Independent minority solon, Albay 1st district Rep. Edcel Lagman has finally explained his negative vote on the Maharlika Investment Fund (MIF) Bill during the House of Representatives' final session day of the year.
"No avalanche of accepted amendments can cure the inherent chronic and substantial defects of the ," Lagman, president of the Liberal Party (LP), said in a statement Saturday, Dec. 17.
"Amendments can cosmeticize Maharlika but cannot make it seasonable in the face of negative and ominous economic indicators which deter its creation," the Bicolano said about the proposed Philippine sovereign wealth fund, which the House majority had pushed aggressively the past two weeks.
Embodied in House Bill (HB) No.6608, the MIF was passed on third and final reading last Thursday, Dec. 15 via nominal vote result of 279-6-0 (yes-no-abstain). Lagman was one of the six who voted "no".
Before the bill’s passage, the House majority accepted a total of 21 last-minute amendments to the measure, mostly from the minority bloc. This included an improved social welfare provision in the MIF.
Suffice it to say that Lagman was not swayed by these changes. Instead, he cited the immediate need for Filipinos to be pulled out from the quicksand of poverty and skyrocketing prices of basic commodities.
"We must bail out our people now from poverty, inflation and the dire challenges of recession, rather than investing in long-term ventures while our people may perish ahead without enjoying the promised fruits of Maharlika," he said.
"Help our people first survive in the short term so that they can relish the benefits in the long-term," Lagman underscored. He pulled out the figures to illustrate his point.
"Besieging the country today is a huge fiscal deficit of P1.1 trillion as of October 2022; an inflation rate of 8.0 percent in November 2022; an indebtedness of P13.641-T as of October 2022; a very low human development index ranking of 116th globally in 2021 and a poor gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in 2021 of only $3,549.00, lower than in Singapore ($72,794), Malaysia ($11,371), Thailand ($7,233), Indonesia ($4,297), and Vietnam ($3,694), among other negative indicators which could be compounded by the prospects of recession," he said.
"Whatever investible resources the national government, government-owned and controlled corporations (GOCCs), and government financial 8nstitutions (GFIs) have, must not be parked in long-term contingent investments," the LP leader said, referring to the fund sources of MIF as stated in HB No.6608.
"They must be invested today for Filipinos’ human development and sufficient allocations for education, health, employment, food security, and basic infrastructure," concluded Lagman.