Former Finance Secretary Margarito Teves said on Wednesday he supports the Aquino administration’s move to prioritize public spending over balancing the budget.

Teves, chairman of economic consulting firm Think Tank Inc., said a zero budget deficit is not necessary as long as the government keeps the deficit at a manageable level.

What the government needs to do, he added, is to increase investments in good projects and “overspend” to improve the country’s education system.

Teves served as finance chief of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who had planned to balance the Philippine budget as early as 2008, but abandoned the goal due to rising oil and food prices and the global economic crisis then.

Cesar Purisima, who replaced Teves when the administration of President Aquino took over mid-2010, said  they were not eyeing a balanced budget.

“Balancing the budget for its own sake is not something that we want to pursue,” he said.

He noted the Aquino administration would spend beyond government revenues, if it had to, to boost growth, while keeping the deficit manageable.

During the first six months, the government incurred a budget shortfall of only P17.23 billion, better than a goal of P152.128 billion, as state agencies had yet to catch up with their spending targets.

The government aims to cut the deficit to P300 billion, or 3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) this year, from a record P314 billion, or 3.5 percent of the GDP in 2010. It wants to bring this down further to 2.6 percent of the GDP by 2012 and 2 percent  by 2013 until 2016, when Mr. Aquino’s term ends.