‘Policy consistency in PH a must’

THERE must be policy consistency in the Philippines, particularly in the mining industry, according to the chief of a think tank.

Mining creates thousands of jobs and generates billions of earnings for the government so regulations governing the industry should be consistent , said Peter Wallace, chairman of Wallace Business Forum (WBF),.

He said inconsistent guidelines in the country were one of the major disappointments of companies engaged in mining especially in exploration.

“Mining is off, mining is on. That’s not good,” Wallace said in an interview. He particularly cited the frequent changes on the government’s stance on the ban against open pit mining.

The official said flip-flopping rules affect exploration, which is a very expensive stage in mining where a player tries to determine if precious minerals are present in a territory.

To avoid this, Walace called on the

shares, or 42.30 percent of the company’s outstanding common shares. However, they were never elected to the board, which made them outsiders who were not entitled to get a glimpse of the workings of their directors.

Like other listed companies that are not public, Crown Asia preferred to appoint two independent directors than allow outsiders to get a board seat. This led to a poser that if a company is listed, does such listing make it also public?

No. When a company lists either its common or preferred shares, the listing doesn’t make it public. The act of listing makes a company’s listed shares only tradable either by the public or by insiders. government to firm up its policies in mining. Those found violating these should be punished while those that are compliant should be allowed to continue doing the business, he added.

Research shows most of the biggest mining firms like Philsaga, Nickel Asia, Wellex Mining and PGMC operate in Caraga region which is composed of Surigao del Norte, Surigao del Sur, Dinagat Islands, Agusan del Norte and Agusan del Sur.

As a matter of fact, the ownership of voting preferred shares is mostly concentrated on the owners or majority stockholders. Only a few of them are held by trusted insiders. Isn’t it a puzzle to the public that while they may hold non-voting preferred shares, they are not tapped to own voting preferred shares?

Strictly speaking, preferred shares should not have been clas-

capital stock. They are liabilities that their yield per year is usually expressed in percent. Why then should liabilities be either voting or non-voting capital stock? Just asking.