INCREASED interest payments and amortization costs accelerated the national government’s debt servicing in March by more than 400 percent relative to payments made a year earlier, data released by the Bureau of the Treasury showed over the weekend.

Debt payments in March totaled P268.41 billion, up 444 percent from P49.28 billion recorded a year earlier

Interest payments, which accounted for 17.75 percent of overall servicing, jumped by 10.55 percent to P47.66 billion from P43.11 billion in March 2020.

Domestic interest payments picked up 14.24 percent to P39.22 billion in March, up from P34.33 billion the previous month, while foreign ones fell 3.87 percent to P8.44 billion, down from P8.78 billion.

Meanwhile, amortization costs rose dramatically in March, surging to P220.74 billion from P6.17 billion a year earlier.

Domestic amortization reached P202.95 billion, while external ones saw an uptick of 188 percent to P17.78 billion from P6.17 billion.

Debt payments have increased by 53.39 percent year-to-date, to P521.50 billion from P339.97 billion in the same period in 2020.

In 2020, the government settled P962.46 billion debt to creditors, soaring by 14.24 percent from P842.44 billion in 2019.

The national government’s outstanding obligations reached a new all-time high of P10.77 trillion at the end of March, according to the Treasury bureau. International creditors accounted for 28 percent of the total, while local creditors accounted for 72 percent.

Domestic debt went up by 5.2 percent to P7.74 trillion from February, owing to net government securities issuance, which included P411.79 billion in retail Treasury bonds.

External debt, on the other hand, plunged by 0.4 percent to P3.02 trillion, thanks to a net benefit of P6.82 billion from local currency fluctuations and P21.88 billion from third-currency fluctuations against the dollar.

The national government has a debt service spending program of P1.79 trillion for fiscal year 2021, according to the Department of Budget and Management’s Budget of Expenditures and Sources of Financing.

Interest payments will account for P531 billion of the total, while principal amortization will account for P1.26 trillion.