Gov’t debt payments decline slightly

The national government’s debt settlements reached P1.54 trillion in the first eight months of the year, a slight decline from P1.55 trillion a year ago, even though August saw an almost 400 percent jump in required payments.

- By DERCO ROSAL

Data from the Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) showed that the 0.7 percent drop in year-to-date debt payments could be attributed to the principal payments or amortization made by the Marcos administration, which decreased by eight percent to P956.7 billion from P1.04 trillion a year earlier.

Amortization accounted for 62.1 percent of the total payments.

In particular, the Philippine government reduced its domestic amortization by 12.6 percent to ₱768.5 billion as of end-August from ₱879.7 billion in the previous year. In contrast, amortization to foreign lenders climbed 16.8 percent to ₱188.2 billion from ₱161.1 billion during the eight-month period.

Meanwhile, the country’s interest payments, which accounted for 37.9 percent of the total, increased by 14.7 percent to ₱584.1 billion from ₱509.4 billion.

Payments to domestic lenders increased by 18.3 percent to ₱429.1 billion from ₱362.7 billion.