The Aquino administration today obtained approval of a 25-year $400-million loan from the Asian Development Bank for the expansion of the much-criticized conditional cash transfer program of the previous Arroyo administration.

In a joint statement, the ADB and the Department of Social Welfare and Development said the loan, payable in 25 years and with a grace period of five years, will have an interest rate “in accordance with ADB’s London interbank offered rate-based lending facility”. The loan will also be charged a “commitment charge” of 0.15 percent annually.

This is the second major loan under President Aquino, the first being the $434-million from the United States Millennium Challenge Corp.

The ADB and the DSWD claimed that “initial results” of what is arguably a dole-out program launched by the embattled Arroyo administration, “show significant increases in school enrolment, child immunization, and prenatal medical care”.

An estimated 582,000 poor families are expected to benefit from the expanded doleout program funded by the ADB, bringing to 2.3-million the number of family-beneficiaries by the end of 2011, said DSWD Secretary Corazon “Dinky” Juliano Soliman. 

Soliman served as DSWD secretary under Arroyo from 2001-2005. President Aquino reappointed her to the same post this year.

Last year, then-President Arroyo allotted $266-million to the same doleout program, an act the then-opposition, which included factions of Aquino’s Liberal Party, condemned as “electioneering”.

Total Philippine foreign debt obligations stood at $53.3-billion, as of end-2009. The figure has continuously risen from $27-billion in 1896 when dictator Ferdinand Marcos fled the country. Successive governments from Corazon Aquino to Benigno Aquino have faithfully allotted huge portions of the annual national budgets to pay the principal and interests on foreign obligations — and obtained new loans. 

Elsewhere, the independent think-tank Ibon Foundation points out that the Aquino government has brought to zero the annual budget for health insurance for indigents in the proposed 2011 national budget, aside from a decreased budget for public hospitals.

The minimum wage in Metro Manila stands at $8.9, while the living wage is at $21.22. Unemployment stands at 10.1 percent under Aquino. 

Ibon notes that government programs have failed to make a dent on poverty and joblessness.