Unsustainable greed

It is time members of Congress and other top officials realize that their continued plunder of the National Treasury through all varieties of pork barrel funds is definitely unsustainable.

- BOO CHANCO

The government can only raise so much in taxes and must borrow for a huge part of the P6.352-trillion National Budget they passed last week.

And because the country's economic development has to catch up with regional peers, every centavo of available public money must be spent to improve our ability to make the economy more productive.

That means investing in infrastructure, both physical and human.

The insatiable greed of senators, congressmen and other officials must be tamed for the common good.

Otherwise, our grandchildren will have nothing to look forward to except paying the debts this generation of public officials have made to enrich themselves at the expense of every Filipino.

The consequences of continued greed would be grim.

Finance Secretary Ralph Recto said that this year, we had to borrow P2.57 trillion or P4 billion "every 24 hours."

Because we have increased pork funds and reduced business and other taxes under CREATE MORE, we have to borrow a lot more for 2025.

This year, our annual debt obligation is P878 billion; higher than the budgets for health, social welfare, agriculture and tourism combined.

Is it worth it?

Simply put, it is alright to borrow if the money is used to increase our economy's ability to grow.

But unfortunately, the Treasury is borrowing money to enrich congressmen or senators and fund VP Sara's unexplainable confidential funds.

Back in 2019, Deputy Ombudsman Cyril Ramos said corruption eats up 20 percent of the national budget each year.

Put another way, leakages--money lost to corruption and incompetence--are estimated at P1 trillion a year out of our P6 trillion budget.

Imagine losing a trillion pesos for nothing good.