Aggressive asset sales to help fund budget

Finance secretary Benjamin Diokno –INQUIRER FILE PHOTO/EDWIN BACASMAS

The Marcos administration plans to aggressively privatize idle assets to raise more revenues, which may fund a supplemental budget for next year, Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno said.

“We will be very aggressive in our privatization effort,” Diokno told legislators last week. The Finance chief said he would support additional budget financing for 2023 as long as there were incremental tax and non-tax revenues, including proceeds from privatization of some state corporations, as well as new foreign loans.

Diokno said a supplemental budget for next year could allow the government to spend on its priority and ready-to-implement programs and projects as needed, rather than delay their implementation.

But he did not identify which assets can be disposed of in the near term.

Asked if the Marcos administration would privatize the gaming assets of the state-run Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor), Diokno replied: “Pagcor’s new leadership will have to make known their plans moving forward. They should resolve the seemingly conflicting roles as an operator and regulator. The new leadership should consider the worthiness of their move appropriate to their role.”

President Marcos recently appointed Alejandro Tengco as Pagcor’s new chair and chief executive, while Juanito Sañosa Jr. was designated as president and chief operating officer.

The previous Duterte administration had considered privatizing the commercial functions of Pagcor as well as of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office, while keeping their regulatory function, such that these state-run firms stood to lose a steady stream of revenues. But Diokno said that “in the short and medium term, there will be no revenue loss because of the privatization proceeds.”

Each year, the Development Budget Coordination Committee sets a privatization target of P500 million. The latest Bureau of the Treasury data showed that end-July privatization revenues reached only P81.03 million, coming from sales, lease rental, other incomes and dividends generated by the Privatization and Management Office. INQ