Gov’t owned firms remit P129.45B to augment COVID-19 response fund

Government-owned and -controlled corporations (GOCCs) have so far remitted a total of P129.45 billion to the state coffers to augment funds for the efforts to contain the spread of COVID-19 and provide economic relief to poor and vulnerable sectors, the Department of Finance (DOF) said Tuesday.

In a statement, the DOF said the amount was remitted by GOCCs to the Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) as of April 27. 

The bulk of the P129.45-billion total or P91.62 billion was remitted after the effectivity of Republic Act (RA) No. 11469 or the Bayanihan to Heal As One Act on March 24 and up to April 29.

The said amount was “the largest sum ever collected from GOCCs in span of only five weeks,” according to the Finance department.

Before the effectivity of the Bayanihan law, GOCCs were able to remit a total of P37.83 billion to the BTr from January 1 to March 23. 

On top of the cash dividends remitted by the GOCCs as mandated under RA 7656, the remittances also include the unutilized subsidies and payment of guarantee fees and national government advances. 

Cash dividends remitted amounted to P121.75 billion.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), which remitted P37.48 billion, topped the list of GOCCS with the highest dividend contributions, followed by the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp. (PDIC) with P17.9 billion, and the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (PAGCOR) and Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority (TIEZA) with P12 billion each. 

The GOCCs under the Department of Transportation (DOTr)—Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA), Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) and Philippine Ports Authority (PPA)—followed with their respective remittances of P6 billion each from the MIAA and CAAP and P5.05 billion from PPA. 

The Philippine National Oil Corp. (PNOC) remitted P5 billion; National Power Corp (NPC), P4 billion; Philippine Reclamation Authority (PRecA), P3.8 billion; Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA), P2.69 billion; Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO), P2.27 billion; PNOC Exploration Corp., P2 billion; and the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA), P2 billion. 

Other GOCCs that remitted to the BTr include the National Electrification Administration (NEA), P1.55 billion; Metropolitan Waterworks & Sewerage System (MWSS), P1.43 billion; Clark Development Corp. (CDC), P1.13 billion; Light Rail Transit Authority (LRTA), P1 billion and the National Irrigation Administration (NIA), P1 billion. 

The Philippine Sugar Corp. (Philsucor) remitted P875 million; Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA), P659.55 million; National Housing Authority (NHA), P513.24 million; Cebu Port Authority (CPA), P500 million; and the Mactan Cebu International Airport Authority (MCIAA), P500 million. 

The Authority of the Freeport Area of Bataan (AFAB), APO Production Unit, Inc. (APO-PUI), Philippine International Trading Corp. (PITC), Philippine Crop Insurance Corp. (PCIC), National Development Co. (NDC), North Luzon Tollways Corp. (NorthRail), Social Housing Finance Corp. (SHFC), Food Terminal Inc. (FTI), Laguna Lake Development Authority (LLDA), Clark International Airport Corporation (CIAC), Philippine Postal Corporation (PPC), Batangas Land Company, Inc. (BLCI), DBP Data Center Inc. (DPI-DCI), DBP Leasing Corp. (DBP-LC), LBP Insurance Brokerage Inc. (LBP-IBI), LBP Resources and Development Corp. (LBP-RDC), LBP Leasing and Finance Corporation (LBP-LFC), Philippine Mining Development Corp. (PMDC), Philippine Retirement Authority (PRetA)  and the  Philippine Fisheries Development Authority (PFDA), along with various other GOCCs also remitted their dividends to the Treasury.

Under RA 11469 or the Bayanihan To Heal As One Act, the President is authorized “to allocate cash, funds, investments, including unutilized or unreleased subsidies and transfers, held by any GOCC or any national government agency in order to the address the COVID-19 emergency."

The expanded budgetary powers granted by the Congress to the President under the Bayanihan Act just a week after the implementation of the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) has enabled the government to formulate a four-pillar socioeconomic strategy to blunt the impact of COVID-19 on the Filipino people and the economy.  

Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III told the House of Representatives during a recent online meeting of the economic stimulus cluster of its Defeat COVID-19 Committee (DCC) that the President's four-pillar strategy now has a combined value of $29.3 billion or P1.49 trillion or about 8% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP). 

This anti-COVID-19 strategy covers the following:

• providing poor and low-income households, small-business employees and other vulnerable groups emergency and wage subsidies
• marshalling the country’s medical resources and ensuring the safety of its healthcare frontliners
• fiscal and monetary actions to finance emergency initiatives and keep the economy afloat
• economic recovery plan to create jobs and sustain growth under a post-quarantine scenario. 

 
The P205-billion Social Amelioration Program (SAP) for 18 million poor and low-income households under this four-pronged strategy to defeat the virus marks the single biggest social protection program ever of the government, the DOF said. —KG, GMA News