For April alone, payments surge 53.2% from March
Debt payments made by the national government in the first four months of the year dropped 45.7 percent from a year earlier, largely due to lower amortization and interest payments, the Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) said.
Data posted on the BTr website at the weekend showed debt payments from January to April fell sharply to P622.92 billion from P1,147.73 billion in the corresponding four-month period last year.
Amortization for the first four months of the year dropped 62.19 percent to P335.47 billion from P887.24 billion in the same period last year.
BTr data showed that interest payments reached P287.45 billion in the four-month period this year, a 10.3 percent increase from P260.48 billion in the same period last year.
Payments in April
For April alone, debt payments surged 73.7 percent to P280.9 billion from P161.7 billion in April 2024. The April 2025 level was 53.2 percent higher than P183.36 billion the prior month of March.
Amortization in April this year jumped 148.9 percent to P234.45 billion from P94.2 billion recorded a year earlier, and was 146.2 percent higher than P95.24 billion in March 2025.
Interest payments for April this year reached P46.4 billion, down 31.2 percent from P67.5 billion in April 2024 and 47.3 percent lower than the P88.12 billion in March 2025.
Shift in payments timing
“The decline was mainly due to the shift in the timing of payments of both domestic securities and external loans related to Lenten and Eid al-Fitr holidays,” the BTr said.
John Paolo Rivera, a senior research fellow at the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS), said the sharp decline in debt payments “reflects a temporary easing of debt servicing obligations.”
“This was largely due to lower maturities and interest payments during the period,” Rivera said in a Viber message.
He said that while this may provide fiscal breathing room in the short term, allowing the government to reallocate resources toward growth-supportive spending, “it does not necessarily indicate a structural improvement in debt sustainability.”
Key factors to watch
“In the coming months, amortization schedules and interest rate movements, especially on external borrowings, will remain key factors to watch. It is important that this reprieve be used wisely to strengthen revenue efforts and enhance spending efficiency to support long-term fiscal consolidation,” Rivera said.
Michael Ricafort, RCBC’s chief economist, said the decline “could reflect relatively lower Treasury bond maturities versus year-ago levels.”
“(However,) there were Treasury bond maturities worth about P140 billion in early April 2025. There would be relatively large Treasury bond maturities from August to September 2025, which could be principal payments that need to be made by then, Ricafort said in a Viber message.
He said that the rate cuts by the US Federal Reserve and the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, totaling 1 percentage point each since the latter part of 2024, would have partly helped reduce the national government’s interest payments.
