6-YR GOCC REMITTANCES TO TREASURY HIT P374.5B
STATE-RUN corporations’ cash dividend remittances since President Duterte took office in 2016 hit P374.54 billion, the highest ever amount collected under any administration.
is was also more than double the amount collected under the administration of the late President Benigno Aquino III at P164.81 billion and is also more than six times the equivalent of the P60.82 billion dividend remittances under the Arroyo administration, the Department of Finance (DOF) said on Wednesday.
e amount was remitted by government-owned and -controlled corporations (GOCCS) since July 2016 up to the last few weeks before Duterte ends his term today (June 30), according to a report of the DOF’S Corporate Affairs Group to Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III.
Under Republic Act 7656 or the Dividends Law, GOCCS are required to declare and remit at least 50 percent of their annual net earnings as cash, stock or property dividends to the national government. For the first half of this year, total cash collected by GOCCS have already hit P58.25 billion, higher than the dividend remittances in the same period in 2021 at P57.55 billion.
In 2020, the Duterte administration also collected the highest amount of dividends ever—amounting to P135.13 billion—but this was partly due to Republic Act 11469 or the Bayanihan to Heal as One Act which authorized the President “to allocate cash, funds, investments, including unutilized or unreleased subsidies and transfers, held by any GOCC or any national government agency” to help address the Covid-19 emergency.
Even without the Bayanihan Law, the 2020 GOCC dividend remittances are still on a par with the 2019 level, according to DOF. Dividend remittances of GOCCS in 2020 were used to augment the funds for the government’s cash-intensive pandemic response programs, including providing emergency subsidies
to low-income families, displaced workers, and other groups hard hit by the Covid-driven global economic slowdown.