Former President Duterte borrowed P1 trillion in his final six months in Malacañang.
Data from the Bureau of the Treasury showed that the national government’s net borrowings hit P1.021 trillion from January to June this year. This amount, however, was 40 percent lower compared with P1.719 trillion in the same period last year.
Based on the Treasury report, bulk of the borrowings were from domestic, amounting to P740.17 billion.
At end-June, gross local financing reached P741.26 billion, of which P535.4 billion were long-term IOUs while the P457.8 billion were proceeds from the sale of retail Treasury bonds.
However, the government registered a net redemption of Treasury bills amounting to of P251.92 billion in the first semester and settled its P300 billion cash advance from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.
Meanwhile, the government’s net borrowings in the offshore markets hit P281.57 billion in the first half.
According to the Treasury, there were P136.6 billion worth of program loans during the period, and P46.85 billion projects loans.
The government also tapped the overseas debt markets for P117.32 billion in fresh debt and sold P28 billion of Samurai bonds.
Likewise, the Treasury registered a net payment of P47.76 billion.
In June alone, the national government’s net borrowing dropped 15 percent from P159.9 billion to P138.63 billion. Of that amount, P96.1 billion were domestically borrowed and P42.5 billion from foreign financing.
Earlier, the Treasury reported the national government’s total outstanding debt stood at P12.5 trillion as of end-May 2022.
The total debt decreased by 2.1 percent from the previous month’s level of P12.76 trillion, which was primarily due to the repayment of provisional advances from the central bank. The debt level however is up 12.9 percent from the previous year’s level of P11.07 trillion.
Of the total debt stock, 30.7 percent was sourced externally while 69.3 percent were domestic borrowings.
Domestic debt amounted to P8.67 trillion as of May, three percent lower compared to the end-April 2022 level.