Since the Marcos regime took office in June 2022, the Philippine debt has grown by 37.3% to ₱17.6 trillion as of October, exceeding officials’ initial projection that it would reach only ₱17.36 trillion by the year’s end.

Ibon Foundation calculated that the regime has been borrowing an average of ₱208.3 billion per month, on a rate higher than the combined monthly average of the previous Duterte (₱130.6 billion) and Aquino (₱61.5 billion) regimes.

Ibon stated that the large increase in debt corresponds with the ballooning of funds for the regime’s anomalous pork barrel items in the national budget. One example of this includes the bloating of the unprogrammed appropriations (UA) fund from ₱251 billion in 2022 to ₱807 billion in 2023, ₱731.5 billion in 2024, and ₱531.7 billion this 2025. The UA fund was largely spent on failed and ghost flood control projects.

Beyond the UA, Marcos’s budget for flood control also ballooned, from ₱283.2 billion in 2023, ₱352.8 billion in 2024, and ₱350.5 billion this 2025.

“Unfolding corruption exposés confirm that hundreds of billions of pesos in government funds, including from borrowing, has not gone towards improving the people’s welfare or ensuring genuine development,” Ibon said. Instead, they were pocketed by the powerful and wealthy through pork barrel insertions in the budget.

The Makabayan bloc in Congress estimates as much as ₱695.8 billion in the proposed 2026 budget is pork barrel for the president and Congress.