Bureau of the Treasury (From the Facebook account of the bureau)
MANILA, Philippines—The Philippines’ budget deficit slightly narrowed to P129.2 billion as of end-February due to the lack of big-ticket spending items unlike last year when the national government disbursed more to fight COVID-19 at the start of the pandemic’s second year.
The Bureau of the Treasury’s (BTr) latest cash operations report showed that the first two months’ cumulative fiscal deficit was 0.7-percent smaller than the P130 billion recorded in 2021.
From January to February, the government spent P619.7 billion on public goods and services, up 1.5 percent from P610.3 billion last year.
Tax and non-tax revenue collections grew 2.1 percent to P490.5 billion from 2021’s P480.3 billion.
The Bureau of Internal Revenue’s (BIR) end-February tax take declined 1.2 percent year-on-year to P332.4 billion, while import duties and other taxes collected by the Bureau of Customs (BOC) climbed 24.7 percent to P117.8 billion during the two-month period.
In February alone, the national government’s budget deficit narrowed by a faster 8.8 percent to P105.8 billion from P116 billion last year.
The 5.2-percent year-on-year drop in expenditures to P318.2 billion outpaced the 3.3-percent decline in revenues to P212.4 billion in February.
In a statement, the BTr attributed last month’s lower disbursements in 2021 to the P45-billion equity infusion to government financial institutions (GFIs) as mandated by the Bayanihan to Recover as One Act (Bayanihan 2 law) for pandemic response.
Net of the one-time GFI equity support last year, expenditures deemed productive or supportive of economic growth grew 9.6 percent year-on-year, the BTr said.
Among the programs and projects rolled out in February included those of the Department of Education (DepEd), the Commission on Elections (Comelec) ahead of the May 9 national polls, and the Department of Health’s (DOH) COVID-19 vaccine financing.
Local government units’ (LGUs) larger national tax allotment (NTA) also boosted public spending in February, the BTr added.
The BIR’s February tax collection fell 11.4 percent year-on-year to P136.6 billion. On the flip side, the BOC’s collections jumped 25.9 percent to P59.4 billion last month.
This year, the national government had been projected to incur a P1.65-trillion budget deficit, equivalent to 7.7 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). The government needed to collect more than P3.3 trillion in revenues this year to partly finance its programmed expenditures amounting to P4.95 trillion. The deficit will also be financed by P2.2-trillion worth of gross borrowings in 2022.