The Philippines' consolidated public sector debt rose by 2 percent to 7.7 trillion pesos ($178 billion) as of March this year from end-2012 debt, the Department of Finance (DOF) said Thursday.

The department attributed the increase on the domestic debt, which climbed by 5.3 percent to 5.5 trillion pesos. Foreign debt, on the other hand, declined by 5.4 percent to 2.1 trillion pesos.

While the public sector debt jumped by 154.2 billion pesos to March from 7.5 trillion pesos in 2012, the latest debt was equivalent to 71.3 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP), lower than the 74.3 percent of GDP as of March 2012.

Consolidated public sector debt represents the total debt of the National Government (NG), Local Government Units (LGUs), the 14 Monitored Government Corporations (MNFGCs), the country's Social Security Institutions, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) , and the three Government Financial Institutions (GFIs), net of the government's holdings of its own debt through the above- mentioned institutions and the Bond Sinking Fund (BSF). (1 US dollar equals to 43.19 pesos)