to USD 15,000 per living Filipino) would soak up liquidity and fiscally depress growth prospects.
4. Right now, borrowing USD 30 billion will not be a problem. Not because of anything about the Philippines, but because world interest rates are so low that institutions with money are chasing any investment that yields more than a US Government Note.
5. But this might not always be the case. The history of sovereign lending is that the money keeps flowing. Until, one day, it doesn’t. Then there is a massive devaluation and economic hardship.
6. Many countries you wouldn’t suspect have large external debts – Japan and Switzerland, for example. The difference with the Philippines is that Switzerland has a balanced budget and a current account surplus so lenders feel secure. Japan has a huge budget deficit, but a current account surplus, and such is its international reputation that investors see lending to Japan as a way of getting a few more fractions of a percent interest without much extra risk. Neither Japan nor Switzerland is in any imminent danger of having the borrowing tap turned off.
7. The Philippines, though, has both a current account deficit and a national government budget deficit. One or both of these need to be fixed or one day, at the drop of a hat and with very little prior warning, lenders will stop funding our deficits and not only that will want all their previous lending repaid.
8. This finally brings me back to the question no one in this country is asking: How are we spending that P5 Trillion (the national government’s planned expenditures for 2022). To recall my Country X, it spent its foreign borrowings more or less wisely, developing two viable export sectors from nothing. (Good thing, too, because its original export has withered due to world market conditions.)
9. How is our P5 Trillion being spent? 1/5 (equal to almost 70% of the budget deficit) is spent on NCR, where it costs (apparently) THREE TIMES MORE to give residents basic services, than any other part of the country. It costs more to provide water to Manilans, and will get ever more costly, as aquifers run dry; it costs more to protect them from criminals, given the congestion and squalor. We are even apparently spending USD 200 million to “improve the earthquake resistance of government buildings in NCR”. (Can you think of any government building in Manila in the past 100 years that suffered even USD 10 million damage? This is like hiring and paying a brain surgeon to tell you to put a Band-Aid on a cut. The remedy is 100 times more costly than what it supposedly avoids. This particular project is courtesy of the World Bank, which has become one of the most clueless organizations on earth.)
10. As for the rest of the P 5 Trillion, I couldn’t identify anything in it that has a clear chance of increasing tax collections or generating export earnings. They’re all just general hopes and wishes that if we Build, Build, Build (bahala na what we build), somehow GDP and exports will rise, and further down yet, someone will pay more taxes. Not bloody likely. MOST OF THE PROPOSED BUILD, BUILD, BUILD PROJECTS HAVE A NEGATIVE ECONOMIC RATE OF RETURN, ON TOP OF A NEGATIVE FINANCIAL RATE OF RETURN. That means they will weigh directly on both the government budget and the international current account balance. The Metro Manila subway is a SURE LOSER in every respect. No country in the world has succeeded in operating a subway system at a profit. Making a commute more comfortable or prestigious is not an economic “benefit”. Linking already-congested areas to each other is not “economic development”. A subway system is CONSUMPTION, not INVESTMENT. The same arguments apply to all these new airports designed to glorify local politicians. New York is one of the world’s very few cities with three major airports (LaGuardia, JFK, and Newark). Why does Metro Manila need FOUR?
11. By the way, the most indebted country in the world is Palau. It owes almost USD 1 million per living Palau person. That is because Palau listened to the Chinese government, and borrowed freely for its own Build Build Build. Until one day the Chinese asked to be repaid.
What is most tragic is that not a single one of our leaders, technocrats, or Presidential or even Vice-Presidential candidates, seems to have any opinion on the budget except to mouth that, sure, Build is Good.
We are walking off a cliff, and no one seems to understand that we are.