Dividends remitted by government-owned or controlled corporations (GOCCs) surpassed its pre-pandemic collection last year, driven by the fiscal discipline imposed on state-run firms, the Department of Finance (DOF) said.

Data from the DOF’s Corporate Affairs Group (CAG) showed on Monday, March 28, that GOCCs remitted P57.55 billion to government coffers from January to December 2021, higher by 9.4 percent compared with the 2019 level of P52.59 billion.

The 2021 remittances exclude the dividends foregone in 2020 income from the Land Bank of the Philippines (Landbank) and Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP), which retained their dividend contributions to continue boosting their capital requirements.

Inclusive of the dividend relief granted to select GOCCs, including Landbank and DBP, the total dividend collections for 2021 amounted to P84.72 billion, which is 22.5 percent higher than 2019’s P69.17 billion.

Under the Duterte administration, total dividend collections inclusive of dividend relief averaged P68.7 billion annually, more than double the level of the past administration which only collected an average of P27.5 billion-worth of dividends per year.

Finance Assistant Secretary Soledad Emilia Cruz said the high level of compliance by GOCCs to Republic Act (RA) 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.

Under the Dividends Law, GOCCs are required to remit at least 50 percent of their net earnings to the national government.

Cruz said that for the remaining period of the Duterte administration, the CAG expects to collect at least P32 billion as dividend remittances of GOCCs by end-June 2022.

The CAG, headed by Finance Undersecretary Antonette Tionko, also made good use of the web-based GOCCs Liabilities and Monitoring System (GLAMS) to check the financial status of GOCCs.

Formerly known as the GOCC Debt Reporting and Monitoring System (GDRAMS), the GLAMS was transferred by the Governance Commission for GOCCs (GCG) to the DOF in July 2021 and was relaunched with enhanced features by CAG in August 2021.

In 2021, Cruz said the CAG was also successful in ensuring the full compliance by the different government insurance institutions (GIIs) to globally accepted insurance accounting standards known as the Philippine Financial Reporting Standards (PFRS) 4.

PFRS 4 provides the guidelines on the proper financial accounting of insurance contracts.

While full compliance with these standards does not affect the financial status and stability of the GIIs, it will help the government make informed decisions and policies regarding these institutions.