PCGG recovers P261-million cash dividends from PTIC shares

The Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) announced yesterday the recovery of P261 million additional cash dividends.

Former Ambassador to Moscow and now PCGG Commissioner for Legal Affairs Jaime S. Bautista said the funds totaling P261,657,047.48 received by the commission from the Bank of Commerce represent cash dividends accruing to the 111,415 Philippine Telecommunications Investment Corp. (PTIC) shares of stock registered in the name of Prime Holdings, Inc. (PHI) that were declared by the Supreme Court on Jan. 20, 2006 as belonging to the Public.

The newly recovered funds thus raised to P1.555 billion the total amount of cash dividends the PCGG has transmitted to the National Treasury since 2008 pertaining to the PTIC shares. The PCGG expects to remit to the National Treasury before the end of this year a significant amount of cash dividends for the said shares.

Nick Suarez, president of the PCGG Employees Association, said that these successive victories and recoveries continues to boost the morale of the officials and personnel of the commission in addition to the commendation given by President Arroyo to Secretary Camilo Sabio and all the members of the commission for the relentless effort in recovering ill-gotten wealth.

Under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law or CARL, all recoveries of the Commission are earmarked as additional funding for the implementation of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program or CARP.

As of Dec. 31, 2008, the PCGG has remitted to CARP fund the total amount of P84.18 billion.