The national government’s outstanding debt is seen to surpass the P15 trillion mark by next year, according to data released by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM).
Based on the proposed Budget of Expenditures and Sources of Financing for 2024, the national government’s outstanding debt is projected to balloon to P15.84 trillion by the end of 2024.
This is 8.33 percent higher versus the P14.62 trillion debt level expected by the end of this year.
Of the said amount, P10.89 trillion will be accounted for by local debt, while the remaining P4.95 trillion will be external debt.
Earlier this week, the Bureau of the Treasury reported that the national government’s outstanding debt as of end-June 2023 stood at P14.15 trillion.
Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno previously said he still considers the public debt to be “manageable.”
“The right metric is public debt as a percent of the GDP (gross domestic product) and ours is in the neighborhood of 60 to 61 percent. That’s not bad compared to most other countries, especially after the pandemic. I would calculate that, given the pandemic, I think the reasonable debt-to-GDP ratio should be around 70 percent… and in fact in our Medium-Term Fiscal Framework, our target debt-to-GDP ratio last year was around 62.3 percent, and it was much lower than that. So we’re on track,” Diokno had said.
“It also matters how the debt is used. It makes a lot of difference if the debt is used for public capital investment and productivity enhancing measures rather than government consumption — for example, higher salaries for public sector workers,” he added.
Meanwhile, the government’s gross borrowings is seen to amount to P2.46 trillion in 2024, according to the DBM, higher than this year’s program of P2.21 trillion.
Of that amount, P1.85 trillion is accounted for by gross domestic financing while P606.85 trillion will be gross external borrowings.
The DBM has submitted the proposed 2024 National Budget or the National Expenditure Program (NEP) to the House of Representatives yesterday.
The 2024 NEP amounts to P5.768 trillion, equivalent to 21.7 percent of GDP. It is higher by 9.5 percent compared to the 2023 General Appropriations Act.
“Let me remind everyone that every peso of the P5.768 trillion F2024 national budget was optimized so we can remain on track with our Agenda for Prosperity. It is the Administration’s fervent hope that this budget will continue to lay the groundwork for future-proofing the economy and making the country’s growth inclusive and sustainable, not just for the Filipinos of today, but also for future generations,” Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman said.
