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Aubrey Rose Inosante - The Philippine Star
June 8, 2026 | 12:00am
Data from the Treasury showed the Marcos administration settled P314.89 billion in debts in April, up by 12.1 percent from P280.9 billion in the same month last year.
Philstar.com / Irra Lising
MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine debt service bill swelled to about P315 billion in April, with the bulk channeled to amortization payments to domestic lenders, the Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) said.
Data from the Treasury showed the Marcos administration settled P314.89 billion in debts in April, up by 12.1 percent from P280.9 billion in the same month last year.
About 80 percent of the total debt service was for amortization or the settlement of the principal amount at P251.36 billion.
Amortization rose by 7.2 percent from the P234.45 billion paid in the comparative period a year earlier.
Of the amortization bill, 97 percent or P243.63 billion went to domestic creditors in April while the remaining P7.73 billion went to foreign sources.
Spending on amortization goes to returning the loan principal, while interest payments go to interest obligations.
Interest payments soared by 36.8 percent in April to P63.53 billion from P46.45 billion.
Interest payments to domestic lenders stood at P42.89 billion in April, a 40.8-percent jump from P30.47 billion a year earlier.
Broken down, the government paid the interest for P33.11 billion in fixed-rate Treasury bonds (T-bonds), P4.36 billion in T-bills and P3.56 billion in retail T-bonds.
The Treasury sells government securities every week to generate funding for public programs and projects.
Meanwhile, the government settled P20.63 billion in interest owed to foreign financiers in April.
For the first four months of the year, the government paid P1.05 trillion in debt service, up by 68.9 percent from P622.92 billion in the same period a year ago.
This consisted of P715.63 billion in amortization payments and P336.66 billion in interest payments.
The January to April total already represented around 53 percent of the P2.01-trillion debt service program this year.
For 2026, the government intends to spend P950 billion in interest payments and P1.06 trillion in principal amortization.
The country’s outstanding debt slightly fell by 0.09 percent to P18.47 trillion as of end-April from the record-high P18.49 trillion in March.
