The abrupt manner by which Malacañang asked those owing the various government-owned and -controlled corporations (GOCCs) dividends allowed the Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) to report yet another banner year in 2017.
This developed even though the Land Bank of the Philippines (LandBank) was allowed some leeway and excused from remitting the otherwise mandatory transfer of funds to the national kitty. The LandBank counts among the highest dividend contributor for many years now.
As a result, the BTr told the Department of Finance (DOF) that the dividend contributions of the various GOCCs rose 9.8 percent in 2017 to P30.45 billion. Such dividends amounted to only P27.73 billion in 2016.
According to Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III, the banner dividend collection exceeded that remitted in 2016 no matter the exemption granted the LandBank that year, when it was allowed to plough back P6 billion worth of earnings for recapitalization purposes.
Dominguez said had LandBank actually remitted the P6 billion as dividends in 2017, the aggregate contribution of GOCCs would have reached P36.45 billion last year.
The banner dividend contribution was owed the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (Caap) that for the past four years, it was noted, has not remitted anything to the BTr.
Then in October last year, President Duterte himself noted with displeasure that the flag carrier Philippine Airlines (PAL) still has outstanding dividend obligations of P6 billion. To the credit of airline executives, PAL quickly settled what it owed and wrote a
check for the BTr.
Dominguez commended the work done by the DOF, under the leadership of Finance Undersecretary Antonette C. Tionko of the Corporate Affairs Group (CAG), to aggressively promote financial discipline among the GOCCs.
“For CAG, we are pleased to report that our dividend collection has hit P30.4 billion, up from last year’s P27.6 billion. And that is excluding the LandBank dividends of P6 billion,” Tionko told Dominguez at a recent DOF Executive Committee meeting.
Tionko said the dividend collection came from 53 GOCCs that include the Caap, which had not remitted anything for the past four years but has emerged as one of the biggest dividend contributors in 2017.
The Caap remitted a total P5.39 billion to the Treasury after collecting nearly P6 billion from PAL in October last year and after the President ordered the Department of Transportation (DOTr) not to extend the deadline it had given to the flag carrier to pay its long-overdue navigational fees and other charges.
The other substantial dividend contributors were the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp. (PDIC) with P7.46 billion, the Development Bank of the Philippines at P2.51 billion, the Manila International Airport Authority (Miaa) with P2.22 billion, the Philippine Ports Authority with P1.95 billion, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas with P1.84 billion, the National Power Corp. (Napocor) with P1.39 billion, the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. with P1.18 billion and the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) with P923.60 million.
Among the other GOCCs sending some of their earnings in 2017 to the National Treasury were the Philippine Economic Zone Authority with P622.91 million, the Philippine National Oil Co. Exploration Corp. with P519.42 million, Clark Development Corp. with P500 million, the National Development Co. with P428.19 million, the Philippine Reclamation Authority with P323.76 million, the Local Water Utilities Administration with P319.08 million, the Cebu Port Authority with P294.69 million, the Cagayan Economic Zone Authority with P240.59 million, the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System with P232.63 million, and the Philippine Leisure and Retirement Authority amounting to P210.44 million, among others.
One-third of the 2017 remittances correspond to collection of dividends in arrears of some GOCCs, such as the PDIC, Caap, SBMA and Napocor, according to the DOF.