THE Philippine government’s expenses will amount to P17.4 billion daily next year, Finance Secretary Ralph Recto said.
Recto made the statement on Tuesday, August 27, as he defended the P33.75 billion proposed 2025 budget of the Department of Finance (DOF) and attached agencies at the hearing led by Senator Grace Poe.
Recto said the proposed budget is 20.8 percent higher than the 2024 General Appropriations Act level, but he said this will also fund the huge task of DOF to fund the country’s proposed 2025 budget of P6.35 trillion.
Of this, P4.64 trillion are supportable by revenues from the Bureau of Internal Revenue and Bureau of Customs – both of which are attached agencies of the DOF.
“For next year, our expenditures amount to P17.4 billion a day, of which P12.72 billion pesos per day will be financed by revenue collections, and the rest, P4.68 billion, by loans. Every 24 hours,” Recto said.
The proposed budget will go to enhancing revenue administration, improving financial asset and debt management, modernizing Customs, and many more.
Broken down per agency, the BIR gets the biggest slice of P17.68 billion, followed by the Bureau of the Treasury with P6.46 billion, the Bureau of Customs with P5.66 billion; and the Insurance Commission with P1 billion.
“The items discussed today are part and parcel of a larger effort to improve tax administration efficiency, deliver more responsive public service delivery, and provide economic prosperity for the Filipino people,” Recto said.
The finance chief added that the government is on track to meet the fiscal program for the year, with revenue collections reaching P2.61 trillion for the first seven months of the year.
This is 14.8 percent higher than the same period last year. Recto said this placed the Philippines as among Asia’s top revenue-to-GDP ratios at 17.1 percent for the first half of the year.
The Philippines’ total outstanding debt reached a record P15.48 trillion as of June this year as the government continued to borrow from both domestic and foreign creditors, the Bureau of Treasury earlier said. (ABS-CBN News)
