Outstanding gov’t IOUs reach P3.9 T

Government holdings of securities barely moved by September after a retail Treasury bond ( RTB) offer was offset by maturing obligations, latest data from the Bureau of the Treasury showed.

A total of P3.904 trillion in outstanding Treasury bonds and bills were recorded for the first nine months, only 0.54 percent up from P3.883 trillion as of August.

This was despite the Duterte administration issuing P100 billion worth of RTBs to retail investors in the middle of September as part of its fund raising activities to finance higher spending.

T-bonds and T-bills represent debts incurred by the government. They are issued to investors at a particular rate and payment terms.

Unlike other data compared every year, they are better compared on a monthly basis since issuance and redemption add and subtract to an existing pile, respectively.

According to Treasury data, nine-month outstanding RTBs amounted to P801.98 billion, 10.51 percent up from P725.70 billion in the first eight months.

Meanwhile, the amount of benchmark bonds was reduced 5.85 percent to P909.3 billion during the same period.

In total, T-bonds – which have payment terms of three years or longer – inched up 0.58 percent to P3.61 trillion as of September.

Their shorter counterparts, T-bills, were steady at P293.02 billion, data showed.

The government borrows from local and foreign investors to finance its budget deficit and pay existing debts.

For 2016, it aims to borrow P695.4 billion to partly finance a deficit targeted to reach P388.6 billion. The remaining balance is used to settle existing obligations.

For the first eight months, the deficit – which indicates more revenues spent than earned – stood at P138.4 billion.

The figure already narrowed from the previous month after the government recorded a budget surplus worth P32.6 billion in August.