Applying the HRBA to Public Finance Framework to Public Expenditures The HRBA to public finance framework offers guidance on key questions related to public expenditures. What should the Philippines spend on in order to progressively realize human rights? How much should the country spend? How should the Philippines arrive at the amount it should spend? Social justice and the eradication of poverty are the twin imperatives of the 1987 Constitution, thus mandating that public money should spent primarily to "free the people from poverty" and promote social justice. This implies that spending should be biased towards those living in poverty and should primarily focus on education, job creation, agricultural productivity, social security and assistance, housing, water and sanitation, and health. lnternational human rights treaties ratified by the Philippines create legally binding obligations which may require expenditures on goods, services and facilities to achieve these. !n addition, treaty monitoring bodies have issued specific recommendations regarding what the country should spend on to realize human rights. As to the level of public spending consistent with human rights, there are no domestic or international thresholds. The Philippines must set its own objective benchmarks and targets to establish the financial resources needed to progressively realize human rights. Estimating available financial resources and resource requirements is not only possible; it may yield less expensive costs than anticipated. For example, in the context of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), Manasan (2007) estimated required resources and resource gaps to achieve the goals related to poverty reduction, education, health, water and sanitation. Under a low GDP growth scenario and using high cost assumptions, the resource gap or the additional resources needed to meet the selected goals was estimated at 1.O7o/o of projected GDP. Using low cost assumptions, the resource gap falls to O.89/" of project GDP. Meeting these goals would make the Philippines compliant with a substantive part of its core obligations. To determine how much the country should spend to progressively realize human rights requires a participatory budget process. This may entail mainstreaming HRBA into the Organization Performance lndicator Framework (OPIF), the government's planning and budgeting tool. HRBA may be mainstreamed into the OPIF by expressly linking goals, outcomes, outputs and activities to human rights through a 12-step process. Appyling the HRBA to Deficit Spending and the Public Debt When the government spends more than its revenues, it engages in deficit spending and borrows an amount equal to the deficit. lt may borrow from the private sector (domestic and foreign), other governments, and multilateral institutions. This borrowing adds to the public debt stock. The deficit represents how much the government borrows in a given year; the public debt stock is the accumulated borrowings over the years. ln principle, the government may borrow from the central bank which issues the country's own currency. This does not add to the public debt stock, the central bank being part of the public sector.