Dacongcogon
mill now owned by PNB
BY DANNY B. DANGCALAN
BACOLOD City — The Dacongcogon Producers
Cooperative Marketing Association, Inc. (DPCMA) in Kabankalan
City is now owned by the Philippine National Bank (PNB) after
it was foreclosed due to its outstanding loan of P51.43 million
as of September 2009.
The auction of the 40-year-old sugar mill,
which started as Dacongcogon Sugar and Rice Milling Company
in August 1969, came on the heels of its four-year financial
and operational woes that led to its foreclosure last month.
The DPCMA, located in far-flung Brgy. Tabugon,
had about 9,000 planter-members, including 7,000 associates.
Panay News learned from a reliable source
that the auction took place and that PNB was the sole and
winning bidder. The auction was held at the Office of the
Clerk of Court of the Regional Trial Court Branch 61 in Kabankalan.
The source said the sale involved five parcels
of land totaling to 564,429 square meters or 56.44 hectares
as well as buildings, furniture, fixtures, machines and equipment
covered by 34 tax declarations, including, among others, staff
houses, mill houses, a church and hospital.
Also included were a number of buildings,
offices, and mill station erected on the mortgaged properties
along with machinery and equipment, and transport and heavy
equipment, the source added.
In August 1996, PNB and DPCMA signed a memorandum
of agreement, stating that the bank shall appoint another
company to operate the mill if the latter fails to operate
the mill profitably and results to a default of its loan.
The sugar mill is a legacy of the late Bacolod
Bishop Antonio Fortich who established the mill with businessman-planter
Benjamin Gaston after organizing the DPCMA then composed of
more than 1,200 small planters in February 1968.
Former DPCMA Chairman Rolando Parpa, whose
group had been appealing to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo
for the Philippine Sugar Corp. to takeover the mill with the
PNB, had blamed the buyout of Legacy Group owner Celso de
los Angeles Jr. in 2006 for the deterioration of the sugar
central.
The DPCMA directors led by Wilfredo Miraflores
then relinquished 70 percent of the mill’s assets to
De los Angeles for the payment of its PNB debts. In July last
year, Parpa said De los Angeles failed to rehabilitate and
improve the efficiency and increase the capacity of the mill.
He added that following De los Angeles’
takeover, the mill stopped operating in crop year 2006-2007.
In 2007-2008, its sugar production was merely 200,000 Lkgs,
way below its annual output of 314,000 Lkgs in the past three
years. In 2008-2009, production dropped to only 50,000 Lkgs.
In July last year, mill workers have also
complained of non-payment of their salaries and benefits amounting
to P1.5 million./PN
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