Senator Sherwin Gatchalian sponsored the 2021 budget for government-owned and controlled corporations (GOCC).
The GOCC’s P184 million budget will allegedly be used for its mandate to promote financial viability and fiscal discipline among agencies by rationalizing GOCC functions.
It includes the standardization of the performance of agencies and the salaries of their employees. Before forming the GCG or Governance Commission for GOCCs, 24 GOCCs paid P7.51 billion dividends from 2004 to 2011.
With the formation of the GCG, 45 GOCCs paid P28 billion from 2012 to 2019. This means that the remittance of dividends increased by 88 percent.
At the question of Sen. Franklin Drilon, he acknowledged the increase in dividends but believes he can still do GCG. It is said that asking for a budget is not as critical as asking about policy issues in the GCG mandate so Drilon requested that a separate hearing be held for the oversight functions of the agency and for the agency officials to answer his questions, especially that when it comes to their performance.
Gatchalian, on the other hand, promised a more comprehensive answer to Drilon’s questions at the separate hearing.
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Gatchalian sponsors GOCC’s 2021 budget
According to Drilon, the functions of the agencies need to be re-evaluated.
“If we crafted the powers of GCG so that we practically delegated the functions of Congress to the GCG. The GCG can reorganize the GOCCs, the president can abolish,” he said.
Gatchalian, on the other hand, believes that much more needs to be fixed here.
“There’s still a lot of room for improvement, in fact, I did my own research to minority floor, and I saw a lot of GOCCs that need to be evaluated thoroughly, for example, GOCC CITEM, the Center for International Trade Exposition and Missions and Cultural Center of the Philippines, ” he said.
It was mentioned because the government allegedly subsidizes it, so they should be evaluated carefully.
The next hearing is scheduled for December 3.
Meanwhile, Gatchalian also supported the additional P28 million fund for the Department of Energy in 2021.