Funds for the people, not for the Marcos-Duterte family coffers, counter-insurgency, and corruption!
Malaya Movement USA sounds the alarm regarding the Marcos Jr. regime’s proposed budget for 2024. The proposed budget is riddled with questionable priorities and suspicious spending, as if an economic crisis isn’t already drowning the Filipino people in more debt and rising prices.
Secretary of Finance Benjamin Diokno’s claim, that the debt the Marcos administration is about to approve “is not that scary,” is a slap in the face for the millions. In addition to the tens of billions of dollars the Marcos family embezzled from the Philippine government and the debt that nearly buried the country, this proposed budget will add $30 billion to the already impossible national debt of $281.4 billion. In one year, this would increase the Philippine National Debt by nearly 11%.
Departments like Defense and Public Works and Highways requested more funding under the guise of “modernization”. But in a country like the Philippines, public money goes to pockets before it reaches its actual designated use. For the Department of National Defense, this also means increased funding for atrocities and violations of international humanitarian law, and more politically-motivated detentions, disappearances, and killings through the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict or the Armed Forces of the Philippines.
Following Duterte, Marcos Jr is further militarizing the civilian bureaucracy in the name of counterinsurgency, having requested $178.6 million for confidential and intel funds for the Office of the President and $8.8 million for the Office of the Vice President (OVP). VP Duterte has also requested $2.7 million confidential and intel funds for the Department of Education, weaponizing the department at the cost of the Philippines’ already crumbling public education. In a blatant show of disregard for transparency, Rep. Sandro Marcos, son of Marcos Jr, moved to terminate further deliberations on the budget presentation from the OVP exposing the corrupt scheming between the two dynastic families.
As the health budget under social services is slashed by $31.7 million, Marcos has requested $24.8 million for foreign travels. Marcos Jr’s many foreign travels abroad amounted to $6.9 million in his first year in office. These trips’ sole purpose is to sell the country to the highest bidder, attached to a shaky lie that this will improve the impoverished Filipino’s survival. Meanwhile, support for overseas Filipinos stands at just $44.2 million combined for Assistance to Nationals and the AKSYON funds.
This budget is more proof that Marcos Jr., like his dictator father, is after extravagance at the expense of the Filipino people. Malaya Movement USA calls on the public to reject and oppose this proposed budget. Abolish the confidential and intelligence funds! Demand increased funding for services and aid!
