The government is preparing the sale of Basay mines as part of its plan to privatize some state-owned mining assets.
“Regarding the Basay mines project, I don’t know yet how much the exact valuation is and how we will bid it out, but that is the first mine we are doing,” Carlos Dominguez, Department of Finance (DOF) secretary, told reporters in a recent virtual briefing.
“When it comes to disposition of mines, it is more complicated than just selling a piece of land or an ordinary asset because when it comes to mines… there are lots of claims and counter claims and challenges to claims; there are security, physical security issues; and there is a valuation of what you are really selling. So these are the issues that we have to go through with… ,” he added.
In June, Roy Cimatu, Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) secretary, said in a statement the department, through its Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB), is conducting an inventory of idle government mining assets in preparation for the bidding and sale, to gain revenues to help the country’s recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.
Wilfredo Moncano, MGB director, in the same statement cited idle mining assets such as the Basay Mining Corp. in Negros Oriental which stopped operations in 1983, and the Marinduque Mining and Industrial Corp. (MMIC Bagacay Mine) in Samar which was foreclosed by the Development Bank of the Philippines and the Philippine National Bank in 1984.
Moncano then said the updating of essential mining information on the government’s idle mining assets will most likely advance first on those assets without pending legal cases like the Basay Mining Corp. and MMIC Bagacay Mine.
The Privatization and Management Office (PMO) of the DOF and the Philippine Mining Development Corp. are responsible for the sale and disposal of such state mining assets through public bidding.
The DENR said PMO-identified mining assets for disposal also include Pacific Nickel Philippines Inc. in Surigao del Norte, North Davao Mining Property in Davao del Norte, Maricalum Mining Corp. in Negros Occidental and Marcopper Mining Corp. in Marinduque.
“We are continuing to privatize whatever assets that we have. But quite frankly, we don’t have any more crown jewels. That has been privatized by previous administrations already.
And the ones we are left with are really the difficult ones to privatize,” Dominguez said.
“PDIC (Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp.) and PMO have in excess of 30,000 land titles that are in the process of being evaluated and being privatized, being sold. And these are really difficult assets. These are not chunky assets anymore, like before. It’s really the difficult ones to privatize now. We are working on all of these privatization issues right now,” he added.
In October last year, the DOF said it was taking steps to untangle legal issues tying down some idle mining interests held by the government, to fast-track plans to privatize these assets and revive their operations. – Angela Celis
