The Marcos administration plans to secure more borrowings from both local and foreign creditors next year to bridge its projected fiscal deficit, the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) said. Budget Secretary Amenah F. Pangandaman said on Friday, June 23, that the national government is planning to borrow P2.46 trillion in 2024, an increase of 12 percent from this year's P2.2 trillion program. “There’s a slight increase because of foreign exchange,” Pangandaman told reporters in a mobile phone message. The national government's financing plan for 2024 will be primarily sourced locally, with 75 percent, or 1.845 trillion, to be borrowed from the domestic market. The remaining balance of P615 billion, or 25 percent of the total, will be obtained from overseas markets. According to Pangandaman, the next year’s financing program of P2.46 trillion already secured the approval of President Marcos and the Cabinet. For 2024, the Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC) pegged the government’s budget deficit ceiling at P1.363 trillion, lower compared with P1.499 trillion for 2023. The DBCC is an interagency body tasked to set the government’s macroeconomic assumptions. As of April, the outstanding debt of the government has risen to P13.911 trillion from P12.763 trillion in the same month last year. The amount also inched up compared with P13.856 trillion last March. Of the total debt, 68 percent was domestically borrowed, while the remaining 32 percent was sourced from overseas lenders. From January to April, borrowings of the government surpassed the trillion peso mark, hitting P1.109 trillion. This, however, was still lower compared with P1.183 trillion in the same period last year. Despite the increasing debt stock in nominal terms, Finance Secretary Benjamin E. Diokno said the government’s outstanding loan obligations as a share of the country’s economy were on a downward trend. The quarterly debt-to-gross domestic product (GDP) ratio stood at 61.0 percent as of end-March 2023, down 2.5 percentage points from 63.5 percent last year. However, the end-March debt ratio is still above the 60 percent international threshold deemed by debt watchers as manageable among emerging markets like the Philippines. This ratio is also a measure used by many debt watchers to assess the creditworthiness of governments.