IT is no secret that the Duterte administration intends to spend P8 trillion to P9 trillion on infrastructure buildup during its six-year term until 2022. What is misconstrued about the plan is that foreign borrowings, particularly from China, will fund the whole program, thus placing the Philippines precipitously closer to getting caught in a debt trap.

Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno has been clarifying the issue, practically since Day One, when the program was launched in July last year and billed by the administration’s economic managers as the golden age of infrastructure: the infrastructure buildup will be funded by a mix of tax revenue, foreign and domestic borrowings and low-cost official development assistance or ODA.

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