Tuguegarao City, Cagayan – The Department of Finance said the Philippines will take 40 years to pay back P1.3 trillion worth of foreign loans used for COVID-19 response.
DOF’s bulletin stated, “The loans will have to be repaid over a period of 40 years starting 2020. This will require a fiscal consolidation program and improved revenue collection,” citing that the Philippine government has borrowed a staggering P1.3 trillion from the year 2020 to January 2022.
The finance department also said that the country is also in debt to foreign lenders for other crises brought by climate change and other concerns.
The DOF bared that out of the total COVID-19 response loans that the country owes, P303.37 billion are from the Asian Development Bank (ADB), P559.08 billion are from Republic of the Philippines Bonds, ₱66.01 billion from the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, P47.56 billion from the Japan International Cooperation Agency, P 96 billion from the Agence Française de Développement, P10.15 billion from the Export-Import Bank of Korea, and P 291.25 billion are from the World Bank.
The agency also pointed out that there are P2.7 billion worth of grants to PH where P1.3 billion are from the Japanese government, P406.2 million are from the ADB and P1.1 billion are from the World Bank- European Union.
Since the start of the vaccine rollout, there are 76.4 million doses of various COVID-19 vaccines donated to the Philippines, where over 85 percent are from the COVAX facility.
The DOF said 14.5 percent of the country’s donated vaccine shots are from bilateral donations. TNF