DAVAO CITY—Progressive youth group Kabataan party-list expressed outrage over Gloria Arroyo’s proposal to secure $1 billion worth of foreign grants and concessional loans to fund the government’s rehabilitation efforts for flood victims saying that “this would be more disadvantageous and perilous for the millions of Filipino poor.”
“The last thing we need in these critical times is debt-ridden foreign aid because this would be at the expense of the youth and children, women and the Filipino poor who will eventually suffer once the government starts paying for these onerous loans,” Kabataan party-list spokesperson Sheena Duazo said.
The party-list group said that the only way to gain funds for the rehabilitation effort is to rechannel the debt payment budget from the national treasury and use it to fund for a comprehensive disaster program.“Instead of seeking foreign loans and increasing our foreign debt, the Arroyo government should repeal Automatic Appropriations Act or Presidential Decree 1177 (P.D. 1177) which allots 40% of the national budget to foreign debt servicing,” Duazo said.
The party-list group said that if Arroyo pushes through with this foreign aid-slash-foreign debt “the country would further drown in the debt trap now being laid bare by the greedy loan sharks at the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.”
“And with that, the education budget would surely suffer. More and more youth and children will be deprived of the much needed accessible and quality education once we start paying for these onerous loans,” Kabataan said. KABATAAN
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