The proposed 2025 national budget is notable for two things: A high ratio for debt service at 13.4% of the budget from 11.6% and 6.6% for defense spending, up from 4.8%. Moreover, the Office of the President (OP) enjoys a total of P10.29 billion of CIF, divided into P4.37 billion in confidential and P5.92 billion in intelligence funds.
If the amount is mind-boggling, consider the Barangay Development Fund (BDF) for the red-tagging National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC), which was increased from P2.1 billion this year to P7.8 billion for 2025, or an astronomical increase of 371%. Within the military community, the BDF is considered as pork barrel for generals or a reward for communities “cleared” of New People’s Army (NPA) guerrillas. This reward system is an essential part of the US-designed counterinsurgency playbook.
Of course, unprogrammed projects will always be funded by the national government, principally through the machinations of finance managers led by the disappointing Finance Secretary Ralph Recto, who is using a vacuum cleaner to rid PhilHealth of P89.9-billion in “unused subsidy” while the Philippine universal health coverage system is in the doldrums. Recto has legalized this type of fund sequestration by invoking resolutions of the Department of Finance (DOF), pronouncements by the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA), and the dicta of the Cabinet economic cluster. These declarations are hardly laws enacted by the Lower and the Senate, signed by the President, published in the Official Gazette, and preserved at the UP Law Center.
The proposed P6.352-trillion 2025 budget has been slammed by the Health Alliance for Democracy (HEAD) for deliberately slicing the appropriations for health services while raising the share of pork barrel-like programs, debt servicing and militarization. “Marcos Jr.’s proposed 2025 national budget reveals his priority: Pork barrel for himself and his cronies, debt servicing for his imperialist master, and militarization to suppress people’s legitimate dissent and satiate his generals’ greed.” HEAD argued on Sept. 5, 2024.
Under the proposed 2025 budget, the health sector allotment is only 5.1%, down from 5.6% this year. The allotment for infrastructure is a whopping P1.5065 trillion but out of this huge share, only P 1% or 14.8 billion is earmarked for hospitals and health centers. Only 24.51% of the health sector budget is allotted for PhilHealth. Curiously, HEAD stressed, the subsidy for PhilHealth increased from P61.51 billion to P74.43 billion for next year despite the P89.9 billion in “excess funds” that DOF took back and the P500 billion reserve fund of PhilHealth.
This big centralized PhilHealth fund has always been riddled with anomalies and irregularities while poor Filipino members are suffering from inadequate PhilHealth benefits and increased out-of-pocket payments since several expensive procedures and therapies have been disallowed, HEAD complains. Instead of allotting huge sums to PhilHealth, HEAD urges the government to directly fund public health facilities nationwide. An inadequate health budget pushes privatization and commercialization of health services that provide huge profits for big local and foreign businesses. The Universal Health Care Law and PhilHealth insurance scheme have entrenched this scheme.
“Increasing debt service allotment shows the government’s over-dependence on debt, giving the big monopoly capitalists tighter control over our economy through the pro-foreign, anti-development economic policies. Compared to the previous regimes, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is the biggest borrower, with P204.719 billion monthly gross borrowings in the past 23 months, compared to Rodrigo Duterte’s P130.677 billion, Benigno Aquino III’s Aquino’s P61.455 billion and Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s P45.185 billion,” HEAD disclosed.
“We call on the Filipino people to stand up and demand to prioritize and provide adequate budget for health and other social services and rechannel allotment for pork barrel-like programs, militarization and debt servicing to productive economic sectors, particularly agriculture and manufacturing. Together let us push for a national budget that prioritizes people’s health and general well-being and the country’s development,” HEAD concluded.
