The Philippines is sticking to its 2009 budget deficit target of P199.2 billion ($4.18 billion) or 2.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), Finance Secretary Margarito Teves said Monday.

"As of today we are keeping to the P199.2 billion," he told reporters. Any revision would be decided on after first-quarter economic numbers come out at the end of the month, he added.

The country's budget deficit hit a total of P119.7 billion in the first three months of the year, already two-thirds of the government's revised full-year estimate of P199.2 billion. It was also higher than the P110-billion target for the three-month period.

The government has been frontloading spending to overcome the slowdown in the economy, which it also blames for poor revenue collection.

Last week, Budget Secretary Rolando Andaya Jr. said the government can afford to widen the country's budget gap to as much as P257 billion or 3 percent of GDP. This is consistent with what Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ralph Recto earlier projected as "worst-case scenario" for the deficit this year. With Reuters