The Philippine government’s “outstanding debt” has hit again in the past two months as the corona disease pandemic (COVID-19) continues to push through.
It will hit P11.97 trillion by the end of October 2021, the Bureau of Treasury (BTr) said in a statement on December 1.
This is the largest in Philippine history, even higher than the P11.9 trillion mark in September.
“During that month, the national government’s total debt increased slightly by P54.48 billion or 0.46% primarily due to net issurance of domestic securities,” the Treasury explained on Wednesday.
It has already surpassed the expected P11.73 trillion debt set by the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte before the end of 2021.
Such indebtedness consists of:
P8.47 trillion (domestic debt)
P3.5 trillion (external debt)
Domestic indebtedness increased by P80.65 billion. It is 0.96% higher than its position in September due to the “net issurance” of government securities.
“Since 2021, [the government’s] internal debt has jumped by P1.77 trillion or 26.49%,” BTr continued.
Despite the record-high debt of the national government, the country’s external debt is P26.17 billion (0.74%) lower than the previous month.
Philippines’ debt now P11.97 trillion this October, biggest in history
This lower number is attributed to the impact of local and foreign currency exchange rate adjustments of P22.68 billion and P8.45 billion, respectively. “This is too much to offset the net availment of external obligations amounting to P4.96 billion,” BTr added.
Almost every month, the government breaks historical records when it comes to borrowing money as it works its way to fund COVID-19 response measures. All this is happening as the government prepares for the possible entry of the heavily mutated Omicron variant.
Meanwhile, the national Social Weather Survey of September 12-16, 2021, found 45% of Filipino families rating themselves as Mahirap or Poor, 34% rating themselves as Borderline Poor (by placing themselves on the horizontal line dividing Poor and Not Poor), and 21% rating themselves as Hindi Mahirap or Not Poor.
This compares to June 2021when 48% felt Poor, 29% felt Borderline Poor, and 23% felt Not Poor.
The estimated numbers of Self-Rated Poor families are 11.4 million in September 2021 and 12.0 million in June 2021.
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