The national government (NG) spent far more in terms of interest payments than it did servicing its principal obligations in January, the sum having totaled P42.35 billion from year-ago debt service of only P45.95 billion.
The interest payments, the Department of Finance (DOF) said just before the long Lenten weekend, represent a diminution of interest expense by 7.1 percent.
This developed even as NG debt service similarly scaled back during the month, indicating less pressure on the part of the economic managers to set aside greater amounts of government funds for critical services as security and national defense, as well as education and health.
According to the DOF, funds set aside as debt service in January totaled only P70.01 billion, or 56 percent, lower than debt service aggregating P160.96 billion the previous year.
The diminution, the DOF reiterated, allowed the economic managers to allocate more government funds for other critical services.
Based on DOF data, government funds set aside for debt service never aggregated lower than P100 billion the past six years such that in 2015, for example, this totaled P107.37 billion.
In 2014 debt service aggregated P124.64 billion but aggregated only P111.73 billion n 2013.
Total debt service swung back higher in 2012 to P134.71 billion.
According to the same DOF data sheet, interest payments accounted for 60 percent of aggregate debt-service payments for the month, as the former amounted to P42.353 billion, even as the latter totaled P70.01 billion.
Interest payments on domestic debt aggregated P21.322 billion, representing a diminution by 8.4 percent from year-ago interest payments totaling P23.291 billion.
Of this amount, a total P16.812 billion were interest payments on so-called fixed-rate Treasury bonds, P4.311 billion represented interest payments on retail Treasury bills and another P173 billion on Treasury bill interest payments.
As for interest payments on the country’s foreign-currency obligations, this totaled P21.03 billion in January, which was 5.7 percent lower than year-ago interest payments totaling P22.30 billion.