The national government’s (NG) debt service bill increased in May amid an increase in amortization and interest payments, the Bureau of Treasury said.

BTr data showed that debt service bill increased by 40.64 percent to P68.980 billion in May from P49.047 billion in the same period a year ago.

Debt service is the amount of money the government needs to pay the interest and principal on a loan or other debt within a specific timeframe.

The bulk or 88.57 percent of the debt service bill for the month was composed of interest payments worth P61.097 billion.

Interest paid on domestic debt stood at P46.071 billion, higher by 56.01 percent from P46.754 billion a year ago.

This consisted of P2.078 billion in Treasury bills, P26.504 billion in fixed-rate Treasury bonds, P16.872 billion in retail Treasury bonds, and P617 billion in other bonds.

Interest paid to foreign creditors went up by 27.17 percent to P15.026 billion in May from P11.815 billion during the same month last year.

Amortization, also known as principal payments, inched up by 2.33 percent to P7.883 billion in May from P7.703 billion in the same month in 2023.

Broken down, amortization on domestic debt plunged to P85 million in May from P2.656 billion a year earlier.

Principal payments on external debt increased by 54.50 percent to P6.669 billion from P7.912 billion.

Five-month data

For the first five months, the NG’s debt service bill jumped to P1.216 trillion from P819.526 billion in the comparable year-ago period.

Interest payments increased by 40.07 percent to P321.585 billion in the first five months from P229.574 billion a year ago. 

Broken down, interest paid on domestic debt reached P231.376 billion, while interest payments for external debt stood at P90.209 billion.

Amortization payments shot up by 51.72 percent to 895.126 billion in the first five months from P589.952 billion a year ago. 

Principal payments on domestic debt stood at P754.855 billion, while those on external debt amounted to P140.271 billion.