By Nikolai Ordoña 

The Philippine government had signed four loan agreements, which amounted to $1.14 billion, with multilateral lender World Bank on Monday, June 26.

Department of Finance (DOF) Secretary Benjamin Diokno and World Bank Country Director for the Philippines Ndiamé Diop signed the deals.

The loans aim to finance various government initiatives in the country’s economy, including the environmental, agricultural, and education sectors. The breakdown of the loans is as follows:

• $750 million – allotted for the Philippines’ First Sustainable Recovery Development Policy Loan (DPL), supporting environmental protection and climate resilience policy reforms.

• $276 million – budget for the projects of the Department of Agriculture – Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (DA-BFAR), specifically the following:
  • Mindanao Inclusive Agriculture Development Project (MIADP) – aims to increase agricultural productivity, resiliency, and accessibility to markets and services.
  • Fisheries and Coastal Resiliency (FishCoRe) – seeks to improve fisheries management, production, and income in coastal communities.

• $110 million – would fund the Department of Education’s (DepEd) Teacher Effectiveness and Competencies Enhancement Project (TEACEP), which aims to improve equitable access to quality teaching in Kindergarten to Grade 6 in selected areas; namely, the Zamboanga Peninsula, SOCCSKSARGEN, the and Bangsamoro Autonomous Region.

However, the DOF had not mentioned the loans’ interest rate and tenor.

More loans to come

According to a report by the Bureau of Treasury, the country’s debt has ballooned to PHP 13.91 trillion as of April, which is PHP 54.24 billion higher than in March due to the peso’s weakening against the US dollar.

Domestic sources covered 68 percent of the total debt, while the remaining 32 percent was borrowed from overseas lenders.

Budget Secretary Amenah F. Pangandaman has announced that the government plans to borrow PHP 2.46 trillion to fill its projected fiscal deficit in 2024, 12 percent higher than this year’s program of PHP 2.2 trillion.

Thumbnail from CNN Philippines