THE national debt of the Philippines ballooned further to almost P12 trillion amid efforts to add up more funds to the government coffers as a response to the still-raging COVID-19 pandemic.
Based on data from the Bureau of Treasury, the national debt already reached P11.97 trillion by the end of October, which already includes both domestic and foreign borrowings.
Today’s figures was19.38-percent higher from the P10.027 trillion national debt recorded within the same period last year.
A big chunk of the nation’s debt, about 70.7 percent, came mostly from domestic borrowings while the rest of the national debt were due to foreign borrowings, or about 29.3 percent.
Department of Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III earlier said that the level of the country’s debt is only temporary, which was caused not because of too much public spending but more of what it called “universal shock,” which weakened the financial condition of almost all countries globally because of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.