Aquino successor to inherit P6.4-T national debt, says antidebt group

The next President will inherit a national debt of P6.4 trillion—roughly P62,000 owed by every Filipino—the Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC) said on Friday, as the group pushed to make the repeal of automatic debt servicing an electoral issue.

The FDC will launch a citizen campaign to urge the next administration to conduct a debt audit and scrutinize the government loans. The fraudulent ones should not be repaid, FDC secretary general Samuel Gamboa said.

The group had discussed conducting debt audits with lawmakers in previous administrations, but in the current one “the door has been totally shut on the basis that the government didn’t want the budget to be derailed,” Gamboa said.

“The biggest problem in relation to our national debt is the automatic appropriations law because it automatically slices off from the national budget what could be utilized for social services such as education, health care and housing,” he said.

Gamboa said that borrowing in itself was not a problem if it resulted in projects that benefited the people and was not pocketed as kickbacks.

From 2011 to 2015, the debt amortization or repayment had eaten up an average of 48.2 percent of the Aquino administration’s yearly borrowings, the FDC said.

Of the P6.4 trillion outstanding debt, P4.16 trillion was borrowed by the current administration, making Mr. Aquino the biggest borrower among post-Edsa administrations over a full term, overtaking Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, data gathered by FDC showed.