MANILA, Philippines—The Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation’s (Pagcor) reported on Thursday its “highest recorded” remittance to the government in the amount of P21.20 billion last year.
Pagcor chairman and chief executive officer Cristino Naguiat INQUIRER file photo
The amount, Pagcor chairman and chief executive officer Cristino Naguiat said, was more than half of the agency’s P40.52 billion gross income in 2013.
“Our contributions last year was higher by nearly P242 million compared to the P20.96 billion we gave to the government and other recipients in 2012,” Naguiat said in a statement.
“This is the highest recorded remittance of Pagcor to nation-building in the past 28 years of its existence,” he said.
Of the corporation’s P40.52 billion revenues in 2013, Naguiat said, P27.58 billion was generated from its gaming operations; P11.92 billion from other related services such as license fees collected from its franchisees; and another P1.01 billion from other sources such as entertainment income, hotel operations, interests, foreign exchange, among others.
Naguiat said Pagcor was also able to increase its contributions to the government by spending its resources wisely.
“We were able to reduce our actual operating expenses by almost P1 billion in 2013 compared to the previous year. By constantly scrutinizing our expenses, we were able to contribute more to nation-building last year despite the stiff competition in the gaming industry,” he pointed out.
The “biggest chunk” of Pagcor’s contributions to nation-building last year, he said, went to the National Treasury (P13.10 billion) representing 50% of the mandated government share from the agency’s revenues.
The amount was higher by P49.65 million compared to the 2012 government share of P13.052 billion, said Naguiat.
Apart from this, Pagcor said it also remitted P5.98 billion to its various mandated recipients in 2013, an increase of P330 million compared to that in 2012.
Naguiat said also part of Pagcor’s contributions to nation-building was the P2.33 billion it gave as direct assistance to socio-civic projects, the bulk of which went to the “Matuwid na Daan sa Silid-Aralan” program of the corporation.
Foremost among the state-owned gaming firm’s advocacies, he said, is to help the Department of Education (DepEd) build more decent learning facilities for the Filipino youth.
“To date, we have already allocated P5 billion for the construction of school buildings nationwide. Of this amount, we allocated P2 billion solely for the reconstruction of damaged school buildings in the Visayas which were severely ravaged by typhoon Yolanda,” said the Pagcor chief.
Naguiat said the prudent use of funds also enabled the state gaming firm to generate a hefty net income of P3.09 billion in 2013.
“This surpassed our 2013 net income target by P141 million (4.79%). It is also much bigger by P293 million (10.48%) versus our P2.8 billion net income in 2012,” Naguiat said.
Pagcor said it will also remit cash dividends to the government.
From P1 billion in 2012 and P1.4 billion in 2013, the state gaming firm hopes to increase its cash dividends to the National Treasury to P1.5 billion this year.
“We hope to continue Pagcor’s good performance in 2014. We know that it will not be easy because competition is getting stiffer. But just like what I keep telling our employees, we always have to do our best so we can reap the fruits of our labor,” Naguiat added.
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