Finance Secretary Ralph Recto has urged members of Congress to adhere to the refined Medium-Term Fiscal Program (MTFP) in the 2026 budget deliberations and ensure that next year’s General Appropriations Act (GAA) works as hard as the people who fund it??the taxpayers.

“Let us operate within the parameters of the Medium-Term Fiscal Program that reduces our deficit and debt gradually, creates jobs, increases income, and decreases poverty,” he said during the Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC) Briefing for the House Committee on Appropriations on the Fiscal Year 2026 National Budget on Monday.

The Medium-Term Fiscal Framework (MTFF), which was first crafted in 2022, was recalibrated by Recto in 2023 to keep goals attainable, realistic, adaptive to external challenges, and supportive of sustainable growth.

This is to take into consideration the country’s recovery from the pandemic while navigating global uncertainties such as the Russia-Ukraine war, the Israel-Gaza war, the Israel-Iran war, and trade wars, among others.

Recto said that the government is on track to meet its fiscal targets, with revenue collections growing by double digits for the last three years at an average of 13.8 percent annually. Tax collections, on the other hand, have consistently expanded at an average of 11.5 percent annually.

In fact, the government has achieved a revenue effort of 16.7 percent in 2024??the highest in the last 27 years.

From 2025 to 2028, tax revenues are projected to grow 10.2 percent annually, pushing total revenues to hit nearly P 6 trillion by the end of the President’s term. By 2030, total revenues will breach the P7 trillion mark.

With higher government revenue collections and improved expenditure management, the fiscal deficit dropped from the pandemic high of 8.6 percent in 2021 to 5.5 percent in 2025 and down to about 4 percent by 2028. It will further drop to around 3 percent by 2030.

The fiscal deficit remains manageable for the first half of the year at 5.7 percent. The government targets a deficit of 5.5 percent for the full-year 2025.

Despite inheriting P12.8 trillion in pandemic debt from the past administration, Recto reported that the Marcos, Jr. administration has already made improvements in its debt metrics.

The majority of the borrowings are domestic, long-term, and at fixed interest rates. The government will continue to adopt an 80:20 borrowing mix in favor of local sources to take advantage of domestic liquidity and mitigate foreign exchange risks.

The country’s national debt is also relatively lower compared to major Asian economies. DOF Information Management Service