Tuba, Itogon dads quarrel over P200 million mine tax

BY Dexter See 

TUBA, Benguet  – Local executives and legislators of the mineral-rich towns of Tuba and Itogon are now at odds on how to allocate the P100 million share of each municipality from the P200 million compromised tax share of the Philex Mining Corporation.

Itogon Mayor Victorio Palangdan announced Philex executives already agreed to pay their host municipalities P200 million as a compromise payment for the earlier reported P1.3 billion obligation of the mining company on its unpaid real and business taxes since 2002.

Palangdan also revealed that both municipal governments want that the mining company pay their respective share in terms of P75 million in cash and P25 million in the form of projects each for the two host municipalities.

The area of operation of the Philex Mining Corporation is being disputed by Itogon and Tuba, thus, local officials of the two local governments agreed to divide the P200 million compromise tax payment of the mining company while they are still settling the long overdue boundary dispute for them to be able to utilize the funds for the implementation of their respective priority projects.

However, some members of the municipal council of the two municipalities are reportedly against the pronouncement of Mayor Palangdan on the P75 million in cash and P25 million worth of projects payment to be made by the company, citing that it was the earlier consensus of both local legislative bodies that the payment should be P50 million in cash and P50 million in the form of projects for each town.

 A reliable source disclosed Philex is now in a quandary on how to make the payment to each local government considering the conflicting stand of their local chief executives and members of their respective councils, thus, the need for all of them to get their acts together before the company will work out the signing of the memorandum of agreement between the company and the concerned local governments to put the issue to rest.

“It is so funny that now that Philex has agreed to pay the P200 million compromise payment, it is now the local executives and legislators of each municipality who are disagreeing on how the mining company will pay them,” the source stressed.

Tuba Mayor Florencio Bentres reportedly agreed to the mining company’s payment of P75 million in cash and P25 million in the form of projects in relation to the share of the municipality but it seems some members of the municipal council are contesting his stand because it is now contrary to an earlier agreement that the payment should be done in the form of P50 million cash and P50 million in the form of priority projects to be identified by the municipal government.

The source added Philex wants to make sure that the local officials of the two municipalities will be able to agree on the final distribution of the compromise tax payment before the scheduled signing of the memorandum of agreement next month so that the funds could already be downloaded to the concerned municipalities for allocation or passage of their respective supplemental budgets.

           

Philex is the country’s largest gold and copper producers to this date and is now under the direction of business tycoon Manuel V. Pangilinan.