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Manila Bulletin devider Business devider Banking & Finance devider Gov't borrows ₱25 billion in short-term debt as rates fall amid corruption protests

Gov't borrows ₱25 billion in short-term debt as rates fall amid corruption protests

Published Sep 22, 2025 03:22 pm
The Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) on Monday, Sept. 22, raised ₱25 billion from short-dated T-bills as yields sought by domestic creditors fell across the board.
The BTr fully awarded ₱8.5 billion in the benchmark 91-day debt paper at an average rate of 4.883 percent, down from 4.95 percent at last week’s auction.
It also awarded ₱8.5 billion in the 182-day IOUs, whose average bid rate declined to 5.081 percent from 5.148 percent previously.
The ₱8 billion in 364-day treasury bills, meanwhile, fetched an annual rate of 5.195 percent, lower than the 5.272-percent yield last week.
In a statement, the BTr noted that this week’s average rates were also below prevailing secondary market rates.
For all three T-bill tenors, government securities eligible dealers (GSEDs) tendered a total of ₱117.8 billion, making the auction 4.7 times oversubscribed.
Last week’s total bids were higher, reaching ₱154.2 billion, or 6.2 times more than the T-bills offering.
Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. (RCBC) chief economist Michael L. Ricafort said T-bill rates trended downward for the 12th consecutive week mainly amid a dovish Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), which is expected by the market to cut key interest rates some more before the year ends.
After the Monetary Board (MB) lowered the policy rate to five percent through a 25-basis-point (bp) reduction in August, Finance Secretary Ralph G. Recto, who represents President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. in the policy-setting MB, had hinted at possibly 25-bp cuts on both Oct. 9 and Dec. 11—the last two meetings on the monetary policy stance for 2025, Ricafort noted.
Ricafort added that short-term debt yields dropped after the protest rallies on Sunday, Sept. 21, against corruption allegations, which, he noted, were generally orderly aside from a few isolated incidents.
He also cited that authorities have likewise begun taking actions related to flood control project anomalies, which, according to him, could help improve governance standards.
The Philippines borrows more from the local debt market, which is awash in cash, to mitigate foreign exchange (forex) risks.
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