An online group against budget cuts to social services next year was joined by at least 3,000 Facebook users, mainly students and youths, in its first 12 hours.

Located in the popular social networking site Facebook, the group is called ‘Kilos na Laban sa Budget Cuts’, and was initiated by members of a real-world alliance of the same name. The ‘offline’ Kilos na Laban sa Budget Cut is composed of organizations, institutions, and individuals representing youths, students, teachers, health workers, OFWs, and urban poor.

For Vencer Crisostomo, lead youth convener of Kilos na Laban sa Budget Cuts, the outpouring of support is an indication of how “the youth is disgusted with how social services has taken a backseat to military spending, debt payments, and the presidential pork barrel under the current administration”.

Meanwhile, the youth leader took the occasion of Ninoy Aquino Day to highlight the ‘grotesqueness’ of Aquino’s stance towards social services funding.

“His own father once said ‘We’re spending more money for bullets than for medicine. We’re spending more money for tanks than schoolhouses. We’re spending more money for the salary of the soldiers than the salary of our teachers. That is one of the root causes of our fundamental poverty defect’. Obviously, he hasn’t even bothered to learn from his own father’s words” said Crisostomo.

50 State Universities and Colleges (SUCs) are facing a combined budget cut of P569.8 million, while all 112 across the country will not receive a single centavo for the construction of new facilities. The ‘increased’ funding for basic education meanwhile is severely insufficient to solve the shortages in other equipment and facilities. For example, despite the increase, there is an estimated teacher shortage of 130,000 next year. Public hospitals have a similar story, as 42% of Metro Manila-based hospitals and 33% of hospitals nationwide will receive no additional budget for maintenance and other operating expenses next year to counteract this year’s cuts.