Pagcor remittances to govt hits P16.17B

Credit to Author: EIREENE JAIREE GOMEZ| Date: Tue, 14 May 2019 16:23:13 +0000

The Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor) on Tuesday said it remitted an all-time high P16.17 billion in dividend contributions to the national treasury this year.

The figure almost matched the state-run gaming regulator’s P17.16 billion cumulative cash dividends from 2011 to 2017. In 2018, total remittance of PAGCOR to the government reached P2.59 billion.

Pagcor’s cash dividends remittance to the national coffers is pursuant to Republic Act 7656 or the Government-Owned and -Controlled Corporations (GOCC) Dividend Law, which requires such firms to remit at least 50 percent of their annual net earnings as cash, stock or property dividends to the national government every year.

“Since 2011, Pagcor has been remitting cash dividends to the government. But it was in 2018 when we posted the highest amount. Because of this, Pagcor’s total remitted cash dividends from 2011 to the present has reached P33.33 billion, enabling the agency to consistently make it to the GOCC Elite Circle or the Billionaires’ Club. These are the corporations that remit at least P1 billion cash dividends to the government,” Pagcor Chairman and CEO Andrea Domingo said in a statement.

She said this year’s cash dividends of Pagcor is “just a tip of the iceberg when it comes to Pagcor’s revenue remittances to the government,” after the gaming agency surpassed its P100-billion revenue mark last year.

“In 2018, we recorded our highest revenue in history, which amounted to P104.12 billion. This feat enabled our agency to significantly increase our contributions to nation-building by 42.52 percent,” Domingo said.

Pagcor remitted P58.95 billion to the national coffers and other mandated beneficiaries in 2018, a 42.5 percent increase from P41.36 billion contributions a year earlier.

Of Pagcor’s 2018 revenues, P67.85 billion came from the agency’s income from gaming operations while P36.27 billion came from other income including the sale of Pagcor’s land in Entertainment City to Bloomberry Resorts Corp. which amounted to P32.71 billion.

The state-run gaming regulator’s 2018 net income surged by 18.34 percent from P57.33 billion recorded in the previous year.

Of the P67.85 billion revenues from gaming operations, P24.78 billion came from winnings from electronic games, while the remaining were sourced from table games (P11.79 billion); and bingo operations (P1.04 billion). Income from licensed casinos (P24.11 billion) and offshore gaming operations (P6.11 billion) likewise contributed significantly to revenue growth.

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