The Philippine peso skidded to a new low of P63.615 against the US dollar on Friday.

The peso settled at P63.52 on Thursday. In the last week, the peso lost around 57 centavos versus the greenback.

The peso ended at P63.615 at the Bankers Association of the Philippines website even as volume was lower than Thursday. Volume reached $1.28 billion from Thursday's $1.715 billion.

Bryan Ang, vice president of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said among the reasons for the peso's decline was that Brent Crude reached $115 a barrel and that the US Federal Reserve may raise rates before the year ends, Bilyonaryo News Channel said.

Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Governor Eli Remolona said the Monetary Board did not raise policy rates by 50 basis points to defend the peso but curb inflation, which is currently at 7.2 percent.

''We are not hiking the policy rate to defend the peso. We do intervene a little bit in the foreign exchange market but that is mainly to avoid swings in the exchange rate that tend to be inflationary. we have estimates how much the peso has to move before it becomes inflationary and that's when we tend to intervene,'' explained Remolona.

He did not reveal the peso-dollar rate's threshold. PHS