The Philippines is entirely covered with debts. By yearend 2022, national debt will already amount to P13.4 trillion. This is equivalent to more than P120,000 debt per Filipino. But despite this already staggering amount, Marcos II regime still prioritized debt payments to improve its credit standing and be able to borrow even larger sums of money. For the next year, P1.196 trillion or almost a quarter of the national budget will be allocated for debt payments. Worse, these piles of debts were not even used for the Filipino people’s welfare.

Under the anti-poor Duterte, the country acquired debt after debt to fund its infrastructure program which served as corruption funds for bureacrat capitalists and complicit businessmen. Trillions of pesos were squandered for the construction of roads and bridges, including hundreds of farm-to-market-roads, that will purportedly benefit the people. It is a grave insult for the peasantry that there are enough funds for roads but none for agriculture. What will they transport if they have nothing to plant?

Even in the wake of the pandemic and calamities, instead of focusing on health and socioeconomic projects, fascism against the people was unashamedly coddled with funds. This year, the budget for fascism is P206 billion more than the health funds. The difference was largest last 2021, while the pandemic was at its peak, wherein the fascist budget amounted to P255 billion more than that of the health sector. Even worse, corruption still remained unabated even with this already insufficient budget. More than P15 billion was discovered to be plundered from Philhealth funds last year.

But the most infuriating of all, despite this flagrant squandering and plundering of trillions of pesos, the Filipino people are the ones forced to pay this ever-ballooning debt. Under Marcos II, another series of new taxes are set to be implemented. These will drive the prices of basic commodities and people’s daily needs steeper. And while the poor are squeezed out of their hard-earned money, the regime refuses to impose taxes upon the richest of the country. In fact, it even loosened the rules and turned the taxation system more favorable for them to amass even more super profits.

In Marcos II reign’s coming years, the country going further under debts and the people forced to shoulder these must be expected. The Bikolano masses and the whole Filipino nation must not falter in its continuous battle against these and demand that public funds be used for common good and interests.