National Government debt payment up

MANILA, Philippines - After hitting a four-year low in October, debt payments by the national government bounced back in November, but remained down from year-ago levels, the Bureau of the Treasury said.

A total of P26.498 billion in debts were paid in November, up by more than a third from the previous month’s P19.801 billion, which was the lowest since April 2011.

Compared to the same period in 2014 though, settlements inched down 2.07 percent, Treasury data showed.

The government allots a certain portion of its budget every year for debt payments and settles its obligations on a monthly basis, depending on when they are due.

Debt payments are composed of principal and interest settlements and form part of state expenditures every month.

Broken down, interest payments amounted to P15.992 billion, while their principal counterparts reached P10.506 billion.

The former was down 11.64 percent, while the latter rose 17.25 percent, data showed.

On interest payments, a total of P14.122 billion was used to settle interest in domestic debts, down 12.63 percent year-on-year.

Their counterparts in foreign debts also declined 3.41 percent to P1.870 billion, figures showed.

Principal settlements on local and foreign debts, meanwhile, totaled P4.073 billion and P6.433 billion, respectively. They rose 16.27 percent and 22.49 percent.

In a comment to October’s debt payments, the Treasury said the amount of debt payments are determined by timing considerations.

“(There are also) the occasional rejection at government security auctions, conduct of bond exchange transactions where one of the objectives is to reschedule repayments and spillover of payments from one month to another,” the agency said in an e-mail.