FIVE decades since the The Beatles advised people “to carry that weight” in 1969, the Philippines’s debt burden stood at P7.73 trillion ($159.34 billion) as of end-2019. The dollar amount was equivalent to the budget deficit the US addressed nearly two decades ago.

While the Fab Four wasn’t referring to anything, much more debt, the burden of borrowings were carried long and will be carried long according to people BusinessMirror talked to amid and even after the Covid-19 pandemic and the Duterte administration.