THE national government's debt would have reached P15.4 trillion this year had the Duterte administration not exercised fiscal discipline in responding to the pandemic, Department of Finance (DoF) chief economist Gil Beltran said.

'As we have said over the past few years, the government has consistently exercised fiscal prudence in responding to the Covid-19 pandemic. We spent what we had to, but not more than what we could afford. In fact, had we acquiesced to pressure for us to spend more, our debt would have increased by P2.2 trillion more and reached P15.4 trillion,' Beltran said in a statement on Monday.