Gov’t to borrow P220B locally in Q4

The Bureau of the Treasury will borrow P220 billion locally through the sale of T-bills and T-bonds in the fourth quarter, a lower volume as government coffers remained awash in cash due to underspending at the start of the year.

In a Sept. 26 memorandum to all government securities eligible dealers, National Treasurer Rosalia de Leon said a total of P100 billion in treasury bills would be sold on Oct. 7 and 21, Nov. 4 and 18, and Dec. 2.

For each T-bill auction, P20 billion will be offered—P8 billion in 91-day and P6 billion each in 182- and 364-day.

The Treasury will also sell P20 billion in T-bonds on the following dates: three-year IOUs on Oct. 1 and Dec. 10, five-year debt paper on Oct. 15, seven-year T-bonds on Oct. 29, 10-year securities on Nov. 12 and 20-year T-bonds on Nov. 26.

Despite the lower fourth-quarter domestic borrowing program, De Leon said the Treasury still “have sufficient buffers to accommodate strong spending for the rest of the year.”

The preceding third-quarter borrowing program was also below the second quarter’s P315 billion, as it still reflected weaker government spending during the first half.

To recall, the government underspent P1 billion a day on public goods and services during the first four months as it operated using a reenacted 2018 budget.

President Duterte signed the P3.7-trillion 2019 national budget only in mid-April, or over four months late, as the two houses of Congress squabbled over alleged pork funds.

While the national government was already implementing a spending catch-up program by ramping up disbursements for big-ticket infrastructure projects, its expenditures inched up by a mere 0.94 percent year-on-year to P2.212 trillion at end-August, latest data from the Treasury showed. —BEN O. DE VERA