Iligan claims ownership of National Steel plant

ILIGAN CITY, Philippines — The Iligan City government has declared ownership of the moribund National Steel Corp. (NSC) plant after the liquidator failed to redeem the company’s real properties with more than  P5 billion tax liabilities  that were put on auction last year.

Iligan City legal officer Voltaire Rovira said the one-year period prescribed by the city treasurer ended last October, but the liquidator represented by Danilo Concepcion failed to redeem by paying the real property tax obligations.

The tax obligations amounted to P5.843 billion and  the city government forfeited the real properties in favor of the city government of Iligan.

A unilateral “deed of final sale/ forfeiture” was made and signed by Iligan Mayor Celso Regencia in the presence of city hall employees, local members of the judiciary, regional representatives of Department of Trade and Industry, Board of Investment, among others.

The NSC plant closed in l999 and since then, litigation on its liabilities is still going on after several foreign companies (Wing Tiek), (Ho Tiek) and (Global Steel/Mittal) took over one after the other and  the real properties were placed by the company under a liquidator.