Continued from part 1

Aquino also claimed that in his first year as President, the Philippines got upgraded four times by credit rating agencies. Compare this, said Aquino, to the lone credit upgrade and six downgrades the country had in the nine and a half years of the Arroyo administration. A high credit rating means lower interest payments. According to Aquino, the country spent P23 billion less in interest payments from January to April 2011 compared to the same period last year. This amount can supposedly already cover the 2.3 million families in target beneficiaries of the CCT program until the end of the year.

Debt servicing

A credit rating is simply the measure of the credit worthiness of government. Credit worthiness, meanwhile, pertains to the ability of government to repay its debt obligations. A high or favorable credit rating indicates that there is less or no risk of defaulting on our loans. Thus, creditors are more willing to lend with lower interest rates and therefore “less” debt burden for the borrower.

But the credit rating upgrades came at a high cost for the people. To obtain the upgrades, the Aquino administration ensured that debt obligations are being paid dutifully and at the same time resorted to massive under-spending. The result is that an ever increasing portion of spending by the national government went to debt servicing. Since Aquino became President, total debt servicing has already reached P668.65 billion (from July 2010 to May 2011). Until April this year, 49.3 percent of what the Aquino administration has spent went to debt servicing.

Worse than Arroyo

Compare these figures to those under Arroyo, who has been criticized as a heavy borrower and payer. Monthly debt servicing during the Arroyo administration was P48.18 billion while in the first 11 months of the Aquino presidency, it went up to P60.79 billion.  As a percentage of total government spending (including principal payments), the average during the Arroyo administration was 41.5 percent while under Aquino, it has increased to 49.3 percent (until April 2011). (See Table)

Despite the bigger debt servicing, the total outstanding debt of government (including contingent debt) still rose from P5.19 trillion in June 2010 to P5.23 trillion as of April 2011. The P40-billion rise in government debt includes $400 million (about P18 billion) in loans from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) approved last September 2010 to help bankroll the expanded CCT program. This means that the P23 billion mentioned by Aquino as savings from lower interest payments will just be used to pay for the rising debt obligations of government, including those incurred for the CCT.

Fiscal deficit

The credit rating upgrades were also achieved due to the improvement in the national budget deficit, another indicator closely watched to determine a country’s creditworthiness. From an all-time high (in absolute terms) of P314.5 billion in deficit in 2010, the Aquino administration has been able to substantially reduce the shortfall so far this year. From January to May 2011, the fiscal deficit was pegged at just P9.54 billion or 94.1 percent below the deficit during the same period in 2010. It is also way below the programmed deficit of P152.13 billion for the first half of the year.

This lower deficit was made possible by higher revenues and lower spending during the period. As compared to the first five months of 2010, revenues are higher by P81.5 billion while spending is down by P71.08 billion. Furthermore, monthly collections are more than P1.89 billion higher than expected while monthly expenditures are almost P21.55 billion lower than programmed.

At the people’s expense

But the improved fiscal situation was achieved at the expense of the people who are being deprived of social services as government under-spent and much of what it spent went to debt servicing. At the same time, the people are being squeezed dry with burdensome taxes to raise revenues.

To keep credit rating agencies and creditors impressed, Aquino rejected the growing public clamor to scrap or at least suspend the 12 percent value-added tax (VAT) on oil amid soaring pump prices. According to Aquino, “suspending the VAT might trigger a credit downgrade because credit rating agencies would likely deem such a move as ‘fiscally imprudent’.”

The oil VAT has become one of the most important sources of revenues for government since Arroyo introduced it in 2005. But it is also the most oppressive. Revenues from the oil VAT rise dramatically as prices of petroleum products increase. Due to higher oil prices this year, for instance, the Department of Finance (DOF) expects government to earn an additional P18 billion in revenues. From an original forecast of P52 billion in oil VAT earnings based on a global crude price of $80 per barrel, the DOF revised its projection to P70 billion based on $110 per barrel.

High pump prices made a significant contribution to higher tax collections this year. In the first two months of 2011, oil VAT revenues increased by P1.2 billion because of the oil price hikes. Aside from the 12 percent VAT, gasoline products are also charged with excise tax, which generated P4.03 billion for government from January to May this year – P389 million higher than during the same period in 2010.

Facts & figures that matter

Meanwhile, facts and figures that truly matter to the people have been ignored in Aquino’s SONA – P125 or the amount of legislated minimum wage hike workers have long been demanding to help them cope with ever rising cost of living; 6,453 hectares or the size of Hacienda Luisita lands that should have long been owned and controlled by farmers and farm workers; 556,526 or the number of families living in informal settlements in Metro Manila and face the threat of forced eviction; 27 or the number of times that diesel prices have gone up since Aquino became President; and 48 or the number of victims of extrajudicial killings in his first year as Chief Executive, among others.

By using numbers, the President hoped to be objective in presenting his administration’s supposed achievements during the SONA. But he ended up ignorant of the numbers that truly matter. (End)