MANILA, Philippines — After the successful global dollar bond sale last week, the Department of Finance (DoF) said the government will focus on its debt liability management this year.

Finance Undersecretary Rosalia B. de Leon said the Aquino administration is in a good cash position, but added that they will still raise this year’s remaining $750-billion commercial borrowing program.

De Leon said the Philippines’ 2037 global bonds offering last week was about eight times oversubscribed, or $12.5 billion. Likewise, the 25-year paper was priced at par to yield 5 percent, or an equivalent of 196.2 basis points over benchmark US Treasuries.

De Leon, head of the finance department's International Finance Group, earlier said government will continue to explore “out of the box” options for its liability management efforts and may launch another buyback offer of bonds this year.

The plan came after the buyback offer they launched in October last year was well received by market investors and hailed by analysts as a good transaction.

The government has been creative with its debt liability management efforts, embarking on various strategies such as the issuance of peso-denominated global bonds and peso debt swaps.

The goal is to cut the government’s borrowing costs and convert its foreign debt liabilities into the local currency to help cushion the economy from foreign exchange fluctuations.

The Department of Budget and Management earlier said the government was ready to start P141.8 billion worth of infrastructure projects this month, equivalent to 78 percent of the 2012 budget for public works spending.

Finance Secretary Cesar V. Purisima earlier said the government needs to boost spending this year on roads, ports and waterworks to spur economic growth.

This plan, Purisima said has prompted the fiscal authorities to award a total of $1.5 billion global dollar bonds, the whole borrowing authority approved by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.

Standard & Poor’s raised the outlook on the Philippines’ BB debt rating to positive last month, signaling a possible upgrade from the second-highest junk grade.