The government incurred a P27-billion budget deficit in October as public spending rose for the fourth consecutive month, the Finance Department said Wednesday.
Finance said the budget deficit in October increased more than 10 times to P27 billion from a P2.5-billion gap year-on-year. The figure was also 50 percent more than the P18.02 billion deficit target for the month.
The budget deficit in the first 10 months of the year stood at P52.6 billion, up 56 percent from a gap of P33.6 billion on year. The 10-month gap, however, was 79 percent short of the deficit target of P247.49 billion.
The government programmed a full-year budget deficit of P283.7 billion.
Netting out interest payments, the October budget registered a deficit of P10.9 billion, a reversal of the P14.2-billion surplus last year. The primary balance in the first 10 months of the year stood at a surplus of P219.3 billion, down 9 percent from a surplus of P240.6 billion recorded in the January-to-October period a year ago.
Government revenues in October increased 7 percent year-on-year to P163 billion but fell 13 percent short of the P187.61-billion programmed collections for the month.
October collections brought the year-to-date take to P1.76 trillion, or a 12-percent increase from P1.57 trillion in the same period last year. The collections, however, missed the P1.86-trillion target for the period.
“Maintaining a consistently robust revenue performance is critical to funding our future. Collections figures for the past 58 months have shown us on an uptrend, delivering concrete gains for our people in terms of increased funding for education, health, and social services,” Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima said.
“We ought to do everything we can to protect these gains towards the close of this administration and beyond,” he said.
Collections of the the Bureau of Internal Revenues in October increased 14 percent year-on-year to P115.8 billion but 13 percent short of the P128.42-billion target for the month. This marked the tenth consecutive month the agency fell short of the target.
BIR collections in the first 10 months of 2015 rose 8 percent to P1.19 trillion from P1.098 trillion on year.
Collections of the the Bureau of Treasury in October increased 14 percent to P5.6 billion, boosting the year-to-date take to 97.4 billion, on higher remittance of dividends on shares of stocks held by the government and the share in the income of Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp.
The Bureau of Customs, meanwhile, continued to suffer from lower oil prices as revenues in October decreased 5 percent year-on-year to P32.5 billion.
Customs collections in the 10-month period reached P300.71 billion from the same period in 2014, or 16 percent short of the P357.17-billion target.