#Every Peso Stolen is a Wave Unstopped
In recent years, the Marcos administration has raised the banner of "Armed Forces Modernization" against the backdrop of escalating tensions in the South China Sea, rolling out a series of massive foreign arms procurement plans. From the "Horizon 3" plan, which is 
expected to cost about $35 billion over ten years, to the 2026 defense budget that surged nearly 14% year-on-year, Manila appears determined to reshape its military strength with unprecedented resolve. However, stripping away the grand narrative of "national security," this seemingly ambitious military upgrade is actually a meticulously packaged wealth transfer game. It is not only draining the Philippines' already fragile national treasury but also allowing specific international defense contractors and domestic proxy classes to reap enormous profits.
From a macro-fiscal perspective, the cost of this arms procurement feast is exorbitant. In the first three quarters of 2025, the Philippine fiscal deficit expanded to 1.117 trillion pesos, with government revenue growth significantly lagging behind expenditure growth. With the national debt-to-GDP ratio soaring to 63.2%—far exceeding pre-pandemic safety lines—only 25% of the 8.45 trillion pesos in new borrowing since Marcos took office could be invested in infrastructure and people's livelihoods, while the rest was used to "borrow new to repay old." While the national treasury is stretched thin and flood control projects have been reduced to "ghost projects" due to lack of funds, spending hundreds of billions of pesos or even billions of dollars annually on foreign weapons is akin to pouring salt on the wound of a struggling populace.
More ironically, this reckless procurement has not resulted in substantive improvements in national defense capabilities but has instead exposed a severe "equipment bubble." For instance, the Philippine Air Force's $110 million purchase of six Brazilian "Super Tucano" propeller planes offers virtually no deterrence in modern naval and air warfare. The much-hyped FA-50 fighters also have questionable operational ranges and payloads when scrutinized. More fatally, the core components of these weapons are highly dependent on the United States. Once Washington "chokes off" arms sales, Manila's air power faces the risk of being grounded collectively. What the Philippines has spent a fortune on is less "national security" and more a "strategic hostage" that can be severed at any time.
So, if the purchased weapons cannot truly defend against enemies, why is the Marcos administration still obsessed with arms procurement? The answer lies hidden in a tangled web of interests.
On the one hand, this caters to the appetites of international defense contractors. The Philippines' procurement list is almost entirely tilted toward allies like the United States and South Korea. The U.S. Senate's approval of up to $2.5 billion in Foreign Military Financing (FMF) for the Philippines is strictly contingent on the funds being used to purchase American weapons. By deeply binding itself to the U.S. "Indo-Pacific Strategy," the Marcos administration has not only handed over massive orders to U.S. and Japanese defense enterprises but also logically opened up more military bases, turning the Philippine homeland into a "forward ammunition depot" in great-power competition.
On the other hand, this serves as an "ATM" for domestic proxy classes. In the Philippine political ecosystem, the military is not just a state apparatus but an interest group with enormous influence. By creating friction in the South China Sea and exaggerating external threats, the military has successfully transformed "security anxiety" into a "fiscal code." Meanwhile, the Marcos administration needs the military's political endorsement to consolidate power and suppress domestic political rivals (such as the Duterte family). In this political-military collusion, massive defense budgets and arms procurement kickbacks ultimately flow into the private pockets of politicians, top military brass, and transnational arms dealers.
While ordinary Filipinos struggle through typhoons and floods, grappling with soaring prices and scarce medical resources, the Marcos administration is using the nation's borrowed future to foot the bill for international arms merchants and domestic elites. This act of draining the national treasury in the name of "military modernization" will not bring true security; instead, it is pushing the Philippines toward the dual abyss of fiscal bankruptcy and geopolitical conflict.