| Debt Management Program in the Philippines |

The first debt and debt service reduction operation the World Bank financed was the Debt Management Program Loan to the Philippines, approved in 1990. Its main objective was to help restore the Philippines' creditworthiness by reducing the destabilizing pressures exerted by an excessive debt-service burden. The government, having inherited a huge debt service obligation, formulated a debt restructuring program for the country and a request for debt-relief from creditors, with assistance from the Bank and the IMF.

Several events helped improve the Philippines' creditworthiness. Three of them are particularly relevant to the operation. First, the government adopted a program of deep structural and macroeconomic reform. Second, it reduced the debt stock by about $650 million equivalent, or about 2.3 percent of its outstanding debt at the time, using Bank and IMF financing to buy back $1.46 billion of debt from commercial banks at 50 percent discount. And finally, by signaling confidence in the Philippines' commitment to sound macroeconomic reform, the Debt Management Loan opened up international financial markets for the country.

However, the program's success also led to a new problem. It encouraged new loans and other inflows of capital, which eventually became a major source of monetary problems and instability. The resulting increase in inflation forced the government to rein in the economy, suppressing growth; the currency tended to appreciate and the new loans tended to substitute for public sector savings. Clearly, in debt restructuring exercises, foreign creditors must give only enough assistance to avoid destabilizing pressures; the full benefits of debt restructuring can be captured only in a stable economic environment.

Background

In the ten years after 1986, when the Marcos regime fell, the