The national government’s borrowing breached the P1-trillion mark in the first-quarter of the year as the Duterte administration takes advantage of low interest rates in bridging the wider gap between its expenditures and revenues.

Data from the Bureau of the Treasury showed that gross borrowings of the national government reached P1.381 trillion in January to March this year, growing by 43 percent from P810.03 billion in the same period last year.

According the treasury report, about P1.302 trillion, or 94.3 percent, of the total financing were raised in the domestic market. Bulk of which was short-term loans secured from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas in January amounting to P540 billion.

In additional, the government borrowed P463.32 billion through the sale of retail treasury bonds, commonly known as “Premyo Bonds,” in March.

Other local financing sources of the government were regular auctions of fixed rate Treasury bonds (T-bonds), P199 billion; and fixed rate Treasury bills (T-bills), P99.76 billion.

The national government also tapped its foreign creditors in the first-quarter, but for a much smaller amount from a year earlier.

Gross offshore borrowings settled at P79.45 billion, down by 46 percent compared with P146.68 billion in the same period in 2020.

Based on the treasury data, foreign financing were all from multilateral financial institutions, consisting of P62.44 billion worth of program loans and P17 billion of project loans.

In March alone, gross borrowings jumped 65 percent to P617.13 billion from P372.15 billon in the same month last year. Of that amount, the government raised P584.12 billion in the domestic market and P33.18 billion in overseas.

The end-March total borrowings already accounts for 45.6 percent of the national government’s programmed total financing requirements for the year of P3.03 trillion.

Earlier, Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III said the government will actively borrow before interest rates skyrocket.

The government needed to hike its borrowing program for the year to bridge a widening budget deficit after the pandemic-induced economic downturn weakened revenue collections.

But finance chief assured that the government will maintain its debt cap at 60 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). The Department of Finance (DOF) projected that this year’s debt ratio will hit 57 percent.

In April, the government issued its largest euro borrowing in history, raising about P122.43 billion, or 2.1 billion euros.

The euro issuance marked the country’s second foreign commercial borrowing for the year following the $500-million bond sale in the Japanese debt market in late March.

To date, the Philippines borrowed a total of $3 billion from the offshore debt markets, utilizing more than half of its overseas commercial financing program worth $5.5 billion for 2021.