The national government’s total debt payments has breached the P1 trillion mark as of end-October, data released by the Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) showed.
According to the latest cash operations report, the national government’s debt payments reached P1.05 trillion in the first 10 months of the year, 22.16 percent higher than the P861.9 billion paid out in the same period a year ago.
The 10-month figure has also exceeded the full-year 2020 debt payments of P962.47 billion.
Amortization jumped by 29.45 percent to P682.04 billion from the P526.86 billion paid out in the same period a year ago.
Of the total principal payments made during the period, P458.11 billion was used to pay local lenders while P223.93 billion was spent to settle foreign obligations.
Meanwhile, interest payments as of October totaled to P370.88 billion, 10.7 percent higher than the P335.04 billion paid out as of the same period the previous year.
Of the said amount, P281.61 billion was paid to domestic creditors while P89.28 billion was for international debt.
For the month of October, debt payments rose by 227.59 percent to P89.07 billion from P27.19 billion a year ago.
Amortization amounted to P57.53 billion while interest payments accounted for P31.54 billion.
“Interest payments for October rose to P31.5 billion, up by 42.89 percent over last year mainly due to coupon payments for newly issued treasury bonds. This led to year-to-date interest payments of P370.9 billion, exceeding the figures recorded for the equivalent period a year ago by 10.7 percent,” the BTr earlier said.
“For the January to October 2021 period, interest payments accounted for 10.04 percent of the total expenditures, declining from 10.12 percent recorded last year. Interest payments as a percentage of revenues, on the other hand, increased from the previous year’s level of 14.13 percent to 14.89 percent,” it added.
