Do you remember the first time in history the Philippines transformed from a borrower to a creditor and pledged $1 billion to the International Monetary Fund to help Europe during its sovereign debt crisis?
Maybe not. Because you were all hating on President Noynoy. But yes, in 2012 during President Noynoy’s time, we not only paid up our debt with the IMF, we pledged $1 billion to the IMF in its efforts to help Europe overcome its debt crisis. We had more than enough money to lend as we had $77 billion in dollar reserves back then.
It wasn’t only an investment meant to to earn interest, it was to prevent the financial collapse of Europe where hundreds of thousands of Filipinos were in danger of losing their jobs which would have meant thousands of Pinoys flying back home to the Philippines, hundreds of millions of dollars worth of remittance drying up, and thousands of OFW families going hungry.
So it is ironic that a large number of OFWs decided to then hate on President Noynoy, elect Europe-hating Duterte, and now we find ourselves in a 17 trillion-peso debt hole that was only five trillion pesos when President Noynoy left office.
We went from borrower to creditor to deep in debt in less than a decade because we wanted “change”. We got the “change” we deserved, all right.
