DALE HILDEBRAND, To pay is to die

75 million of Filipinos are victims of an economy which continues to stagger from crisis to crisis. The plight of Payatas tragedy victims is rooted in the inability of the Philippines to supply adequate employment to its people. Although many factors have converged to bring about poverty in the Philippines, one overshadows the others in terms of its devastating effect on the Filipinos -the huge foreign debt burden.

Through the decades, the country's foreign debt has been increasing nonstop to reach US $52.21 billion in1999. Almost half of the foreign debt was acquired during the 20-year reign of then president and dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

From $600 million in 1965, the debt mushroomed to $26 billion by the time Marcos was ousted in 1986 by a planned military coup that turned into a popular uprising. Apparently, this legacy of Marcos financial corruption happened the support of the Republic Act 4860 or the Foreign Borrowing Law. This states that the President is authorize to contract loans, credits, with government or foreign countries with whom the Philippines has diplomatic relations or member of the United Nations". In effect, the first couple was able to treat the national treasury as their personal bank account.

Eventually, another bill was passed which practically institutionalized debt servicing. This was the Presidential Decree (PD) 1177, which states that "expenditures funded by foreign and domestic borrowings shall be included within the expenditure program of the agency concerned. Loan proceeds shall not be used without corresponding release of funds through special budgets". This simply means that year after year, PD 1177 allowed the debt servicing to take the biggest slice of the budget pie without any public debate or opposition.

An unpublished report by the Commission on Audit (COA) reveals that during Aquino's regime from 1986-1991, a yearly average of 40% of the national budget went to foreign and domestic debt servicing, while the 1987 debt service bill topping the list by 50% of the years budget. (See table1)