BCDA remits record P3.2B to Treasury

The Bases Conversion and Development Authority’s (BCDA) remittances to the national treasury reached a record P3.2 billion this year, according to the agency.

The amount is 45 percent higher than the P2.2 billion it remitted in 2014, the BCDA said.

This brings the agency’s average annual remittance to about P1.8 billion over the past five years.

In 2013, the BCDA turned over to the Bureau of the Treasury P2.3 billion. In 2012, the amount reached P528.4 million, while in 2011 it stood at P2.14 billion.

Also, BCDA data showed that the P7-billion total of the past five years was already more than half the P12.7 billion remitted the previous decade, when the average was about P1.2 billion.

BCDA president and chief executive Arnel D. Casanova attributed the growth in remittances to “a well-crafted plan plus good governance.”

Casanova said in a statement that the amount turned over this year would be used to fund socioeconomic projects and the modernization of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

The BCDA also maintained its standing as the best-performing agency in terms of remittances, even though it is a non-banking and non-gaming government-owned and -controlled corporation (GOCC), he added.

GOCCs are required by law to declare and remit at least half of their yearly net earnings as cash, stock or property dividends to the government.

Recently, the BCDA turned over to the government P1 billion, which represented the agency’s partial payment of guarantee fees for 2014 as developer and owner of the 94-kilometer Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway.