Escudero belied these claims saying that next year's budget can never achieve equilibrium as there are still program and project loans slated to be made amounting to P77 billion.

He said no matter how the government rationalizes the proposed budget, the fact still remains that we are still very much deep in our knees in borrowings.

"The president had said in her budget message that balancing the budget veers us away from borrowing, but in the proposed budget for next year, we have a P46 billion program loans and a P31 billion project loans."

The amounts, added Escudero, do not yet include borrowings for prepayments to retire old debts. The national government intends to borrow P346 billion to pay off maturing debts this year.

Escudero also expressed doubts about the pay back agenda of the budget from the gains of the new taxes slapped on the Filipino people through value added tax. For 2008 budget, the Bureau of Customs has allocated P64.6 billion from its VAT revenue, while the Bureau of Internal Revenue has allocated P34.4 from the same collection.

"If you add these revenue collections, you have P99 billion or about a hundred billion pesos cash source. The question is where is this money? Can the government account for this amount and actually tell us it will redound to the benefit of the general public"?*

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