Dividends remitted by government-owned and -controlled corporations (GOCCs) already reached a record amount of P44.69 billion as of mid-June this year, with the Department of Finance (DOF) expecting the total for 2019 to easily surpass the P50-billion mark.

Finance Assistant Secretary Soledad Emilia Cruz reported during a recent DOF Executive Committee (Execom) meeting that this mid-June total is 57 percent higher than the 2018 collections of P28.47 billion for the same period.

The Top 10 dividend contributors for the mid-June 2019 period are led by the Philippine Amusement & Gaming Corp (PAGCOR) with P16.17 billion, followed by the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp. (PDIC) with P4.58 billion, and the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), P4 billion, Cruz said in her report to Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III.

“Cash dividend collection from GOCCs reached P44.69 billion as of June 14, 2019. We expect this to breach the P50-billion mark by the end of the year,” said Cruz of the DOF-Corporate Affairs Group (CAG).

The rest of the Top 10 dividend contributors are the Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) with P3.52 billion; Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP), P3.51 billion; Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA), P3.42 billion; Land Bank of the Philippines (LandBank), P1.96 billion; National Power Corp. (NPC), P842.38 million; Clark Development Corp. (CDC), P815.77 million; and Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO), P744.23 million.

Cruz said that in 2017 and 2018, cash dividend collections from GOCCs reached P30.46 billion and P40.18 billion, respectively.

However, the dividends due from LandBank corresponding to their 2016 net earnings amounting to P6 billion were not remitted in 2017. In 2018, dividends due from LandBank and the Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP) totaling P11.06 billion corresponding to their 2017 net earnings were also not remitted, Cruz said.

GOCCs are required to declare and remit at least half of their net earnings as dividends to the national government, under Republic Act (RA) No. 7656.

“Instead, these government financial institutions (GFIs) were allowed to retain their dividend contributions for use in increasing the development needs of the country,” Cruz said.

Hence, Cruz said that if the dividend contributions from LandBank and DBP were taken into account, the actual collections from GOCCs would have reached P36.46 billion, and P51.24 billion for 2017 and 2018, respectively.

Covering the period from July 2016 to mid-June 2019, the total cash dividend collections under the Duterte administration now amounts to P115.61 billion, the DOF-CAG said.

GOCCs are required to declare and remit at least half of their income as dividends to the national government, under Republic Act (RA) No. 7656. DMS