Government running out of prime assets to privatize – DOF

MANILA, Philippines — The government’s asset privatization thrust is now at a near standstill as the remaining properties for sale are either facing legal and security issues or lack of interest from buyers.

The Department of Finance (DOF) said there are at least 30,000 assets – mostly idle mines and foreclosed properties – still up for sale to the private sector to raise funds for the COVID-19 response.

Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III said the numerous challenges the government faces in transferring the assets to a private firm include legal claims from former owners, security matters at the site, and the valuation of idle properties.

“Yes, we are continuing to privatize whatever assets that we have. Quite frankly, we don’t have any more crown jewels (because they have) been privatized by previous administrations already,” Dominguez said in an interview with reporters.

The Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp. (PDIC) and the Privatization and Management Office (PMO) still keep in their registry more than 30,000 land titles they want to sell to private entities.

“The ones we are left with are really difficult to privatize. (The) PDIC and PMO have in excess of 30,000 land titles that are in the process of being evaluated and being privatized. These are not chunky assets anymore,” the finance chief said.

“Before, you had big assets like banks. We don’t have those big chunks anymore. It’s really the difficult ones to privatize now, (but) we are working on all of these privatization issues right now,” Dominguez said.

Last year, Dominguez said the DOF would work on resolving the legal matters that surround the sale of idle mines in a bid to speed up their privatization and revive their operations, both in support of the government’s demand for additional resources.

In May, the DOF decided to dispose first the copper mines of the Basay Mining Corp. in Negros Oriental and the nickel mines of the Nonoc Mining and Industrial Corp. in Surigao del Norte. The agency chose to work on the legalities of the Basay and Nonoc mines to take advantage of rising global copper prices at the time.

The PMO last week convened to discuss the procedure in selling the Basay mines. Dominguez said the meeting focused on the valuation of the asset and how it would be sold in the market.

Aside from the Basay and Nonoc mines, the government wants to privatize the copper and gold project of the Maricalum Mining Corp. in Negros Occidental, the nickel mine of the Marinduque Mining and Industrial Corp. in Western Samar and the copper and gold mine of the North Davao Mining Corp. in Davao del Norte.

According to the DOF, these idle mines have yet to resume their operations, nor complete their privatization, on litigations filed by their claimants.