Reporter

DESPITE President Arroyo’s pronouncement that the country may have a balanced budget ahead of its 2008 target, Finance Secretary Margarito Teves said Wednesday the government is sticking to its P63-billion deficit target for this year.     

Teves said the President was apparently elated by reports of a P8.9-billion surplus in the consolidated public sector deficit (CPSD) as of September last year when she expressed hope in a televised roundtable conference that the government could achieve its balanced budget target earlier than scheduled.            

Asked about the President’s prediction, Teves said: “It’s too early [to tell]. Maybe because she was elated about the information that in the CPSD, as of the first three months, we had a surplus in relation to target. Maybe it’s a natural reaction. But we will stick to the P63-billion deficit target for 2007 for the national government.”    

He said the government “will monitor this as rigorously as we can but it’s too early to make that adjustment.”           

The government is expected to post a deficit lower than its target of P125 billion, which may go as low as P80 billion to P90 billion, said Teves; but he added that the official figure may only be known next month.          

Conscious of the increased revenues of the government, Teves said that during the National Economic and Development Authority Cabinet Group meeting on Tuesday, the President instructed the Cabinet to “work hard” to meet project schedules and spend more on “quality social services” and infrastructure.  

Teves said the country trails its neighbors in infrastructure spending—at only 2 percent of the gross domestic product, which the government wants to increase to 5 percent of GDP by 2010.   

“We have to ensure that we spend more and more on quality social services and infrastructure. . . . That is a natural concern of the President now that we have an increasing amount of resources, we can use these resources for quality spending on social services and infrastructure,” he said. On the concern raised by Fitch Ratings about the country’s ability to sustain its improved fiscal standing and fund infrastructure spending in an election year, Teves said this “is always the concern of many” and is a “challenge for us to rigorously apply our monitoring device during the next few months.”

DESPITE President Arroyo’s pronouncement that the country may have a balanced budget ahead of its 2008 target, Finance Secretary Margarito Teves said Wednesday the government is sticking to its P63-billion deficit target for this year.

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WHILE many mothers would start preparing breakfast for the family early in the morning, Nove Ann Tan prefers to read the Holy Bible first to get her through the day.

WITH the Philippines banning further sending of Filipino workers to Nigeria, Abuja tried to assure the international community of order in that country on Wednesday. It said it is doing everything to facilitate the safe and immediate release of 24 kidnapped Filipino sailors.