MANILA - The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas said Tuesday the public shouldn't "stress" over the peso's weakness against the dollar, adding it was "managing" excess volatility.

The peso declined to P50.78 against the greenback in intra-day trading, holding at its lowest level in 11 years after the government reported that the trade deficit had widened to a record $2.75 billion in May.

"There will be days we are higher, there will be days that we are weaker. That’s the nature of these prices. So don’t look at it on a day to day basis. Don’t stress over it," Espenilla told reporters.

"The approach of the BSP is to let the exchange rate reflect the underlying market conditions... as far as the BSP is concerned, we are there, we are managing that there is no excessive volatility," he added.

Espenilla said the BSP was focused on managing inflation, not on setting an exchange rate target.

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