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Manila Bulletin devider Philippines devider National devider Speaker on pursuing Maharlika fund: 'We have the political will'

Speaker on pursuing Maharlika fund: 'We have the political will'

Published Dec 14, 2022 12:14 pm

House Speaker Martin Romualdez says the legislators of the 19th Congress filed the proposed Philippine sovereign wealth fund because they have the "political will" for it.

House Speaker Martin Romualdez (Speaker's office)

Romualdez, who is currently on an official trip to Brussels, Belgium together with President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr., justified to Manila-based reporters the decision to pursue the Maharlika Investment Fund (MIF) Bill, which is embodied in House Bill (HB) No.6608.

"The timing is definitely now," said Romualdez, who represents Leyte’s 1st district in the Philippine House of Representatives, on Wednesday morning (Philippine time), Dec. 14.

"When I talk to foreigners and people in finance, and you know...development, they’re very excited because they say, 'Wow that’s new, that’s great, you should have had one long time ago,'" he said.

"But it also takes political will, because as you can see when we filed it, di ba, ang daming nagbabatikos (there were a lot of criticisms), pero (but) we have the political will because we know as legislators we have an accountability to our constituents and we’ll never do anything that in anyway, betray that trust that they have given to us," Romualdez said.

The MIF Bill was initially filed last Nov. 28. Romualdez, arguably the President's top ally in legislature, is a principal author.

The House leader admitted that it would be "well and good" of Marcos decides to certify the bill as urgent. Such certification would allow the House to approved the MiF on second and third reading, successively, in a single session day---possibly on Wednesday afternoon, the last session day on the calendar.

 

READ THIS:

https://mb.com.ph/2022/12/14/marcos-to-attend-wef-in-switzerland-next-month-says-romualdez/

 

By next week, the House will have begun its five-week holiday recess ,with the resumption of session coming on Jan. 23, 2023.

"If the Office of the President certifies its urgency then well and good. If you ask me, yeah, why don’t we just ano, certify it as urgent so that if we go to Davos at least we can talk about having a sovereign wealth fund passed through the House of Representatives that would be a very, very exciting thing," Romualdez said, referring to the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Switzerland.

Related Tags

Political will Belgium Ferdinand Bongbong Marcos. Jr WEF mif 121422 maharlika Martin Romualdez
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