The Department of Finance (DOF) is pursuing steps to untangle the legal issues tying down idle mining assets held by the government in an effort to speed up their privatization 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,” Dominguez said in statement.

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

A memorandum by the PMO to Dominguez identified idle mining assets held by the government that have long been under litigation.

They include the copper-gold project of the Maricalum Mining Corp. (Maricalum Mining) in Negros Occidental and the nickel mines of the Nonoc Mining and Industrial Corp. (Nonoc Mining) in Surigao del Norte.

Also included are the gold- and copper-rich North Davao Mining Property (North Davao Mining) in Davao del Norte, the copper mines of the Basay Mining Corp. (Basay Mining) in Negros Oriental and the nickel mine once operated by the Marinduque Mining and Industrial Corp. (MMIC Bagacay Mine) in Western Samar.

PMO is an agency under the DOF mandated to oversee the government’s privatization program.

Dominguez earlier said that the DOF had done a comprehensive assessment of state-held mining assets, noting the government is pushing the revival of the mining industry to provide jobs and energize economies in the countryside.

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

In July, the DENR announced that it will reopen some of the closed mining sites to help the government’s struggling revenues amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Among the companies being eyed to be allowed resume operations are the mine sites shuttered by the late staunch environmentalist and former DENR Secretary Regina Paz Lopez.

Environment Undersecretary Juan Miguel Cuna said the DENR was reviewing the operations of select suspended mining companies to see if they can operate again.