After the successful sale of $500 million worth of multi-currency retail Treasury bonds this week, the national government is now looking at selling local-currency bonds overseas, a ranking official said Friday.

“That is being studied as next phase of our program after we unify tax- and non-tax exempt market with the operation of tracking system by the Philippine Dealing and Exchange Corporation (PDEx),” National Treasurer Roberto B. Tan said in a text message.

On Wednesday, the Arroyo government sold $400 million of dollar bonds and 75 million of euro debt targeted at overseas Filipinos. Tan said at least 20 percent of the bonds should have been sold to the target investors.

Meanwhile, Cesar B. Crisol, PDEx president and chief operating officer, said that the government’s plan to sell peso-denominated bonds abroad seems to be workable, but added the plan as of now is at “exploratory stage [and] very preliminary.”

Last month, the government’s budget shortfall widened to P63.9 billion, the most in at least 16 years, leading to a breach in the first-quarter target by 21 percent.

Due to higher fiscal gap, Finance Secretary Margarito B. Teves, said the government may issue another round of commercial borrowings this year once the country’s budget deficit exceeds the target.

“If the deficit is higher, probably we will allow for additional borrowings,” Teves said.

But he stressed that the additional borrowing is “if and only if” the government surpass the programmed fiscal gap for 2010, which is P293.2 billion.

Roberto Juanchito Dispo, First Metro Investment Corp. executive vice president, earlier said the government may sell another bonds aimed at overseas Filipinos in the second half of 2010.

Also in January, the government had raised $1.5 billion through the sale of dollar-denominated bonds, making it the first Asian sovereign debt issuer in 2010.

To complete government's commercial borrowing programmed for the year, the Department of Finance also raised roughly $1.1 billion in February, through the sale of Samurai bonds.