PH budget deficit in May narrowed by 16.7% to P122.2B

INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA  -The national government’s budget deficit in May narrowed by 16.7 percent to P122.2 billion from P146.8 billion in the same month of 2022 as the growth in revenues again outpaced that of spending.

Data at the Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) show that the latest monthly readout brought the January to May deficit down by 28.9 percent to P326.3 billion from P458.7 billion.

In May alone, revenues grew by 9.4 percent to P333.4 billion while five-month receipts jumped by 108 percent to P1.41 trillion.

Also, expenses grew by only 0.9 percent to P455.7 billion while five-month disbursements grew slightly by 1.2 percent to P1.92 trillion.

With almost half the year over, the budget deficit as of the end of May represented only about 22 percent of the P1.499 trillion that the interagency Development Budget Coordination Committee assumes would be enough to support the Marcos administration’s programs for 2023.

On June 23, Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno said the problem of slow spending among government agencies was persisting.

“We do still have much time (with seven months remaining this year) to address this, and we are going to talk to the agencies in order to improve their use of their budget allocations,” Diokno said.

Just last month, Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman urged government agencies to further ramp up their budget disbursement and spending.

“The faster we disburse and utilize our funds, the faster we can procure and implement our projects,” Pangandaman said.

According to the BTr, the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) contributed P213.3 billion in May, a decrease of 3.3 percent from P216.6 billion in the same month a year ago.

But for the five months to May, BIR total collections reached P1.05 trillion, rising by 10 percent from P959 billion.

Also, the Bureau of Customs’ (BOC) collections jumped by 17.6 percent in May to P77.9 billion from P66.3 billion.

Five-month BOC intake rose by 12.1 percent to P359.3 billion from P320.5 billion.

In May, the increase in spending was weighed down mainly by the lower National Tax Allotment shares of local government units and net lending assistance to government corporations.