Regarding the Philippines, I suspect uncertainty will persist until there has been a firm policy set and their new review is completed (could be a couple of months until the review is even completed).
I don't think lip-service changes market sentiment too much.
That said, I'm "moderately" confident that MML will be OK and may end up being entirely unaffected after the review.
I say that because the Co-O mine is ISO 14001 certified (where as 70% of Philippines mining operations are not) and most of the rhetoric seems to use the phrasing "responsible mining" and references increasing standards to a Canadian/Australia level, with most of the attention seeming to be on open pit mines and small scale miners.
Though I am a little less confident about B1's development prospects given that it he deposit is quite close to a "No Go Zone":
http://pcsd.neda.gov.ph/no-go-zones-map-for-mining-is-now-avalaible/
And because Gina Lopez seems to be vehemently against open pit mining.
That said, even if the B1 plan is shelved, whilst a negative for the company, it would free up MML's existing cash pile and increasing cash flow to focus on procuring an international project to help diversify some of MML's existing geopolitical risk (or paying large dividends).
On the other hand if Philippine government does cement in new mining policies and B1 does get the green light we'd have 6 years until the next presidential election (and the uncertainty that that tends to bring).
As for MML being cheap compared to other goldies it really depends on your assumptions and risk tolerance.
Personally I think it might only be 20% undervalued relative to other miners based on current operations and circumstances.
Though if you are willing (which I am) to price in an AISC reduction from the drop in sustaining capex on the ventilation upgrade and service shaft then it's potentially even more undervalued.
That said, making assumptions involves taking risk, and MML has let shareholders down on hitting schedules and costs before (so I don't expect the market to price in the cost reductions until they "materialise" which likely won't be until Q1 results or maybe even Q2 results this FY).
Further to that you could choose to price in an increase in production (and its likely drop in AISC) once the shaft is operational next year, but once again this is quite some time away and making assumptions involves risk.
If you add in these assumptions then you could make an argument that MML might be closer to 50% to 100% undervalued, but I'm not expecting the market to agree with that thesis until it's seen some smooth sailing.
So even though I don't think MML is "massively" underpriced relative to its peers I suspect as MML will massively outperform its peers in time, and even if it doesn't out perform its peers I think gold miners in general are still undervalued relative to the gold price and I still think gold itself remains undervalued so I'm bullish on the sector as a whole.
