Money, Debt, and Power: The Philippine Choice
By Karl Garcia
Money is not neutral. Debt is not technical. And complexity is rarely accidental.
Across history, monetary systems have always reflected political choices: who holds power, who bears risk, and who is expected to trust whom. When systems grow opaque, when explanations become convoluted, and when citizens are told that only experts can understand how money really works, it is usually because power is being shielded from accountability.
Today’s Philippine debate over digital money, public debt, and the Maharlika Investment Fund is not new. It echoes older global arguments about monetary sovereignty, institutional credibility, and the dangers of mistaking financial engineering for economic strength.
The Seduction of Complexity
From Bitcoin evangelism to deficit panic, modern monetary debates are often framed as technical puzzles. But complexity itself has become a political tool.
Bitcoin was marketed as neutral money — trustless, automatic, free from state abuse. In reality, it evolved into an elaborate Rube Goldberg machine: energy‑intensive, governance‑light, volatile, and increasingly controlled by informal elites. Far from eliminating trust, crypto merely displaced it — from public institutions to opaque code, exchanges, and private platforms.
Public debt discussions suffer from the same illusion. When the U.S. national debt crossed $18 trillion, it was framed as either an existential crisis or a harmless accounting artifact. In truth, it was neither. As Joe America once argued, modern sovereign debt operates through constant rollover — a system designed less to repay than to perpetuate confidence. The machinery is complex not because it must be, but because complexity obscures responsibility.
Debt Is a Governance Test
National debt is not inherently good or bad. What matters is why it exists and what backs it.
A useful contrast comes from what might be called a “tale of two cities.” In Singapore, government debt exists primarily to support domestic capital markets. It is fully backed by state assets managed through institutions like Temasek and GIC. The debt signals strength because it rests on accumulated value and disciplined governance.
The U.S. model is different. Its debt finances ongoing deficits and relies on the dollar’s global dominance and institutional credibility. It works — not because debt doesn’t matter — but because trust, scale, and enforcement mechanisms remain intact.
The lesson is simple: monetary sovereignty is not magic. It functions only when institutions are credible, transparent, and insulated from short‑term politics.
The Philippine Reality: Partial Sovereignty, Full Exposure
The Philippines sits in an uncomfortable middle.
We issue our own currency, yet remain deeply exposed to dollar dynamics through energy imports, trade, and remittances. We borrow without crisis, but without the institutional buffers that make borrowing productive rather than political.
Our problem is not excessive debt. It is insufficient governance capacity.
This weakness explains why digital wallets have raced ahead of public monetary institutions. GCash, Maya, and similar platforms have delivered real convenience and inclusion — but they have also privatized access to money. Financial participation increasingly depends on compliance with corporate platforms, algorithms, and risk models.
That is not financial empowerment. It is financial reliance.
Infrastructure Beats Ideology
The quiet success of InstaPay and PESONet reveals a different path.
These systems worked not because they were revolutionary, but because they focused on plumbing rather than ideology. They scaled trust through interoperability, public oversight, and boring reliability. Payment gateways extended this trust into commerce, allowing small entrepreneurs to participate in the digital economy without surrendering monetary control to speculative systems.
This is what real monetary progress looks like: institution‑first, technology‑second.
Maharlika: A Stress Test, Not a Shortcut
The Maharlika Investment Fund exposes the central contradiction of Philippine economic thinking.
Sovereign funds succeed only where governance is stronger than politics. Norway built institutions first, then pooled capital. Weak states that attempt the reverse transform sovereign funds into patronage machines.
Maharlika risks becoming a substitute for reform — a symbol of ambition without the discipline to sustain it. The Philippines does not lack capital. It lacks credible commitment mechanisms.
The Real Question
Every monetary system — from the New Deal to Reaganomics, from crypto to sovereign wealth funds — converges on one truth:
Money follows power.
The question facing the Philippines is not whether to embrace digital currency, tolerate higher debt, or experiment with state investment. The question is whether we are willing to build institutions capable of managing power responsibly.
Without that foundation, innovation becomes extraction, debt becomes dependency, and complexity becomes camouflage.
The future of money in the Philippines is not technological. It is political.
And until we confront that honestly, no amount of clever financial engineering will save us from the consequences of weak governance.
The Society of Honor by Joe America 
“The question is whether we are willing to build institutions capable of managing power responsibly.” – Karl
Amen to that!
Sovereign wealth funds whether in a highly democratic state with good governance (Norway) or in a regressive authoritarian state with high corruption (Saudi Arabia) have a common trait: basis in extracted natural resources.
For this reason of unfulfilled requirement alone, Maharlika is destined to fail.
I began looking at the Philippine economy from 1899 to the present time, but paused during my travels. It’s rather difficult to synthesize older data into something cohesive and easily understood. Data is missing or unrecorded, or not easily publicly available.
It does seem to me that the national debt started climbing when American investments started to get pushed out in the late 1960s into 1970s. As a lot of the present national debt is used to finance basic budget items, which have a major component of maintaining what exists, one wonders if the debt should be used this way. Typically debt is incurred to gamble on the future, with a thought out plan. Just speaking in personal finance terms, using debt to maintain a lifestyle is a quick way to soon to be drowning in debt with no tangible results. Eventually what is maintained through debt can no longer be maintained between the maintenance and the debt installments.
I tend to be optimistic about the amounts of money being generated by taxes and think the Philippines is big enough to weather economic shocks and sneaky enough to protect banks should they get stressed. The oversupply of condos risks tipping some developers under, but if they can disappear Dennis Uy’s collapse, and shrug as Manny Villar’s empire apparently crumbles, they can handle anything.
I agree with Joey that a sovereign wealth fund is a ridiculous undertaking, amateurs trying to wear big-boy financial pants. It will come and go unnoticed, the sneaky approach kissing it goodby.
As for the last article, going back to K-10 is the stupidest idea imaginable. The Philippines actually saw a rise in national IQ competitiveness last year although it still ranks 7th in Southeast Asia. I think the OFW phenomenon has an effect there as more kids get past drop-out status, and more get onto higher education tracks.
I’m an optimist about education as I think Secretary Angara is serious about it. He is professional, not political. Under a new President Duterte, who knows where it could go.
Thanks Joe for the extensive insights.
SWF with record high debt, it does not compute and yes keep K12.
there may not be a president duterte comes 2028! though we may yet see ex president duterte convicted in the hauge for ejks. his best and dearest minions the like of bato and bong go are to be included as kasabwat, or co conspirators.
I think, it was divine providence that sara opted out of dedEd, instead of building classrooms she was building satellite offices for herself, employing more staff for herself instead of employing more teachers. even megastar sharon cuneta recently remarked to president marcos that he has chosen the wrong vice president.
Totally dysfunctional soul. But C/D love her.
they can love her to bits, but once wrong, always wrong, she is the wrong vice president and she will make a wrong president.
funny though, those eight mentioned by ICC that once professed absolute loyalty to duterte are now refusing to be lumped in with him. that they have nothing to do with duterte’s crime against humanity. looks like they are okay for duterte to take the blame, themselves blameless.
here’s AI’s report as regard the current status of our own maharlika sovereign wealth fund:
As of February 2026, the Philippines’ Maharlika Investment Fund (MIF) has transitioned from its foundational phase into an active deployment period. Managed by the Maharlika Investment Corporation (MIC), the fund is currently focusing on “sectoral and tactical” investments to address economic bottlenecks in energy, logistics, and agriculture.
Financial and Operational Status
Key Investment Activities (2025–2026)
The fund is currently executing several strategic deals:
Governance and Framework
The MIC operates under a “Strategic Outlook for 2026” that emphasizes transparency and adherence to the Santiago Principles (the international standards for sovereign wealth funds). It is an associate member of the International Forum of Sovereign Wealth Funds (IFSWF).
A big good luck to Maharlika
I am optimistic and wish maharlika the success it deserve. kasi like so many filipino business ventures in the past that barely get off the ground due maybe to people’s apathy, lack of support, being given early death so soon after inception and not even given a lookover by its very nature that it is filipino contraption and therefore inferior and not up to par, maharlika seems to be finding its own feet, bullish in some investment aspects, and not putting all its eggs in one basket. true, the stakes are high, the risk, riskier, but nothing ventured, nothing gained.
we deserve to have economic success even if the gods of economics are biased and not looking favorably at us.
I’d like to see the financial statements, but won’t bother looking for them. I’m guessing most of the income comes by investing seed capital, or the money they took from Land Bank and elsewhere for free, in bonds. The few projects they’ve done won’t generate 2.6 billion pesos in net income.
The money they took from Land Bank dropped the bank to the brink of financial stress so they had to go out and raise capital, and pay for it. This is what I refer to ” sneaky” financial management in the Philippines. The net net income for the wealth fund would apply Land Bank and other institution’s expenses for raising new capital against that 2.6 billion peso “net income”
latest on landbank:
https://www.facebook.com/gmanews/posts/state-owned-land-bank-of-the-philippines-saw-its-bottom-line-grow-to-a-record-hi/1407757334729253/
Thanks.
Total assets: ₱127.2 billion (Aug 2025) Equity: ₱126.6 billion → implies very low liabilities (~₱0.6B) Cash & equivalents: ₱76.8 billion Net income: ₱2.68 billion
Wait till the debts come. Next year will be a different picture.
I wonder how Indonesians and Malaysians deal with debt.
Because in Bahasa the word for debt is also utang but the word for people is orang.
So is avoiding becoming an orang with utang a priority in those countries?
here’s an overview of how orang utang apparently derived its name:
AI Overview
Orangutans are called “orangutans” because the name is derived from the Malay and Indonesian words orang, meaning “person,” and hutan, meaning “forest”. The term literally translates to “person of the forest”, a name used to describe these great apes native to Indonesia and Malaysia.
Key Facts Regarding the Name:
Alternative Spellings: The name has been spelled in various ways, including orang-utan, orang utan, orangutang, and ourang-outang
Meaning: The phrase refers to the animal’s dwelling place and their resemblance to human behavior.
Origin: While often associated with 17th-century European explorers, the term has roots in Old Malay/Javanese, appearing in texts over 1,000 years old.
Language & Usage: In the Malay language, “orang” refers to a person and “hutan” to the forest.
I had the opportunity to visit an orangutan rehabilitation center in Malaysia. Nothing quite like seeing long-armed reddish beasts swinging in the trees, free and graceful. They can stare holes through your brain when they contemplate how silly humans are running around on the ground in cloth bags.
orang utangs are listed as critically endangered and facing extinction, their habitat mostly taken over by the very lucrative palm oil plantations.
It looks like you’re asking about the phrase “orang utang” in Bahasa (Malay/Indonesian).
In both Bahasa Melayu and Bahasa Indonesia:
So:
If you meant a full sentence like:
If you tell me the exact sentence you want, I can translate it more precisely 🙂
not utang (debt) but alliance is what philippines and indonesia are trying to engage in.
https://mb.com.ph/2026/02/13/nickel-giants-philippines-indonesia-form-alliance-to-control-supply
Combined we wiill be the largest supplier
One third of the world,’s supply
my friends are saying, we might as well have a good look at urangutangs now for in the future, the only place where we may see them is at the zoo where we have to pay for entrance. kasi apparently, our money needs displaces orangutang all the time, the very ground they walk on will be mined for minerals lasting for generations. either orangutangs evolve, or perish. lately the same thing has been said about us human, we will lost ground to AI and we too will become endangered.
in the meantime, we will drink and be merry.
A bit busy yesterday helping to organize firearms training for new owners so I was waiting for someone to notice Irineo’s pun, but it looks like the noticing only got there halfway to orangutan lol.
To go deeper into Irineo’s question though: Indonesians and Malaysians have the same “base” habits that Filipinos think as distinctly Filipino, except *surprise* the Indonesians and Malaysians think those habits are uniquely and separately an Indonesian and Malaysian burden. There has been much internal debate in Malaysia but especially Indonesia about the penchant towards sloth, taking it easy, leaving it up to fate, being tardy to everything, completing things halfway, and yes, on the love of borrowing to spend first and think later. These cultural habits probably were proto-Austronesian cultural traits that were viewed neither positively nor negatively and only gained negative character once previously foreign religions that value work ethic and honesty were layered on top.
P.S. Proto-Malay “hutaŋ” (debt) is different from Proto-Malay “hutan” (forest). And “orangutan” was probably a Dutch invention based off of the Malay words “orang” + “hutan.”
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Malayic/hutaŋ
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Malayic/hutan
Huthutan ng pera. Try to google Ai overview it
it is all monkey business to me, haha!
the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laguna_Copperplate_Inscription of AD 900 also mentioned hutang but no wonder as it was mainly in Old Malay. The oldest Filipino written document on record is about utang!
Hehe plus the number of witnesses mentioned and the repetitive phrasing is like a modern Filipino official document.