State-owned Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor) is on track to hit its revenue targets, driven by country’s much improved economic environment amid the prolonged pandemic.
Despite their “bad start” this year due to the surge of Covid-19 cases, Andrea D. Domingo, Pagcor chair and chief executive officer said on Wednesday, April 27, that they are now hitting their gross gaming revenue (GGR) goal.
Domingo said Pagcor already generated about P17 billion in GGR from January to April this year.
To recall, the government implemented stricter quarantine protocols last January due to the Omicron variant of Covid-19, which forced Pagcor to halt its casino operations.
“We'll have two months more until I end my term and I think that we should be hitting anywhere from P35 to P30 billion by June,” Domingo said during the Kapihan sa Manila Bay forum.
For this reason, she expressed confidence of doubling Pagcor’s GGR for 2022.
“It would be possible that by the end of the year, Pagcor would have about P60 to P65 billion a year GGR which is almost twice as much as last year's,” the official said.
Aside from higher GGR, Domingo also said that Pagcor remitted advanced dividends to the Bureau of the Treasury amounting to P6 billion.
Pagcor’s remittance represents the declared dividends for 2021 amounting to P1.04 billion and its additional cash dividends, which may be applied against future dividend obligations, worth P4.95 billion.
Domingo said Pagcor made the remittance in response to the Department of Finance’s request for support in funding the higher social expenditures to mitigate the impact of the Russia-Ukraine conflict on the vulnerable sectors.
“The president no longer asked us for any socioeconomic projects funds for this year, because he said that we should just give it all to the national treasury, which is what we did,” she said.
Between 2016 and 2021, Pagcor’s total remittances reached P48.94 billion.
In 2021, Pagcor turned over a total of P5 billion cash dividends and advances, applicable to future obligations, to the Treasury for dividend year 2020.
Prior to that, it made its highest remittance of P18 billion, representing cash dividends for years 2019-2020.