DOF takes steps to untie legal knot on gov’t-held mining assets

Dominguez recently told a business conference that the DOF had done a comprehensive assessment of state-held mining assets. (File Photo: Department of Finance/Facebook)

MANILA – The Department of Finance (DOF) is pursuing steps to untangle the legal issues tying down idle mining interests held by the government in an effort to speed up the privatization of these assets and revive their operations.

According to the Privatization and Management Office (PMO), lawsuits filed by the private sector proponents in the operations of these once-flourishing mining assets have hampered efforts by the government to privatize them.

“We are forming an interagency team to study ways on how we can clear the path for these assets to be privatized and revive their operations,” Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III said in a statement Sunday.

Dominguez said the team will be composed of representatives from the DOF, Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB), the DOF-attached Privatization and Management Office (PMO), and the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG).

A memorandum by the PMO to Dominguez identified the copper-gold project of the Maricalum Mining Corp. (Maricalum Mining) in Negros Occidental, the nickel mines of the Nonoc Mining and Industrial Corp. (Nonoc Mining) in Surigao del Norte, and the gold- and copper-rich North Davao Mining Property (North Davao Mining) in Davao del Norte as among the idle mining assets held by the government that have long been under litigation.

The PMO also said the copper mines of the Basay Mining Corporation (Basay Mining) in Negros Oriental and the nickel mine once operated by the Marinduque Mining and Industrial Corp. (MMIC Bagacay Mine) in Western Samar have also remained non-operational because of legal concerns on how these assets should be disposed of.

Dominguez recently told a business conference that the DOF had done a comprehensive assessment of state-held mining assets.

He said the government is pushing the revival of the mining industry to provide jobs and energize economies in the countryside as part of national efforts to restart the economy in the face of the pandemic-induced global economic downturn.

The mining industry, Dominguez has said, “provides jobs in (rural) areas where there are no other alternative jobs” available.

Maricalum Mining, Nonoc Mining and North Davao Mining were once successful mining companies that have failed to settle their debts with government financial institutions, leading to their foreclosure and transfer of their assets and shares of stocks to the national government.

The government then auctioned off the shares of these mining firms, but those with the highest bid failed to fulfill their obligations, which resulted in decades of litigation that have left these mining assets idle. (PR)