From 1 to 91, each Pinoy owes P66,100

Filipinos are mired in debt from infancy to way past retirement age.

Each Filipino from the age of one to 91 owes at least P66,100, Camarines Sur Rep. Rolando Abaya Jr. (Lakas) said yesterday, as public debt has breached the P5-trillion mark.

Andaya, House appropriations committee chairman, said that at the end of 2002, the public debt stood at P5.288 trillion.

He based his figures on documents presented and statements made by administration officials during a hearing last Wednesday on his proposed debt cap bill.

"We passed the P5-trillion mark," Andaya said. Relating the debt to the 80 million population of the country, Andaya said, "this means that each Filipino owes at least P66,100."

He refuted the government’s debt tally of P2.815 trillion, as this figure only covers national debt. He also said the government’s reckoning of debt stock was deliberately deflated.

To get the real picture of the public sector debt, one must add to national government debts the obligations of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), government financial institutions (GFIs), government-owned or controlled corporations (GOCCs) and contingent liabilities — funds set aside for emergency purposes.

The latter are mostly debts backed by public agencies that carry sovereign guarantees that, in case of default, would be shouldered by the national government and, ultimately, the taxpayers, Andaya said.

Andaya said the loans of independent power producers (IPPs) backed by sovereign guarantees fall under this category.

Domestic liabilities account for P2.4 trillion of public debt, while P2.288 trillion represents foreign liabilities, Andaya said.

National government debts accounted for P2.815 trillion of the public debt, Andaya said, while the remaining P2.437 trillion is made up of contingent liabilities, BSP, GOCC and GFI debts.

Of the full public sector debt, he added, P589.74 billion was contingent liabilities.

There are no 2002 figures yet for BSP, GOCC and GFI debts. However, by the end of 2001, the 14 monitored GOCCs had debts of P1.139 trillion, while GFIs owed P301.4 billion and the BSP debt was pegged at P593.8 billion.

During the hearing, it was revealed that the 2001 debt stock level of P4.990 trillion was already 137.1 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) – meaning the country’s debt is bigger than its capacity to pay that debt.

The debt cap bill aims to peg the public debt at 100 percent of GDP within the first five years of its approval and bring that figure down to 80 percent from the sixth year onwards.

Officials from the Departments of Budget and Management and Finance expressed reservations about the debt cap bill and asked for the exclusion of certain debts from the definition of public debt.

However, Andaya said, "it would be useless to craft a debt cap bill when the supposed ‘cap’ would be shot full of holes."

Agusan del Norte Rep. Edelmiro Amante authored a resolution asking President Arroyo to craft a credible fiscal turnaround plan to enable the country to address the debt problem. — Paolo Romero