BSP approves $11.18-B foreign loans T
WORLD » A7
RUSSIA ABANDONS NUCLEAR MISSILE MORATORIUM, ESCALATING TENSIONS WITH US AMID UKRAINE WAR
HE Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Monetary Board has approved a total of $11.18 billion in government borrowings in the first half of the year. This is only $2.8 billion short of the $13.68 billion loans approved by the Monetary Board for the full year of 2024. Under Section 20, Article VII of the 1987 Constitution of the Republic of the Philippines and as mandated under Letter of Instructions No. 158 dated January 21, 1974, the BSP is tasked to approve the government’s foreign loans. “Under the law, all foreign borrowing proposals by the National
Government, government agencies, and government financial institutions as well as loans to be guaranteed by the national government require prior approval of the BSP’s Monetary Board. This is in line with the BSP’s tasks of ensuring that the country’s foreign debt remains manageable,” BSP said. In June 2025, the Monetary Board approved $4.89 billion worth of public sector foreign debt. This is $0.99 billion higher or 25.38 percent more than the $3.9 billion recorded in the same period last year. BSP said the amount includes eight project loans worth $4.14 billion and three program loans
amounting to $750 million. “The loans are meant to fund projects and programs on road and rail transport, flood control management, climate resilience, health services, and civil service modernization,” it said. Last year, public sector foreign borrowings approved by the Monetary Board was 43 percent or $1.17 billion higher than the $2.73 billion approved in the same period in 2023. These loans included one bond issuance amounting to $2 billion and three project loans aggregating to $1.9 billion. These borrowings will fund the national government’s general
budget financing and financing/ refinancing of assets in line with the Republic of the Philippines’s Sustainable Finance Framework at $2 billion and transport infrastructure projects at $1.9 billion. Data from the Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) showed that the outstanding debt of the national government reached P17.267 trillion as of end-June, 11.5 percent higher year-on-year from P15.483 trillion. The government’s total debt portfolio showed that 69.2 percent consisted of domestic borrowings, while 30.8 percent was owed to external lenders. See “BSP,” A6
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A broader look at today’s business
n
Wednesday, August 6, 2025 Vol. 20 No. 297
P25.00 nationwide | 2 sections 22 pages | 7 DAYS A WEEK
By Cai U. Ordinario
R
@caiordinario
ICE prices may have declined but the cost of other basic commodities purchased and services availed by Filipinos remain elevated, according to the latest inflation data released by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA). On Tuesday, PSA data showed inflation slowed to 0.9 percent in July, the slowest increase in commodity prices since the 0.6 percent posted in October 2019. However, core inflation, which excludes volatile food items such as rice as well as energy, remains elevated at 2.3 percent in July. This is faster than the 2.2 percent recorded in June but slower than the 2.9 percent recorded a year ago. “Faster core inflation suggests that underlying price pressures remain sticky, even as headline inflation has dropped significantly. Core inflation reflects prices of goods and services that are less volatile, such as housing, education, healthcare, and personal care,” Unionbank Chief See “July,” A2
QUARRYING BLAMED FOR RIZAL FLOOD WOES A decade-old quarry site is seen on the Sierra Madre mountains in Barangay San Isidro, Angono, Rizal, on Tuesday, August 5, 2025. The Sierra Madre—dubbed the “backbone of Luzon”
and often described as the country’s longest natural barrier against typhoons—has long played a critical role in shielding Metro Manila and surrounding provinces from storms and floods. Yet, residents and officials in Angono continue to oppose quarrying activities in the area, warning that the environmental degradation caused by mountain clearing contributes to increasingly severe floods across Rizal province and nearby low-lying cities during the typhoon season. NONOY LACZA
RETAIL INVESTORS SHELL OUT P210B FOR TREASURY BONDS By Reine Juvierre S. Alberto
T
@reine_alberto
HE national government generated P210 billion in new money by selling retail Treasury bonds (RTBs) to small investors. During the launch of the 31st tranche of RTB on Tuesday, the Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) upsized the volume of debt papers it awarded as the tenders reached P354.175 billion, or 11.8 times oversubscribed the P30-billion initial offering. The RTBs have a tenor of five
years and fetched an average annual yield of 5.943 percent and a coupon rate of 6 percent. The interest is payable every quarter until its maturity on August 20, 2030. The public offering will run from August 5, 2025 to August 15, 2025. The average yield is slightly lower by 0.8 basis points from the 5.951 percent 5-year Philippine Bloomberg Valuation (PHP BVAL) rate as of August 4. National Treasurer Sharon P. Almanza said investors displayed strong demand for the See “Retail,” A6
PHL must ‘neutralize’ Trump unpredictability By Andrea E. San Juan
T
@andreasanjuan
HE Philippine government should develop a blueprint that “neutralizes” US President Donald Trump’s unpredictability to avoid long-term instability, according to researchers of local think tank Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS). In a research paper, PIDS Emeritus Research Fellow Josef T. Yap and Senior Research Fellow Francis Mark A. Quimba indicated that the Philippines should not simply play along with Trump’s “dangerous alternate reality” as this poses a lot of risks. “Granting the Philippine deal the benefit of the doubt is consistent with an attitude of resignation wherein it is best to humor Presi-
dent Trump now for some speculative and uncertain gains in the future,” the local think tank noted. The researchers pointed out that several countries are employing this strategy and “it is easy to suggest” that the Philippines simply join the bandwagon. With this, however, comes the challenge for the Philippines to come up with a blueprint “that does not simply react to his unpredictability but actually neutralizes it,” the researchers underscored. To navigate the fog of uncertainty, Yap and Quimba listed the strategic approaches that the Philippines should pursue under the second regime of Trump. These four strategies suggest that the Philippines focus on strengthening coalitions, building
alternative frameworks, increasing competitiveness of domestic industries and reputation management for repeated games. As talks are still ongoing between the Philippines and the US, the researchers said the Southeast Asian country should “signal clearly” that unprincipled demands will be remembered and factored into future partnerships and negotiations. “This does not mean immediate confrontation, but rather building a track record that can eventually be invoked or used in negotiations with future US administrations,” the PIDS researchers noted. They further underscored the importance of showing that the Philippines has always supported the rules-based order. As such, the country should point
out that it harms the US’s reputation to be the primary violator of international trade rules. (See: https:// businessmirror.com. ph/2025/08/04/us-tariffs-aclear-violation-of-wto-rules/) Meanwhile, as Trump’s tariff strategy “deliberately” isolates nations to negotiate one-on-one where his leverage is maximized, the researchers noted that the Philippines should “actively coordinate” with other countries on a similar footing, at least with its Asean partners. “A coordinated response transforms the dynamic from multiple weak players versus one strong player into a more balanced negotiation,” Yap and Quimba explained in their paper. See “PHL,” A6
PESO EXCHANGE RATES n US 57.5140 n JAPAN 0.3910 n UK 76.4246 n HK 7.3271 n CHINA 8.0103 n SINGAPORE 44.6884 n AUSTRALIA 37.2058 n EU 66.5494 n KOREA 0.0415 n SAUDI ARABIA 15.3305 Source: BSP (August 5, 2025)