INQUIRER.net stock photo
MANILA, Philippines—Dividends remitted by state-run corporations to the national treasury in 2021 reached P57.6 billion, almost a tenth bigger than the P52.6 billion collected in 2019 without the extra pressure to finance pandemic response.
Cash dividends collected from government-owned and/or -controlled corporations (GOCCs) in 2020 jumped to a record P135.1 billion as the national government ordered advances to finance the fight against COVID-19. Three-fourths of 2020’s net GOCC dividends or P119.1-billion worth was spent on dole outs to vulnerable households under the social amelioration program (SAP) at the height of the most stringent COVID-19 lockdown. This year, the government would again squeeze GOCCs so dividend windfalls could be spent on cash aid for sectors badly hit by expensive oil.
The 2021 dividend figure, based on GOCCs’ 2020 incomes, released by the Department of Finance (DOF) on Monday (March 28) was net of the dividends foregone as the government allowed state-run lenders Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP) and Land Bank of the Philippines (Landbank) to keep their supposed contributions to beef-up their capitalization. Without the relief extended to DBP and Landbank, last year’s GOCC dividends totaled P84.7 billion, more than a fifth larger than P69.2 billion in 2019 but below the P156.9 billion in 2020.
“The high level of compliance by GOCCs to Republic Act (RA) No. 7656, or the dividends law, was the result of the DOF’s persistent efforts to ensure that even state-run firms with dividend deficiencies and arrears are able to remit either through staggered remittance arrangements or other payment options that may be warranted,” Assistant Finance Secretary Soledad Emilia Cruz said in a statement.
RA 7656 mandates all state-run companies to declare and remit at least half of their yearly incomes to the national treasury as dividends. The DOF, which oversees GOCCs, has been pushing for a bill pending in Congress to hike mandatory dividends to at least 75 percent of annual earnings.
The Duterte administration collected an average of P68.7 billion in dividends yearly from 2016 to 2021, over twice higher than the annual average of P27.5 billion during the preceding administration, the DOF said.
It helped that the online financial reporting portal renamed into GOCCs Liabilities and Monitoring System (GLAMS) — formerly known as GOCC Debt Reporting and Monitoring System (GDRAMS) when previously overseen by the the Governance Commission for GOCCs (GCG) — was transferred to DOF supervision in mid-2021, it added.
The DOF’s corporate affairs group—headed by Finance Undersecretary Antonette Tionko—relaunched GLAMS with its enhanced features in August 2021.