The Department of Finance (DOF) said the Marcos administration is poised to exceed its revenue target for this year due to robust collections of the government’s two main tax agencies and proceeds from the privatization program. However, despite this positive outlook, Finance Secretary Benjamin E. Diokno said that certain government agencies are still encountering problems in fully utilizing their allocated budget, which resulted in underspending. Based on the DOF data, total tax revenues amounted to P1.592 trillion from January to May, higher by 11 percent compared with P1.437 trillion in the same period last year. Diokno explained that the double-digit growth in revenues was due to “improved tax administration” in the absence of new tax measures. He noted that the Bureau of Customs and the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) outperformed their collection targets in the first five months of 2023, while non-tax revenue also improved substantially. “Customs over-collected, while the BIR slightly exceeded its target,” Diokno told reporters during his weekly Chat with SBED adding that, “Non-tax revenues also increased because of privatization.” Tax revenues amounted to P1.415 trillion at end-May, up 10 percent from P1.289 trillion a year earlier. Of that amount, the BIR posted a 10 percent growth year-on-year to P1.054 trillion from P959 billion. On the other hand, the Customs bureau’s tax haul accelerated by 12 percent from P320.5 billion to P359.3 billion. Non-tax revenues also jumped to P178 billion, or 20 percent from P147.7 billion last year. “I think, full year, we will surpass the target. It’s driven by improved tax administration basically because we have no new taxes and in fact, some of the taxes were reduced,” Diokno said. However, the finance chief said he is “concerned” with the spending performance of some government agencies due to the weak budget utilization rate. “We are below our deficit target. For a fiscal conservative that’s nice, but that’s not necessarily good for a developing country like ours,” Diokno explained. He added that, “We’re trying to make up for the pandemic, and also a big part of our budget is infrastructure.” To address underspending, Diokno said he already brought up the issue during President Marcos’ Cabinet meeting. “I brought this up in the Cabinet. It’s not a lack of money, it’s the ability to perform, so we really have to talk to each department,” Diokno said.