Ben Madilynn
The Department of National Defence (DND) is eyeing a hefty P256.1-billion allocation for 2025, reflecting a 6.4 percent increase from its 2024 budget.
Even with its current budget, however, Marcos Jr.’s military is already responsible for grave human rights violations as well as mounting violations of international humanitarian law as it scrambles to meet kill quotas and other so-called achievements in the run-up to its year-end deadline of crushing the insurgency.
As of June 30, 2024, the Marcos Jr. regime has already chalked up 105 cases of extrajudicial killings and 75 cases of frustrated extrajudicial killings, with the majority of victims civilians made out to be New People’s Army combatants killed during encounters. In addition, there have been 12 cases of enforced disappearance, 42,426 victims of forced evacuations, 63,379 victims of indiscriminate firing and up to 44,065 victims of aerial bombings and artillery strikes.
The Armed Forces of the Philippines’ upcoming shift towards external defense adds a new dimension to the current military build-up: this time around, Filipino soldiers will not only be used to kill fellow Filipinos but will become cannon fodder for US imperialism’s warmongering against China.
Even as Marcos Jr. plans to pour more monies into its terrorist machinery, his distorted sense of priorities becomes even clearer, with the 2025 proposed budget calling for drastic cuts in several welfare and services allocations.
Suffering the biggest cuts on the chopping block are the health department’s allocations for indigent patients which is down by more than half (from P31.2 billion to P26.9 billion); the social welfare department’s P26.7-billion Akap program which has been discontinued; and the labor department’s Tupad program which lost half of its previous funding of P29.6 billion.
The health department will suffer a P23.6 billion budget cut. Government specialty hospitals will also have their budgets slashed: Philippine Children’s Medical Center (P558.4 million less), Philippine Heart Center (P197 million less) and National Kidney and Transplant Institute (P139.2 million less).
Both the state universities and colleges (SUC) and technical education budgets will be cut, with SUCs receiving 10.6 percent less in 2025 and Tesda getting 12.8 percent less.
Instead of these lopsided allocations, the bulk of the nation’s resources must be poured into social services for the poor, who comprise the vast majority of Filipinos, and not for terrorizing the people and furthering the US war agenda.
We join the Filipino people in demanding that the Marcos government stop its all-out war through the DND’s counter-insurgency program and the administration’s proposed budget cuts on social services.
