CLARK FREEPORT – Dividends remitted by government owned or – controlled corporations (GOCCs), including the Clark Development Corp. here, breached the P40-billion mark in 2018, the highest since the law requiring state firms to hand over 50 percent of their annual net earnings to the national government was enacted in 1994.
In a statement furnished local media, the Department of Finance (DOF) said the total includes remittance from the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp. (PDIC) amounting to P6 billion on top of P34.17 billion collected from other GOCCs as of November last year, for a total of P40.17 billion.
It said that the amount does not yet include remittance from the Land Bank of the Philippines which was supposed to contribute P7.82 billion. Finance Undersecretary Antonette Tionko, who heads the DOF-Corporate Affairs Group (CAG), said, however, the Land Bank was allowed to waive its dividend contributions “to boost its capital requirements.”
“But even without Land Bank, P40.17 billion still represents the highest amount ever collected from state-owned and controlled firms since the GOCC Dividends Law was implemented 24 years ago,” the DOF said.
The statement quoted Finance Sec. Carlos Dominguez as saying that “the record amount demonstrates the effectivity of Undersecretary Tionko and her team in instilling fiscal discipline among the GOCCs since the Duterte administration took over in 2016.”
The DOF-CAG reported that “the dividends totaling P40,178,634,651.87 remitted by GOCCs in 2018 represent a 32 percent jump from the P30.46 billion collected in the previous year.”
It noted that “covering the period from July 2016 to December 2018, the total cash dividend collections under the Duterte administration now amounts to P70.9 billion” and that “a total of 55 GOCCs remitted to the National Treasury as of December 14, 2018.”
“The cash dividend collections from GOCCs in 2018 comprised 15.72 percent of the emerging total non-tax revenues of the government,” the DOF-CAG also noted.
“The PDIC has emerged as this year’s top dividend contributor with a total of P8.844 billion. GOCCs with at least P1.0 billion dividend remittances in 2017 were PDIC with P7.461 billion, Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) with P5.394 billion, Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP) with P2.516 billion, Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA) with P2.227 billion, Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) with P1.956 billion, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) with P1.843 billion, the National Power Corp.(NPC) with P1.399 billion, and Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (PAGCor),” it added.
Dominguez earlier attributed the significantly higher dividend remittances this year to the efficient monitoring of GOCCs by the DOF-CAG as well as by finance officials sitting on the boards of these state-run firms.
GOCCs are required to declare and remit at least half of their income as dividends to the national government, under Republic Act No. 7656.
DOF records indicated that in 2017, dividends remitted by GOCCs to the National Treasury represented a 9.8 percent increase from the 2016 collections of P27.73 billion.
The 2017 dividend collections from 54 GOCCs exceeded the P27.73 billion remittances in 2016 even if the LandBank’s P6 billion remittance in 2017 was not included to allow the institution to recapitalize and better serve the increasing development needs of the country, the department also noted.
The DOF identified the other top dividend contributors were the CAAP with P6.224 billion; BSP with P3.637 billion; PPA with P3.103 billion; PAGCor with P2.593 billion; Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office with P2.535 billion; MIAA with P2.251 billion; and NPC with P1.410 billion.
GOCC dividend contributors for 2018 also included the Alabang Sto. Tomas Development, Inc., APO Production Unit, Inc., Authority of the Freeport Area of Bataan, Bases Conversion Development Authority, Batangas Land Company, Inc., BCDA Management Holdings Inc., Cebu Port Authority, Clark Development Corp., DBP Data Center Inc., DBP Leasing Corp., Development Bank of the Philippines, Food Terminal Inc., GY Real Estate Inc., Home Guaranty Corp., Kamayan Realty Corp., Laguna Lake Development Authority, LBP Insurance Brokerage Inc., LBP Leasing and Finance Corp., LBP Resources and Development Corp., Local Water Utilities Administration, Mactan Cebu International Airport Authority, Masaganang Sakahan Inc., Metropolitan Waterworks & Sewerage System, National Dairy Authority, National Development Company, National Electrification Administration, National Home Mortgage Finance Corp., National Housing Authority, NDC – Philippine Infrastructure Corp., Partido Development Administration, Philippine Crop Insurance Corp., Philippine Economic Zone Authority, Philippine Fisheries Development Authority, Philippine International Trading Corp., Philippine National Oil Company, Philippine Postal Corp., Philippine Reclamation Authority, Philippine Retirement Authority, Philippine Sugar Corp, PHIVIDEC Industrial Authority, Pinagkaisa Realty Corp., Poro Point Management Cor., PNOC Exploration Corp., Small Business Guarantee Finance Corp., Social Housing Finance Corp., Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority, and the Sugar Regulatory Administration.
