Loans

I do not know why a couple of loans by the Philippines from China meant to finance two big-ticket water impounding projects in Luzon would spawn such an outcry from the usual critics of the Duterte administration, many of who live in Luzon itself and who stand to be reassured of and benefit from ample water supply when taps start drying up in the not-so-distant future.

The way they are gnashing their teeth and pulling at their hair, it is as if loans are such a strange and fearful thing that must be avoided like a mad dog in summer. But loans have been with man ever since he learned the value of possessions and knew what it meant to want and not to have what it takes to get what one wants, or needs.

The critics say the loans are disadvantageous to the Philippines and that it could lose chunks of patrimony if it defaults. But of course loans are always disadvantageous to the borrower and profitable to the lender. That is the nature of loans. If any of the critics can cite me a loan where the lender is willing to lose his pants, I will donate that critic's salary to charity.

And what is wrong with borrowing from China? Everybody borrows from China. The United States does. Even China borrows from its own self. The problem with these critics is that they criticize based on expediency and the prevailing mood but never on what is imperative and a priority. They criticize because in these times of Duterte, they think it chic and hip to do so.

Why, the ink has hardly even dried on the loan agreement and the doomsday scenario promoters are already seeing all sorts of hobgoblins around the first corner. And to think more than half of these pessimists and negative thinkers could not even tell where their own wives or husbands or children are right at this very moment.

Nevertheless, since nothing seems to ever please these critics, maybe Duterte should just give them what they bellyache so loudly about. If I were Duterte, I would promptly rescind the loan agreements, pay any penalties, and charge the cost to future generations of tomorrow's critics and let Luzon suffer its parched fate that is sure to come within the next decade or sooner.

In fact, Metro Manila only very recently saw what could await its residents once the water goes from scarce to unavailable. True the recent water scare may have been due to reasons other than real water unavailability. But the foreboding could not be any scarier. Because the truth, shorn of all politics, is that water is really a finite source. And Luzon sticks out as an example.

As to losing patrimony, let us not forget that no one owns the earth but God. We are all only tenants on terra firma. Our claim to any portion of God's domain stays only for as long as He allows it. But every now and then, for whatever reason, God allows some rearrangements. And when He does, it is not because of some goddamn loan default but because He wills it. Period.