Government settles P29-billion debt in October 2018

MANILA, Philippines — The national government settled P29.18 billion of its debt last October, including interest payments and amortization, the Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) reported.

According to latest data from the BTr, the national government’s debt payments declined 14 percent to P29.18 billion in October.

This brought the government’s total debt service to P649.72 billion from January to October, up 5.33 percent year- on-year.

The government allots a portion of its budget for the settlement of obligations on a monthly basis, depending on their maturity.

Broken down, the total debt payments last October was composed of P24.02 billion in interest payments and P5.17 billion in amortization.

Interest payments were 17.5 percent higher as compared to last year’s P20.43 billion.

In an earlier statement, the BTr attributed the increase to payment of some domestic interest that was originally due in September, but was settled in October, as well as the valuation effect of the weaker peso on foreign currency interest servicing.

Interest payments accounted for 7.8 percent of the government’s total expenditures in October.

Principal payments also dropped 61.81 percent to P5.17 billion in October.

About P4.44 billion of this amount went to foreign lenders, while the remaining P726 million went to domestic creditors.

For the first 10 months, interest payments reached P295.34 billion, while amortization amounted to P354.38 billion.

Debt payments form part of the government’s expenditures, which jumped 25 percent to P2.8 trillion as of the end of October.

For the whole year, the national government has allocated P682.46 billion for debt payments. This is comprised of P353.41 billion in interest payments, and P329.05 billion in amortization.

This is also slightly higher than the P680.47 billion spent on debt service in 2017.