• Gov’t mulls new council for casino privatization

The government is planning to create a new council which will oversee the privatization of the casinos operated by the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (PAGCOR), the Department of Finance (DOF) said yesterday.

In an interview, Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez said a new team would be created to handle the technicalities in the privatization process of PAGCOR-owned casinos.

“We have a Privatization Management Office, but PAGCOR is a special case. It is the licenses that we are privatizing. Its more technical. Quite frankly, we admit it’s more technical than what the PMO can handle,” Dominguez said.

Dominguez said the new council would be composed of representatives from the Office of the President (OP), the DOF, the Department of Justice, the Department of Budget and Management and the Governance Commission for Government-Owned and Controlled Corporations.

He said the creation of the team would need the approval of the President. A draft executive order providing the process of privatizing the PAGCOR-owned casinos have also been submitted to the OP last September, he said.

PAGCOR operates 46 casino properties in the Philippines. It is the government’s third largest revenue collecting agency, next to the Bureau of Internal Revenue and the Bureau of Customs.

Dominguez hopes to start the privatization of the casinos by next year.

Meanwhile, the PMO, the state property disposition arm of the Department of Finance (DOF), remitted P554.44 million in dividends to the national government in the first nine months, up 36.28 percent from P406.85 in the same period in 2016.

The amount came from the proceeds of the sale of government properties, lease, landholdings covered by the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program, interest income and other dispositions.

Under Executive Order 323, all receipts from the sale of assets made by the PMO, except portions thereof for reimbursable custodianship and/or operational expenses, should be remitted to the National Treasury.

The National Treasury is then required to utilize 60 percent of the remitted amount for the special account of the Agrarian Reform Funs, while the remaining 40 percent should go to the General Fund.