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The Marcos administration’s privatization income was cut by more than half at end-September, failing to meet targets despite the ₱820 million contribution from the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG).
Data from the Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) showed that revenues from the government’s privatization program dropped to ₱1.4 billion in January to September this year from ₱3.1 billion in the same period in 2024.
This amount represents a little over a quarter of the revised ₱5-billion privatization goal for 2025.
More than half, or 56.5 percent, of the year-to-date privatization revenue total came from PCGG remittances. The BTr reported ₱767 million as of end-September, while the PCGG told Manila Bulletin that its total remittances since January had already reached ₱823.3 million.
According to the PCGG, BTr Accounting Service Director Mary Grace Roselee B. Doctor explained that the ₱53 million remittance reflected in the Treasury’s September cash operations report (COR) represented funds remitted in January, March, and April, but only “reconciled and recorded” in August.
Upon confirmation, the PCGG told Manila Bulletin that the ₱53 million “also forms part of the total remittance of ₱823.3 million.” It can be recalled that the agency had no remittance in 2024.
The PCGG is a government agency tasked with recovering the ill-gotten wealth of former President Ferdinand Marcos, his family, and associates, both in the Philippines and overseas.
Broken down, the ₱53 million remittance includes ₱50 million in dividends from Mid-Pasig Land Development Corp. (MPLDC), a firm turned over to the PCGG by Marcos associate Jose Campos; ₱2.9 million in rental income from Bacolod Real Estate Development Corp. (BREDCO) properties; and ₱348,000 in proceeds from agrarian reform-covered properties of Universal Equity Corp. (UEC).
As of end-September, the Privatization and Management Office (PMO) collected ₱590 million, an 81.1-percent decline from ₱3.1 billion in the same period last year.
Notably, the PMO’s other income fell sharply from ₱2.7 billion as of end-September 2024 to just ₱49 million this year, marking a 98.2-percent plunge.
To match the 2024 full-year privatization collection of ₱3.2 billion, the government must secure an additional ₱1.9 billion before the year ends.
As Manila Bulletin previously reported, the government received ₱714 million last May from a compromise deal with the current owner of Claude Monet’s “Water-Lily Pond” painting, which was part of the recovered ill-gotten wealth of the late President Marcos Sr.
Privatization revenues reached only ₱1.4 billion as of end-September as ₱4.4 billion, or a third, of the MPCALA Holdings Inc. remittance was received but recorded under concession fees, not “privatization.”
To recall, the original target for privatizing idle government assets under this year’s revenue program was ₱101 billion. It was slashed to ₱50 billion in April and further reduced to just ₱5 billion in June.
