The case of Iligan steel mill

This is just an observation so the public may know  what ails our steel industry specially our biggest steel plant in the country once known as National Steel Corp. (NSC), but is now Global Steel Philippines Inc. (GSPI) since the mill was bought by the Indians in 2004.

As former executive director of the Iligan Investment and Incentives Promotions Center and as member of the Asset Preservation Team of NSC-Global, I find it very strange that of the three major parties involved in the plant (the city, the Indians and the NSC liquidator, which represented the banks), not one of the two other parties had filed a case against GSPI.

The city has filed a case against the liquidator in our courts (and vice versa), while the Indians have filed a case against the NSC liquidator in Singapore, but neither the NSC liquidator nor the city has filed a case against the Indians of GSPI. Check the records and you will see that this is true.

(For the record, the case filed in Singapore by the Indians against the liquidator was for noncompliance of the Asset Purchase Agreement or APA and not because of default of payment, which many are made to believe. If it were  the case, then it should have been the liquidator that should have filed the case against the Indians, not the other way around. Also the full payment term for the Iligan mill is fully stated in the APA and payment is airtight from beginning to end. There is no reason why the Indians would renege on their payments or obligations to the banks and the NSC liquidator).

The levy of the city of Iligan is against the liquidator and not against the Indians. To date the city has not charged the Indians of GSPI for anything and yet the Indians got kicked out of the mill — the very owners of the mill got kicked out of their own house! Is this the way we treat our foreign investors? Very ironic.

As we say, “it’s always funnier in the Philippines”

ARNOLD A. GARBANZOS,   [email protected]