Government borrowings drop to P65 billion in November

MANILA, Philippines — The government trimmed its borrowings to P65.05 billion in November as it settled more domestic debts, offsetting new obligations acquired from domestic and foreign sources, according to the Bureau of the Treasury.

The latest figure was 48 percent lower than last year’s P125.462 billion due to a double-digit decline in domestic financing.

While external borrowings more than tripled to P16.17 billion from just P4.44 billion in the same month a year ago, domestic financing fell by almost 60 percent to P48.88 billion from P121 billion.

All external debts registered in November came in the form of project and program loans granted by multilateral lenders. Program loans stood at P7.47 billion while project loans reached P8.7 billion in November.

For the domestic account, the government issued P30 billion in fixed-rate Treasury bonds (T-bonds) during the month. The government also borrowed P18.88 billion from short-term T-bills.

During the same month last year, the government borrowed more T-bonds at P100 billion and secured P15 billion in tokenized bonds. It also had P6.02 billion in T-bills.

From January to November, government borrowings rose by almost 19 percent to P2.49 trillion from P2.1 trillion in the same period last year.

This means that as of end-November, the government already used up 97 percent of the P2.57-trillion borrowing plan it crafted for the year.

The Treasury reported that external borrowings jumped by 26.4 percent to P582.41 billion, as domestic financing increased by 16.5 percent to P1.91 trillion.

By type, fixed-rate T-bonds accounted for the largest amount of 44 percent at P1.09 trillion, followed by short-term retail T-bonds (P584.86 billion) and T-bills (P228.26 billion).

Likewise, the government issued P141 billion in global bonds in September and P115.25 billion in global bonds in May. A total of P326.18 billion worth of program and project loans were also obtained from bilateral and multilateral partners.

For 2025, the Philippines has set a borrowing plan of P2.55 trillion, still in favor of domestic creditors. Sourcing from the domestic market is part of the administration’s prudent debt management strategy and its initiatives to further develop the domestic capital markets.