By Rea Cu @ReaCuBM
THE national government recorded a P99.764-billion debt payment for the month of February, with amortization outpacing that of interest payments, data from the Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) showed.
Based on the data, the government’s debt payment increased by 23.94 percent from the P80.488 billion it paid in the same month last year.
Broken down, amortization amounted to P74.462 billion, which is higher by 36.90 percent from the P54.391 billion made last year. Interest payments accounted for P25.302 billion of the total, which showed a decline of 3.04 percent, coming from P26.097 billion in February last year.
Under amortization for the month, the majority of the payments went to the domestic Bond Sinking Fund (BSF) of P70.870 billion with foreign accounts at P3.592 billion.
For interest payments, fixed-rate Treasury bonds comprised bulk of the payments for the month with P11.752 billion, Treasury bills with P1.602 billion and Retail Treasury Bonds at P1.459 billion.
Domestic interest payments for the month totaled P14.813 billion, while foreign interest payments amounted to P10.489 billion.
During the January-to-February period, debt payments made by the government amounted to P177.378 billion, expanding by 7.96 percent from the P164.294 billion reported in the same period last year.
Broken down, amortization totaled P106.160 billion, which showed a growth of 12.12 percent coming from P94.681 billion, while interest payments amounted to P71.218 billion also posting an increase of 2.30 percent from the P69.613 billion recorded in 2018.
Earlier, the BTr reported that the national government recorded a total of P60.333 billion in gross borrowings for the month of February, lower by 44.58 percent from last year’s P108.87 billion.
Based on the data, the gross borrowings for February had domestic borrowings comprising a higher share than that of borrowings from foreign entities.
From the January-to-February period this year, the government registered total gross borrowings at P309.131 billion, which increased by 99.7 percent compared to the P154.829 billion recorded in the same period for 2018.
For this year, the national government has programmed its gross borrowings for both domestic and foreign IOUs at P1.19 trillion with the government eyeing a borrowing mix of 75:25, with domestic borrowings accounting for 75 percent and foreign borrowings at 25 percent.