Congress probe sought on P7.2 trillion debt under Duterte

MANILA, Philippines — The reported P7.2-trillion debt incurred by the administration of former president Rodrigo Duterte should be investigated by Congress to prevent future leaders from obtaining loans unnecessarily, a lawmaker said.

“Government loans are a very serious matter. Why? It is because in effect you have pawned the future of your children and your children’s children, and sometimes it’s even more than that,” Rep. Janette Garin said at a regular briefing in the House of Representatives yesterday.

“So why is it important to talk about this? It’s because we do not want another blanket authority just like what we saw during the pandemic (in 2020). If you remember, the pandemic seemed to be the excuse for the loans that we had left and right,” she recalled.

According to the House deputy majority leader, securing loans from international lending institutions should only be a matter of last resort, primarily because it limits government movement due to the small availability of fiscal space left by prioritizing debt payments.

“We have all seen the loans we had for the vaccines. Again, it’s a no-no. Loans should be dealt with sacredly,” Garin added.

Presidential adviser on poverty alleviation Larry Gadon earlier said the Duterte administration is to blame for the country’s debt burden, which reached P7.2 trillion in six years, higher than the P6.6-trillion debt incurred from the time of Manuel Quezon to Noynoy Aquino or a span of 89 years.

“We have a myriad of problems that we perennially face, and the biggest of these is that it restricts our economy or constricts our overall development. We don’t even know if we are benefitting from this or not,” Garin said.

Garin said that during Aquino’s administration, debt servicing in the national budget was an automatic appropriation, which exempted it from any congressional adjustments.

“Once loans are granted and the guarantor is the Philippine government, we have an automatic debt servicing, which means whether we like it or not, we have to pay for our loans first, and this is automatically deducted from the budget of the government,” she explained.

“So, if the debt is huge, it only means the government will no longer have the elbow room to make improvements or allocate budgets for social programs. Why should we investigate this? Because we have to craft a law where parameters should be made before loans can be availed of,” she said.

Lanao del Sur Rep. Zia Alonto Adiong agreed with Garin, saying that a national policy against excessive borrowing should be put in place in case another emergency in the magnitude of the COVID-19 pandemic occurs again in the future.

“I think we also need to revisit how can we actually enter into a loan whenever there is a declaration of state of emergency. There is no problem with obtaining loans as long as we also have a system where the country can make good on debt payments,” Adiong said.