Check ballooning Philippines debt – Pimentel

November 11, 2024 | 12:00am

MANILA, Philippines — Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel III has raised concerns over the country’s rising debt, urging economic managers to closely examine the country’s actual financial situation to prevent long-term financial risks.

As the Senate has started deliberating on the P6.352-trillion proposed national budget for 2025, Pimentel pointed out that economic managers need to observe “a little budgetary discipline or fiscal discipline to eliminate wasteful or wasteful expenses.”

“Our debt is growing, but our economic managers don’t seem to be worried about it. Well, I’m worried about the debt because I see the numbers, the one we pay every year, the principal and then the interest is getting bigger and bigger,” Pimentel noted in an interview over radio station dwPM.

“It’s scary for me because for every peso, or, let’s say, for every P100 of government income, we pay maybe P15 to P20 in debt. Maybe, we should also pay attention to this because we ignore it and say that we can afford it. Maybe it has grown over the years. The percentage of the government’s revenue that is paid for the debt, instead of being used to help people, it is removed. It can’t be used anymore to help people, but it is used to pay our creditors,” he added.

Based on a post on the Bureau of the Treasury website, the government’s total outstanding debt was recorded at P15.18 trillion as of the end of February 2024.

The government’s debt stock increased by P388.51 billion or 2.63 percent month-over-month, which was primarily attributed to domestic debt issuances, although partially tempered by the effect of the stronger peso on foreign debt valuation.

Of the total debt stock, 30.32 percent are external debt, while 69.68 percent are domestic debt.

Pimentel scrutinized the proposed 2025 national budget sponsored by Sen. Grace Poe, chairperson of the Senate committee on finance, and noted the 10-percent increase in the 2025 national budget compared to this year’s P5.768-trillion budget.

“Our proposed 2025 budget is 10 percent higher than the (budget for) 2024. May we know what caused the increase and how come it reached 10 percent?” Pimentel asked.