The National Government (NG) deficit as of the third quarter of 2020 widened to P879.2 billion or almost three times higher than last year's level. Table 1 shows that on a year-on-year basis (i.e., considering only the first three quarters of the year), expenditures in 2020 grew by 15.1%, which is 9.6 percentage points higher than the growth in 2019, but still slower than the 23.6% spending growth posted in 2018. As a ratio to GDP, total expenditures amounting to P3.02 trillion is higher at 23.6% compared to about 19% in the past two years. However, this is partly due to lower than expected GDP during the height of the pandemic that also resulted in lower revenue collection.
