The government paid debt service of P574.72 billion as of end-October, according to data from Bureau of the Treasury (BTr).

The total was P25 billion or 4.5 percent more than what was paid in September.

The government’s program for debt service this year is P702 billion, of which P211.94 billion are payments on foreign loans and P490 billion for domestic loans. In 2008, the government paid debt serving of P612.7 billion.

For the month of October, debt service amounted to P25.7 billion, lower compared to the previous month’s P61.27 billion.

The total interests paid in the first 10 months was P249.41 billion, higher than end-September’s P235.283 billion while principal dues were also higher at P325.31 billion from P313.73 billion.

For the month of October alone, interest payments reached P14.13 billion, which was lower than September’s P31.84 billion. Interest payments on past loans are one of the government’s biggest expenditures.

As for principal payments, these totaled P11.58 billion from P29.43 billion of the previous month.

BTr said for the first 10 months, of total interest payments about P142.61 billion were on domestic loans and P106.79 billion paid for foreign loans.

Principal payments on domestic loans, in the meantime, totaled P235.23 billion and P90 billion for foreign obligations.

For 2009, the ceiling for government interest payments is P311.24 while principal payments have been programmed at P390.76 billion.

Next year, the debt service is expected to be higher at P746.17 billion, of which P340.8 billion are interest payments and P405.46 billion are the principal amortization on past debts.

As of August, the National Government’s debt stock increased by P207.2 billion or 5.1 percent year-on-year to P4.231 trillion. Compared to July this year however, total outstanding debt increased by P7.9 billion or 0.2 percent.

Finance Secretary Margarito B. Teves is still confident that they could contain the government debt to P4.489 trillion this year, about 57.6 percent of gross domestic product.