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STOP THE BUDGET CUTS ON SOCIAL SERVICES
by Promotion of Church People’s Response
Sunday, Aug. 29, 2004 at 2:07 PM
STOP THE BUDGET CUTS ON SOCIAL SERVICES,
CUT THE BUDGET ON FOREIGN DEBT PAYMENT NOW!
PRESS STATEMENT
August 29, 2004
The Promotion of Church People’s Response (PCPR) demands the Arroyo
government to stop the budget cuts on social services and withdraw its plan
to allocate as much as P646 B of the 2005 budget for foreign debt servicing.
The Philippines and dozens of Third World Countries are in deep crisis after
all these years of unjust debt payments to the International Monetary Fund
(IMF) and World Bank (WB). We condemn the IMF and WB for imposing unfair
conditions on the Philippines and other debtor countries in exchange for
loans for so-called development programs. Under IMF-WB conditions, the poor
majority suffer the consequences of successive governments that have blindly
followed policies that have increased taxes and foreign debt-servicing while
reducing government spending for health, education, and other social
services.
It is most immoral, unjust and hypocritical for the Arroyo government to ask
the poor to sacrifice some more and prepare for austerity while it is
willing to continue paying usurious interests to the IMF-WB and accepts
additional loans that are again, tied with extremely high interest rates,
proposed new tax measures and the whole package of economic policies that
are sure to condemn the country to further indebtedness. The government
should stop the payment of onerous debts since the Marcos regime, and
withdraw from unfair trade and economic arrangements. The people are
suffering massive unemployment; dismally low wages and outrageously high
prices, which are further compounded by a huge foreign debt, which is
immoral, onerous, fraudulent and definitely unpayable. Year after year, the
largest national budget allocation is for debt servicing, and 70% of the
proposed 2005 budget is designated for debt servicing.
More and more, the Arroyo government will only prove itself to be unworthy
of the people’s support as long as it honors the dictates of these
international usurers through increasing budget for debt payments,
additional tax burdens, continuing oil price deregulation, tax exemptions
for foreign investors, reduced social spending, and other polices of
globalization that have only burdened the majority and pushed our country on
the verge of collapse.
Addressing the fiscal crisis requires immediate reversal of the neo-liberal
policies of trade liberalization, deregulation, and privatization that have
caused a chronic trade deficit, debt crisis and worsening budget crisis. GMA
can save the economy by heeding the people’s long running demands:
• TOTAL REPUDIATION OF IMMORAL, ONEROUS, FRAUDULENT AND BEHEST LOANS
• SCRAPPING OF THE AUTOMATIC APPROPRIATIONS ACT
• RE-CHANNELING OF THE DEBT BUDGET TO BASIC SOCIAL SERVICES
• REJECTING THE LIBERALIZATION, DEREGULATION AND PRIVATIZATION PACKAGE
OF THE IMF-WORLD BANK THAT PUSH THE PHILIPPINE ECONOMY TO FURTHER BANKRUPTCY
AND INDEBTEDNESS
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