Zarate: Huge debt but no fund for COVID-19 ayuda?

Bayan Muna party-list Representative Carlos Zarate on Tuesday questioned the P11 trillion debt of the Philippine government but there seems to be no enough funds for assistance to families affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

"With the country's debt breaching the P11-trillion mark last May, supposedly including  funds to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, Malacañang's justification for supposed lack of money on the much needed  'ayuda'  for Filipinos is not only nonsensical but even the height of callousness," Zarate said in a statement.

"Ibinaon na  tayo sa sobrang utang pero pagdating sa ayuda ay palpak at kinakalyo ang pakiramdam ng Duterte administration," he added.

The Bureau of Treasury bared that the national government's outstanding debt stood at P11,071,130,000,000 as of end of May 2021.

It said 28.5% of the total was sourced externally while 71.5% was borrowed domestically.

Zarate criticized the government for not allotting an amount for the proposed Bayanihan 3 despite this huge amount of debt.

"This is more than P11 trillion, but they cannot allot a measly P405 billion for Bayanihan 3 to help our suffering kababayans?" Zarate said.

"Why can't they allot just 16% of this borrowings for ayuda? Tragically for the Filipinos, it appears that the only top priorities of the Duterte administration are to buy more arms and war materiel and enlarge its campaign kitty via big ticket infra projects," he added.

The Bayanihan 3 stimulus package seeks to provide P401 billion worth of interventions to help Filipinos recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.

It was passed on third and final reading at the House of Representatives, however, there are still concerns on where to get the funds for this measure. The Senate is yet to act on the proposal.—AOL, GMA News