Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri on Friday, December 2 said he will ask a select group of senators to carefully study a bill at the House of Representatives seeking to create a Maharlika Investment Act "and give the Senate feedback on the essence of the Fund."
Members of the group include Senator Juan Edgardo ‘’Sonny’’ M. Angara, chairman of the Senate finance committee; Sherwin Gatchalian, Senate ways and means committee chairman,, Senator Grace Poe, chairman of the Senate economic affairs committee; Senator Mark A. Villar, chairman of the Senate banks and trade committees; and Senator Alan Peter S. Cayetano, chairman of the Senate government corporations and public enterprises committee.
"We must first ensure that the Sovereign wealth fund is necessary and if so, we need to ensure that it is managed properly and the safeguards are in place so that it would not be misused or prone to corruption,’’ Zubiri said.
"We owe that to the public, as this fund will involve public funds borne out of the taxes from the sweat and tears of our people," he stressed.
"We must make sure the there is full transparency and efficient utilization of this Fund,’’ he added.
Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel III peppered the proposals with questions such as:
‘’Where will the seed money of the sovereign wealth fund come from? Who will manage? What is their incentive in managing this fund well etc. We have to ask the proponents. Saan manggagaling ang (where will the) seed money for this fund (come from)?"
"It must be surplus funds and it must be ‘ours’ meaning belonging to the Filipino people as a collective," the former Senate President said.
House Deputy Minority Leader France Castro also expressed this week misgivings over the proposed creation of the Maharlika fund.
The House deputy minority leader cited a provision of House Bill (HB) 6398 which said that the fund would be made up of P125-billion from the Government Service Insurance Service (GSIS), P50- billion from Social Security System (SSS), P50-billion from Landbank, and P25-billion from Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP), plus an initial P25-billion from the national government.
The bill will create the Maharlika Investments Corp., an independent corporate body that will handle investments using the MIF. It will be helmed by a nine-member board of directors representing the contributing GFIs.
“At the minimum, this will amount to P275-billion and if these investments fail then the pensions of millions of workers would be wiped out,” Castro warned
Last Tuesday, the House banks and financial intermediaries committee approved in principle HB 6398, a day after it was filed by Speaker Martin Romualdez and six other lawmakers.
The approval was subject to amendments to be proposed by a technical working group created to fine-tune the bill. It was also referred to the House ways and means committee for its tax provision and the appropriations panel for its budgetary aspect.
Romualdez, a cousin of President Marcos, said the bill was necessary to maintain the momentum of the country’s growing economy, which expanded by 7.6 percent in the third quarter.
“As the Philippines secures its place not only as the Rising Star of Asia but as a real economic leader in the Asia-Pacific, the creation of the (Maharlika fund) becomes imperative,” he said.
President Marcos’s elder sister, Senator Imee Marcos, also has misgivings about the proposed Maharlika Investment Act.
"Handa ba ang Pilipinas para sa sariling sovereign fund ngayon (Is the Philippines ready for its own Sovereign Fund?" she asked, adding that the country’s neighbor, Malaysia, experienced an economic disaster when its 1MDB was ransacked
Although she has not read the bill, Marcos said the current global economy is not good as stated by the World Bank which stated that the economic picture in mid-2023 would plummet.
On rejecting the bill, Marcos said the Philippines is saddled with trillions of pesos in foreign debt and has not fully paid its health worriers and senior citizens and is short on stipends.
She emphasized that it is not right to gamble with GSIS pension fund.