CSOs revive Philippine Citizens Debt Audit

Should Filipinos insist on an audit of the Philippine national debt?

Mae Buenaventura of Asian Peoples’ Movement on Debt and Development explains the urgency of a debt audit.

At ?11.73 trillion in 2021, the Bureau of Treasury reported that at the end of 2022, the national debt rose to ?13.42 trillion (over 14% more than 2021).

This amount was more than 63.5% of GDP and did not yet include debts guaranteed by the national government amounting to ?399 billion as of end-2022 and contingent liabilities arising from big-ticket projects with the private sector estimated at ?456.2 billion in 2021!

Prevailing Philippine laws ensure that debt servicing is automatically appropriated, effectively prioritizing it in public spending over the urgent basic needs of our people.

With at least 20 million Filipinos or 18% of the population being officially poor in 2021, the implications of a heavy debt burden are devastating for those who are struggling daily to live a decent life: the poor, the hungry, the sick, the jobless, the homeless, and others.

As the crises of public health, economic survival and climate change intensify, government services and support programs become all the more urgent and crucial.

The Philippines topped the list of 193 countries covered by the 2022 World Risk Index of countries most threatened by climate change due to exposure, vulnerability, lack of coping mechanisms, and adaptation strategies, among others.

Growth has benefited only a handful, as indicated by a World Bank study on inequality showing the top 1% of Philippine earners capturing 17% of the total national income, with 14% of the income being shared by the bottom 50%.

It’s high time that the public debt is subjected to closer examination, especially when financial resources are most needed in the face of the multiple crises of livelihoods, public health, and climate, and at a time when a new administration is in place.

As a Marcos presidency, times are even more favorable to raise important issues such as illegitimate debts and odious or successor debts, and debt policies that include Presidential Decree 1177, the precursor of Corazon Aquino’s executive order institutionalizing automatic appropriations from public funds for debt service.

Surely, how these debts came about and how they were spent is a fair, common-sense ask of our policymakers.

Through a Citizens Debt Audit, we can be empowered as Filipinos to examine the public debt.

The CDA is both a political tool and process to disentangle the web of unsustainable debt levels and the burden they impose on ordinary citizens.

The CDA is an investigative tool, comprehensive in scope. It goes beyond examining the flow of money concerning the debt but takes a holistic perspective of the debt problems.

CDA also scrutinizes the historical drivers of the debt problem, the transactions and contracts that were forged, the actual use and impacts of the debt, the major actors and institutions involved, etc. to expose who really benefited from these loans.

As an awareness-raising and organizing process, the CDA is a participatory and collective exercise of gathering the evidence and legal arguments required to understand the debt problem and lay the grounds for the cancellation of unsustainable, illegal, and illegitimate public debts.

The CDA is a campaign in and of itself. It evaluates the policies, existing laws and institutions that enable and perpetuate the fiscal, social, and human costs of the debt problem with the perspective of initiating and strengthening peoples’ movements to campaign for cancellation of illegitimate debts and systems change.

The Commission for a Citizens Debt Audit (CCDA) --composed of CSOs/NGOs/basic sectors/academe/religious/former public officials, among others-- has scheduled the Philippine Citizens’ Debt Audit Launch this February 21, 2023 from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 a.m.

The hybrid event will also be livestreamed at https://www.facebook.com/fdcphilippines.