Former DA secretary Manny Piñol (left), former president Rodrigo Duterte (Facebook)

A House "Young Guns" bloc member reminded Manny Piñol of his supposed shortcomings--and by extension, that of the previous Duterte administration's--after the latter criticized President Marcos over the country’s P16.63-trillion debt.

Zambales 1st district Rep. Jay Khonghun went as far to advise Piñol, a candidate for the gubernatorial post in North Cotabato, to look himself in the mirror.

“Before pointing fingers, look in the mirror. You resigned in disgrace. And you still owe the Filipino people answers—not lectures,” Khonghun said on Tuesday, April 15.

“The truth is simple: the current government is paying for the sins of the past. The ones who bloated the debt are now acting like saints. It’s shameless,” added the House assistant majority leader.

Piñol--who has 1.2 million followers on Facebook--slammed President Marcos over the supposed bloated national debt during a recent campaign sortie in North Cotabato. 

During the previous Duterte administration, Piñol held the positions of Department of Agriculture (DA) secretary and Mindanao Development Authority (MinDA) chairman. 

“Let’s set the record straight: It was under your boss, former president Rodrigo Roa Duterte, when our country’s debt truly ballooned—with P7.2 trillion added in just six years. That’s more than the combined total debt of all Philippine presidents from Manual Quezon to Benigno ‘Noynoy’ Aquino III over 89 years amounting to only P6.6 trillion," Khonghun said.

Duterte 'death burden'

"If there’s a ‘death burden', it was the one the Duterte administration created,” he underscored. 

According to Khonghun, Piñol’s attempt to weaponize the country’s debt against the current administration is “laughably audacious", given his controversial tenure in government.

“He presided over rice crises, proposed legalizing smuggling, bungled the bird flu outbreak, and was linked to questionable behavior in the Recto Bank incident. And now he wants to lecture us on responsible governance,” Khonghun said.

The Zambales solon said that the Marcos administration inherited a fiscal landscape already strained by Duterte-era loans--many of which were granted blanket approval under the guise of pandemic response but with little congressional scrutiny or transparency.

“We in Congress are now pushing for reforms to make sure future administrations don’t recklessly mortgage our nation’s future the way it was done under Duterte,” Khonghun said.

“That includes investigating how the P7.2 trillion in loans was used, and whether the Filipino people truly benefited from that borrowed money,” he added.

House Deputy Leader Majority Iloilo 1st district Rep. Janette Garin earlier called for a congressional inquiry into the P7.2-trillion debt, as she said that the unchecked borrowing during the pandemic years severely reduced the country’s fiscal space.