The budget

In 2025, as Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. enters the third year of his six-year presidency, the administration will spend P15.80 billion a day of people’s money – your money, our money.

Of the P15.80 billion, P11.71 billion (P75 of every P100) will come from tax money, what Finance Secretary Ralph Recto calls “revenue collections,” while P4.10 billion (P25 of every P100) will be financed by loans (IOUs), which later on will be paid with the tax money of our kids and grand kids.

The administration has uncorked the largest ever and most ambitious budget, a monstrous P6.352 trillion (6,352 million pesos) for 2025. The P6.35 trillion is up 10.1 percent from 2024’s P5.768 trillion, and 22.1 percent of GDP.

With P6.352 trillion, the President promises to make every Filipino (yes, every one of the 116 million Pinoys) upper middle income, which means earning between $4,516 and $14,000, in 2023 dollars. That will put us in the category of countries like Ukraine, Algeria, Iran and Mongolia, troubled countries, but upper middle income just the same.

BBM is promising upper middle income status for Filipinos despite what Ralph calls “an ocean of global uncertainties due to geopolitical tensions – two hot wars, a trade war and a looming cold war.” Before these uncertainties, the government was projecting high growth rates, 7.5 to 8.5 percent per year. But, cautions Ralph, “geopolitical tensions disrupted this recovery, with inflation skyrocketing in almost all economies due to higher commodity prices. Central banks raised interest rates in response, leading to moderated growth expectations globally. Just like every other country, we feel the weight of these global pressures.”

When Ralph took over Finance, “my first priority was to recalibrate our growth and fiscal targets to ensure they are achievable and adaptable to external shocks.” GDP growth target is now 6 to 7 percent for 2024, and 6.5 to 7.5 percent til 2028.

With a P6.352-trillion spending plan, every day in 2025, the Marcos Jr. (Bongbong Marcos or BBM) government will spend P134.48 for each Filipino (P15.80 billion divided by 116 million Filipinos). At P58 per dollar, P134.48 is $2.32.

Per World Bank, you are poor if you cannot earn $2 a day. Since BBM will spend (not give) for each Filipino $2.32 a day, in effect the President is trying to rescue you from poverty every day he is in Malacañang, the presidential palace. Is that enough? Well, no.

In Metro Manila, a family of five must earn P25,000 a month to eke out the barest minimum of existence, which is eat three meals a day. Divide P25,000 by five you get P5,000 which, if divided by P58, yields $2.87, per person. Deduct the $2.32 BBM is spending for you daily, your deficit is 55 US cents. Where do you get that?

Besides, according to a UP study, up to 40 percent of the national budget is stolen. So deduct 40 percent (or 93 cents) of $2.32, the government effectively will spend for you only $1.39. Your shortage grows to $1.48 (55 cents plus 93 cents that is stolen from the $2.32 daily government spending). Where will you get the $1.48?

According to pro-masa president Joseph Ejercito Estrada, “a hungry stomach knows no law.” No food? You reap a revolution. So when the movie legend became president (June 30, 1998-January 2001), Erap focused on massive rice production. He achieved a near miracle, a rice surplus, thanks to his anti-poverty czar, the communist leader turned mainstream Horacio “Boy” Morales.

What is the lesson here? Answer: the nearest path to a man’s (or woman’s) heart is through the stomach.

Feed your people. They will love and remember you forever. Ferdinand Marcos Sr. knew that fundamental fact of life. FM launched the Green Revolution, achieved a rice surplus and even exported a little of it (in exchange for crude oil from Indonesia).

Agriculture is the weakest sector of the Philippine economy. Its share of economic production or GDP has fallen from 30 percent in 1970 to a miserable 8.6 percent today, the lowest ever. The food crisis is worsening. Food prices are the highest in 100 years, triggering inflation rates that are the highest in 14 years, and interest rates that are the highest in four years.

The economy grew 6.3 percent in second quarter 2024. Instead of growing, agriculture declined, by a substantial 2.3 percent, on top of the 0.05 percent drop in the first quarter 2024. Why the sharp reduction in overall food output? Production of rice and major crops declined. April to June 2024 palay production was 4.69 million metric tons, down 4.7 percent from the previous quarter’s 4.96 million metric tons.

Our Bangko Sentral is fixated with solving inflation by keeping interest rates high. But the higher the interest rate, the less money goes to production of goods, including food. Just like success in the Olympics, success in food production is all about money. Pour money, plenty of money, into food. Produce food. Procure food, by whatever means available.

If you cannot feed the masses, you stunt their growth, including their brain growth. Is it a wonder why of the 7,200 15-year-old kids who took the PISA international exams for reading, math, and science in 2022, 75 percent, or 5,400 kids, failed?

Per PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) results, our kids cannot read; even if they can read, they cannot understand what they read. Our kids cannot read their OWN name, cannot count beyond 20 (because humans have only ten fingers and ten toes) and cannot explain the how and why of simple things happening in their environment.

Tanga, in other words. Hindi lang tanga, sobra sa pagka-tanga! Upper middle income ang parents, pero the kids are just stupid.

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