THE national government has secured P58 billion in dividends from government-owned and -controlled corporations (GOCCs) in the first half of the year, the Department of Finance (DoF) reported on Wednesday.

“As of the first half of June 2022 alone, the total cash collection from GOCCs this year already reached P58.25 billion, which is higher than the dividend collection level in 2021 of P57.55 billion,” it announced in a statement on Wednesday.

The agency said as of the last few weeks before the Duterte administration’s term ends on June 30, the dividends paid to the National Treasury since it took office in July 2016 were P374.54 billion.

The agency stressed, citing a report from its Corporate Affairs Group, that the total amount remitted by GOCCs as required by Republic Act (RA) 7656 or the “Dividends Law” represents a 127-percent increase or P209.73 billion more than the P164.81 billion collected under the administration of the late president Benigno Aquino 3rd.

It said the amount collected during the Duterte administration is P313.72 billion, or 516 percent greater, than the dividend remittances of P60.82 billion under the presidency of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

The DoF emphasized that this demonstrated “the rigorous fiscal discipline and responsibility instilled by the Department of Finance in the state corporate sector on his [President Rodrigo Duterte] watch.”

In 2020 alone, it said the Duterte administration collected the highest amount of dividends totaling P135.13 billion. This was partly due to RA 11469 or the “Bayanihan to Heal as One Act.”

The Finance department said that the law, also known as Bayanihan 1, gave the President the power to “to allocate cash, funds, investments, including unutilized or unreleased subsidies and transfers, held by any GOCC or any national government agency” to help address the Covid-19 emergency.

The government’s cash-intensive pandemic response programs, such as providing emergency subsidies for low-income families, displaced workers and other groups hard hit by the Covid-driven global economic slowdown, have been supplemented with funds from the dividend payments made by GOCCs for the Fiscal Year 2020, it added.