THE government is looking to relax privatization rules to allow it to facilitate the sale of idle assets and raise more revenues, a senior Finance department official said on Tuesday.

"What we're trying to do right now is amend the guidelines, the PrC (Privatization Council) guidelines, to make this position easier. We need to raise a lot of funds," Finance Undersecretary Catherine Fong told reporters at the sidelines of an infrastructure forum.

The PrC is the policymaking body tasked with overseeing the government's privatization program. It is chaired by the Finance secretary with the Finance, Budget, Trade, Justice and Socioeconomic Planning secretaries as voting members and the National Treasurer and Presidential Commission on Good Government chairman as nonvoting members.

It approves asset sale plans prepared by the Privatization Management Office (PMO), which is under the Finance department, and also has the final say on who gets what asset and at what price.

Undersecretary Catherine Fong. Photo from Department of Finance FB page

Among others, Fong said that they were looking at allowing the PMO to tap brokers and pay them commissions for completed sales.

While the PrC has approved the sale of numerous government properties, a lack of marketing strategies have meant that the PMO has been unable to lure prospective buyers.

"[W]hy not use the real estate companies or anybody who is able to sell, give them some fee? We are looking at that possibility; we're looking to revise the Privatization Council guidelines on the disposition [of assets]," Fong said.

Existing guidelines also prohibit the government from selling below a base price that is determined by two independent appraisals, she added.

"[In] a lot of these properties, for example, there are many informal settlers; it makes sense to just sell it to the LGUs (local government units). But the LGUs are only willing to buy it at zonal value, [and] right now, we're not allowed to do that," Fong explained.

"So, our first priority right now is to amend the guidelines to make it easier to dispose of these properties para (so that) we can raise more money."

Appraisals are another hurdle and Fong said that prices sometimes turn out to be well below or well over the actual market value.

Fong mentioned that they are hoping to get it done this month, as soon as possible, because there are so many assets and properties in the pipeline.

"Right now, we are bogged down in the appraisal process," she added, as finding appraisers alone takes some time and "then you have to wait for the appraisal to happen ..."

"[I]t's like we have no flexibility," Fong said. "And many of the assets that have been auctioned end up with failed bidding, so we are trying to figure out how to minimize that."

"That's what we are currently trying to solve."

Despite current constraints, Fong said the PMO was still able to remit P1.2 billion to the Treasury last year, exceeding its target by nearly 85 percent.

It also outperformed in 2022, having remitted P845 million or 29.78 more than targeted.

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