‘Marcos regime’s criminal legacies continue to harm Filipinos’—FDC
By Ryan D. Rosauro
Inquirer Mindanao
1:13 pm | Wednesday, September 26th, 2012
OZAMIZ CITY, Philippines
Let us not forget the onerous debts. This is what the Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC) said as it reminded Filipinos on the “crimes and legacies of the Martial Law era and that of the strongman rule of Ferdinand Marcos that continue to hound and harm our nation and people.”One of these criminal legacies is the regime’s fraudulent and
illegitimate debts that were riddled with corruption and hardly
benefited the people,” the FDC, a non-government
organization opposing the payment of debts incurred by the
Marcos regime, said in a statement. When Marcos fled in 1986 in the wake of the popular uprising, the country was saddled with $28 billion in foreign debt.
The FDC noted that at the start of Marcos’ presidency in
1965, the country’s foreign debt stood only at $1 billion.
The group echoed the widespread suspicion among anti-
dictatorship forces then that Marcos and his cronies profited
from the fraudulent loans contracted by government, which
could be the source of his ill-gotten wealth estimated to be at
least $5 billion.
“The plunder of our economy plunged the people into mass
poverty. In 1975, 57 percent of the Filipino families reportedly
lived below the poverty line, while Marcos, his wife and their
cronies indulged in extravagance and opulence,” the FDC said.
“Today, Filipino taxpayers continue to bear the cost of the
regime’s foreign debts, until 2025,” it added. The FDC said the government’s policy to honor the Marcos debts compromised important spending for health, education and basic social services “that the government is duty-bound to provide for the people.”
“This policy contributed to a perennial and seemingly vicious
cycle of budget shortfalls and fiscal crises, continued debt
and interest payments, increased tax burdens, increased debt
burdens and severe reduction , if not criminal neglect of the
welfare needs, economic and social services for the people,”
FDC explained.
“The Aquino regime and successive governments often used
the budget and the debt crisis they inherited from Marcos as
reasons to allow… privatization and deregulation of essential
public services like water and power, cheap sale of
government assets and properties, and imposition of
regressive tax measures such as the 10% value-added tax
(VAT) which was later increased and expanded to the
detriment of the majority poor consumers,” it added.
Akbayan Rep. Walden Bello, former FDC president, said the
government’s “stubborn policy of debt repayments, and its
inability to spend and invest have consigned our country not
only to debt burden and debt trap, but also economic
stagnation.”
FDC said that between 1986 and 1991, “the country reportedly
averaged a negative $1.5 billion transfer of resources to the
creditor countries each year.” Today, the country’s foreign debt stands at $62.9 billion, the FDC noted. It added that as of end 2011, each Filipino owes P79,885.18 in public debt and is forced to pay P7,544 annually to service the said debt. “For this year, the Philippine government spends P1.4 million per minute of the people’s money for debt servicing,” FDC said. “The continuing failure of the government to prioritize the people’s needs and welfare over debt servicing is… a failure to rectify the Marcos misdeeds,” the group stressed.
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/277872/marcos-regimes-criminal-legacies-continue-to-harm-filipinos-fdc
pag pinag tangol mo ba ang mga marcos exempted ka sa utang nila?