The national debt clock keeps ticking even on ordinary days—on quiet mornings when markets open, taxes are collected, and new borrowings are approved without drama. I find it disturbing that while nothing seems to be happening, the country is sinking deeper, and the bill is already being handed to people who are not yet born.
What unsettles me most is the idea that every Filipino child enters this world already owing money to a government they did not elect and policies they never approved. Debt is no longer just an economic figure flashed on screens; it has become an inherited condition. Long before a child learns to read, a portion of future income has already been reserved to pay for yesterday’s decisions. That reality should outrage any society that claims to care about its next generation.
Borrowing, in itself, is not evil. Governments borrow to build roads, fund schools, stabilize economies, and survive crises. The problem arises when debt stops being a tool and becomes a habit—when loans are taken not to create lasting value but to keep the machinery running. Much of what the country borrows today goes to paying interest on old debts, plugging budget holes, or sustaining bloated systems that refuse to reform. That is not an investment; that is survival financed by tomorrow’s labor.
What makes this worse is the pattern across administrations. Each new regime inherits a mountain of obligations, promises discipline, then proceeds to borrow even more under the familiar excuse of necessity. Debt balloons not because of one extraordinary event, but because overspending, weak revenue collection, and political convenience have been normalized. It is easier to borrow than to offend voters, confront inefficiency, or dismantle useless programs.
Taxes, meanwhile, become the quiet enforcers of this cycle. Every peso collected from workers, small businesses, and consumers ultimately serves a hidden purpose: debt service. Money that could have improved public hospitals, classrooms, or transport instead disappears into interest payments. People are told to be patient, to endure, to understand that this is how governments function. I have grown tired of that explanation. Endurance is not a development strategy.
There is also a moral weight to this problem that numbers fail to capture. Running a government on endless borrowing feels like throwing a feast today and sending the invoice to the unborn. It reflects a failure of imagination and responsibility, a refusal to live within limits. A nation that keeps mortgaging its future eventually loses the right to speak about long-term plans with a straight face.
What frustrates me further is how lightly this issue is discussed in public spaces. Debt is often framed as abstract, technical, or too complex for ordinary citizens to question. That framing is convenient. It dulls anger, discourages scrutiny, and allows the cycle to continue unchallenged. Yet debt is deeply personal—it shapes job opportunities, public services, prices, and the quality of life people experience every day.
If there is a way out, it begins with honesty and restraint. Borrowing should be rare, purposeful, and tied to outcomes that outlive political terms. Waste should be treated as a public offense, not a tolerated flaw. Above all, the country must learn to value the future as much as the present, because freedom from debt does not start with slogans—it begins with the courage to stop passing the burden forward.
