Bato: ‘Bigger population good for debt payment’ remark taken out of context

Senator Ronald "Bato" dela Rosa on Monday clarified that his statement saying Filipinos should bear more children to lower the country’s debt per capita was taken out of context.

In a phone interview with Senate reporters, Dela Rosa said he was only quoting other people when he told economic managers that having more children to increase the population will divide the country’s debt among more people.

“I was taken out of context, without malice or without intention or unintentionally taken out of context. I was quoting somebody,” Dela Rosa said.

As of end-June 2023, the country’s sovereign debt amounted to a fresh record high of P14.15 trillion.

During last week’s Senate Committee on Finance briefing on the 2024 National Expenditure Program, Dela Rosa was quoted saying: “’Yung simpleng pinobre na pag-iisip, ang anak nila mas marami para yung per capita debt natin baba, the bigger the population mas maraming maghahati hati sa utang.”

(Those with a simple mentality say that the more children they have, the lower debt will be per capita. With a bigger population, more will pay the debt.)

Dela Rosa stressed that such a suggestion was only from other people, and not his.

“Hindi. Sinabi ko nga narinig ko. Sinasabi ng mababa na tao na ganun solution. ‘Di ganun ang solution ko, ang babaw naman ng pagtingin nila sa atin kung ganun,” he said.

(No, I only heard that. Simple-minded people say that is the solution. That's not my solution. The people’s perception of me is shallow if that's the case.)

For his part, Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno took Dela Rosa’s remark lightly, saying he was just joking.

“Kung kaya mong buhayin, pag-aralin, why not ‘di ba (If you can raise them, send them to school, why not)?” Diokno said as to having more children. “But you have to assess your resources,” he added.

Dela Rosa also expressed concern about the country’s rising debt, but said the chief economic manager has assured that there’s no need to panic.

“Ako ay nababahala sa debt natin kaya tinanong ko sila. Sabi ko, in order to appease the people, okay lang ba sabihin na wag mag-panic utang lang yan. Sabi ni Sec. Diokno, ‘di raw tayo dapat mag-panic, our economy is still robust and healthy compared to other countries,” he said.

(I was concerned about our debt so I asked them. I said, in order to appease the people, is it okay to tell them not to panic, it's just a debt. Sec. Diokno said we should not panic, our economy is still robust and healthy compared to other countries.)

Diokno had maintained that the current debt situation of the country is not worrisome and it is still manageable as the borrowing arrangement that the Philippines entered into has fixed interest rates which means the interest will not increase regardless of the status of the economy.

He said 60% of the country's gross domestic product is “reasonable” and that the borrowings had fixed interest rates instead of floating.

Senator Sonny Angara, chairperson of the Senate finance committee, also believes that the Philippines’ debt-to-gross domestic product (GDP) ratio is not yet in an alarming phase.

“Hindi naman siguro (not really). But it is towards the upper end already. Maybe when you hit 70% — we don’t really want to reach that,” the lawmaker said in an ANC interview.

As of the first quarter of 2023, the country’s debt-to-GDP ratio stood at 61%, down from 63.5% in the first quarter of 2022.

The debt-to-GDP ratio represents the amount of the government’s debt stock relative to the size of the economy.

The government is targeting to bring down the debt-to-GDP ratio to less than 60% by 2025, then further down to 51.1% in 2028, and reduce the budget deficit to 3.0% of GDP by 2028.

“Previous to the pandemic... we were at 39% debt-to-GDP ratio and now we’re at 63%. I think they’re going to scale that back to 50% plus by the time the President’s term ends,” Angara said. — RSJ/KBK, GMA Integrated News