MANILA -- The government posted a P86.9-billion budget surplus in April, as spending dropped by 15 percent due to the delay in the passage of this year's budget that also dragged economic growth, the Bureau of the Treasury said Friday.
This shrank the January to April budget deficit to P3.4 billion from P105.9 billion during the same period in 2018. The April surplus widened by 87.6 percent from P46.3 billion during the same month last year, the Treasury said in a statement.
Growth slowed to a 4-year low of 5.6 percent in the January to March period due to the budget delay, which saw lawmakers wrangling over alleged irregularities.
Before President Rodrigo Duterte signed the budget into law in April, the government operated on a reenactment of the 2018 General Appropriations Act.
April revenues were at P308.7 billion, higher by P1.1 billion from the same month in 2018. Aggregate revenues for the first 4 months of the year grew 7.4 percent to P996.4 billion.
The Bureau of Internal Revenue grew collection in April by 1.2 percent to P235.5 billion. The Bureau of Customs collected P51.7 billion for the month, 10.4 percent higher than the previous year.