Government debt breached the P13 trillion-level in August.
The Bureau of the Treasury reported on Friday, Sept. 30, that the total outstanding debt of the national government stood at P13.021 trillion as of August, an increase of 12 percent or P1.379 trillion from P11.642 trillion a year ago.
Of that amount, 68.7 percent was domestic borrowings while 31.3 percent was sourced from foreign creditors.
At end-August, government debt held by local banks rose nine percent to P8.943 trillion from P8.22 trillion in the same month last year.
According to the Treasury, domestic debt was mostly government securities or IOUs.
Meanwhile, outstanding government loans from foreign sources increased 19 percent from P3.422 trillion last year to P4.038 trillion at end-August.
Bulk of foreign loans were commercial debt papers amounting P2.251 trillion. Of that amount, P1.842 trillion were US dollar bonds, P229.03 billion worth of Euro bonds, P94.38 billion of Japanese yen bonds and P85.57 billion of Peso global bonds.
The government also has P1.816 trillion in other foreign loans.
Month-on-month, government debt inched up by one percent from P12.887 trillion.
The Treasury said the increase was attributed to the net issuances of domestic securities as well as currency adjustments.
In August, local debt increased 1.3 percent from P8.832 trillion due to net issuance of government securities amounting to P109.43 billion and the P1.78 billion impact of local currency depreciation against the US dollar.
Since the beginning of the year, domestic debt portfolio has increased by P772.98 billion or 9.5 percent due to continued reliance on domestic borrowing to lessen the impact of currency fluctuations.
External debt, meanwhile, rose 0.6 percent from the end-July level of P4.055 trillion.
For August, the increment in the level of external debt was due to the impact of local currency depreciation against the US dollar amounting to P62.24 billion.
This offsets the P26.59 billion effect of third-currency depreciation against the US dollar and net repayment amounting to P13.22 billion.
Year-to-date, external debt increased by P520.03 billion or 14.6 percent from end-December 2021 primarily due to local- and third-currency fluctuations that increase the peso value of foreign denominated obligations.