Debt balloons to P16.09 trillion as of end-November

MANILA, Philippines — The country’s outstanding debt reached another record high, hitting P16.09 trillion as of end-November last year amid the peso’s depreciation against the dollar, the Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) said.

The latest figure was 0.4 percent or P70.7 billion higher than the end-October 2024 level of P16.02 trillion, primarily due to the effect of local currency depreciation against the greenback on foreign currency loans.

The BTr said the depreciation of the peso against the dollar to 58.602 as of end-November last year from 58.198 a month earlier, resulted in the increase in the peso equivalent of the country’s foreign debts.

On a yearly basis, however, the debt pile jumped by 10.9 percent from P14.51 trillion in November 2023.

The Treasury said domestic borrowing accounted for the majority or nearly 68 percent of the debt pile. The rest or 32 percent of the country’s borrowing came from external sources.

Total domestic debt at P10.92 trillion was up by just 0.3 percent on a monthly basis, but jumped nine percent from the P10.02 trillion year-on-year.

“The increment resulted from the P30.67 billion net issuance of domestic securities and P1.15 billion effect of peso depreciation on dollar-denominated domestic debt,” the BTr said.

External obligations, on the other hand, increased by 0.8 percent to P5.17 trillion month-on-month, but rose by 15.3 percent from the P4.48 trillion in the same period in 2024.

The Treasury said the lower external debt was due to significant depreciation of the peso, which led to a P35.61-billion rise in the local valuation of dollar-denominated debt. Net foreign loan availments also added P8.33 billion.

This was tempered by the net impact of third-currency fluctuations against the dollar amounting to P5.06 billion.

Total debt guaranteed obligations rose by 2.5 percent to P422.04 billion due to new domestic guarantees amounting to P8.95 billion and the P1.85 billion in upward adjustments brought about by unfavorable foreign currency movements.

The Treasury earlier said that aggressively lowering the country’s debt-to-gross domestic product (GDP) ratio to pre-pandemic levels is impractical given the need to sustain public investments.

The share of national debt to the country’s GDP rose to 61.3 percent in the third quarter from 60.9 percent in the previous quarter.