MANILA – Government spending, which is among the growth drivers of the domestic economy this year, continue to grow but the deficit did not balloon due to sustained growth in revenue collections.

Bureau of the Treasury data shows that deficit last October reached P9.67 billion, lower than year-ago's P21.26 billion.

In the first 10 months this year, the budget gap was P115.74 billion, less than half of the full-year deficit ceiling of P279 billion, which accounts to 2.6 percent of gross domestic product.

Revenues last October alone amounted to P134.32 billion, boosted by most of the revenue-generating agencies.

In particular, the Bureau of Internal Revenue, which collects about 70 percent of taxes, jumped 22 percent to P86.11 billion while that of the Bureau of Customs rose 18 percent to P26.93 billion.

Also, collections of the BTr rose by 140 percent to P6.3 billion and the other offices contributed P15 billion.

Government spending amounted to P143.994 billion last October.

For the first 10 months this year, revenues amounted to P1.25 trillion, 12 percent higher than the P1.12 trillion same period in 2011.

Of the total, BIR's contribution rose 13 percent year-on-year to P858.57 billion while the BOC's went up by 11 percent to P240.6 billion.

BTr also contributed higher collection at P71.35 and the other offices shared in P82.75 billion.

Expending during the 10-month period totaled to P1.37 trillion, 15 percent higher year-on-year.

Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima said the “resilient” performance from both the revenue collection and spending “greatly reduces the risk of fiscal slippage by year-end, as it is well within the full year deficit program of P279.106 billion.”

He disclosed that revenue effort as of the third quarter this year increased to 14.7 percent against year-ago's 14.5 percent.

“The 1Q-3Q national government tax effort also increased to 13.1 percent, against the previous year's 12.7 percent. This is driven by the 0.4 percent improvement in the Bureau of Internal Revenue's revenue-to-GDP ratio, now at 10.2 percent,” he said.*PNA

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