PHILIPPINE President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. hopes the peso does not weaken to P60 against the dollar since a sharper depreciation would raise costs across the economy and add pressure to government debt, Malacañang said on Thursday.
Palace Press Officer Clarissa A. Castro said Mr. Marcos remains in close coordination with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), though the central bank continues to see no need for immediate intervention in the foreign-exchange market.
“The BSP is more focused on preventing excessive volatility in the peso rather than targeting a specific exchange rate level,” she told a Palace news briefing in Filipino.
A weaker peso would push up the cost of imports for the Philippines, which depends heavily on overseas supplies of fuel, energy and pharmaceutical products.
Higher import prices could feed into broader inflation pressures and weigh on household spending.
The peso hit a record low of P59.46 a dollar on Jan. 15 and has hovered around the P59 level since then, following the eruption of a large graft scandal involving substandard and nonexistent flood control projects.
The controversy has weighed on investor confidence and contributed to market volatility.
This week, however, the peso gained ground as investors trimmed exposure to US assets, including the dollar, amid fresh global trade concerns linked to renewed tariff threats from Washington.
Traders said the peso’s recovery reflected broader dollar weakness tied to geopolitical risks and uncertainty over the timing of US interest rate cuts.
Some market participants, however, cautioned that the peso could soften again ahead of key US economic data, which could revive demand for the dollar if figures point to a resilient US economy.
Ms. Castro said Mr. Marcos met BSP Governor Eli M. Remolona, Jr. on Tuesday to discuss the country’s economic outlook for 2026.
She added that the President would prefer the exchange rate to stay below P60 to the dollar, noting that further depreciation would increase the peso cost of paying the country’s foreign debt.
The President is also concerned about the impact of currency weakness across all sectors of the economy, Ms. Castro said. She added that the peso’s struggles are not isolated, pointing to currency depreciation across several Asian markets in 2025.
“This reflects the broad strength of the US dollar and expectations that the US Federal Reserve will delay interest rate cuts,” she said, adding that trade imbalances and capital flows have also played a role.
Malacañang expects economic growth to improve from the second quarter of this year and extend into 2026. Still, Ms. Castro said risks remain, particularly if investor and consumer confidence recovers more slowly than expected following the multibillion-peso graft scandal.
The Philippine economy expanded 4% in the third quarter of 2025, the slowest in more than four years. Economic Secretary Arsenio M. Balisacan has attributed the slowdown partly to reduced infrastructure spending after the flood control controversy.
Mr. Balisacan said full-year growth for 2025 likely settled at 4.8% to 5%, below the government’s 5.5% to 6.5% target. Official full-year gross domestic product data are due on Jan. 29.
The Palace said it remains confident that inflation would stay contained. Inflation averaged 1.7% in 2025, the weakest in nine years, staying well below the central bank’s 2% to 4% target.
While prices edged up in December due to higher holiday-related food costs, core inflation continued to ease, supporting expectations of a stable price environment in the year ahead. — Chloe Mari A. Hufana
