The National Government's (NG) debt service bill in 2023, as amortization payments surged last year, jumped by 24.03 percent according to the latest data from the Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) revealed over the weekend.

Preliminary BTr data showed the government’s debt payments spiked at 24.03 percent from P1.29 trillion in 2022 to P1.60 trillion in 2023.

The total amount was higher than the PHP1.55 trillion debt payment that the government had previously planned.

Amortization payments slightly surged from P790.32 billion in 2022 to P975.27 billion in 2023, a 23.40 percent increase.

Amortization payments accounted for 60.81 percent of the total debt service bill for the year, while the rest went to interest payments.

Broken down, principal payments to domestic lenders rose by 29.45 percent to P854.16 billion in 2023 from P659.83 billion in 2022.

The government’s payments to external creditors fell by 7.18 percent to P121.11 billion in 2023 from P130.48 billion in 2022.

On the other hand, interest payments jumped by 24.95 percent to P628.33 last year from the P502.85 billion in 2022.

Interest payments on domestic debt went up by 13.63 percent to P435.74 last year from P383.45 billion two years ago. This consisted of P17.16 billion in Treasury bills, P263.17 billion in fixed-rate Treasury bonds, P149.73 billion in retail Treasury bonds, and P5.66 in other bonds.

The Treasury conducts weekly sales of government securities in order to raise funds for the projects and programs of the national government.

Interest paid on external debt rose by 61.29 percent to P192.59 billion from P119.40 billion in 2022.

December data

In December alone, the debt service bill declined to P68.86 billion from P302.12 billion in the same month a year ago.

The same Treasury data showed that amortization payments fell to P8.18 billion from P258.52 billion in the previous year.

Amortization payments accounted for 11.88 percent of the total debt service bill during the month, while interest payments had the bulk of the bill.

Meanwhile, interest payments in December soared to P60.67 billion, up by 39.15 percent from P43.60 billion in the same month in 2022.

As of the end of December last year, the total debt of the government amounted to P14.62 trillion.

The country's debt-to-gross domestic product (GDP) ratio, on the other hand, stood at 60.2 percent in 2023.