Camarines Sur 2nd district Rep. LRay Villafuerte (Facebook)



Camarines Sur 2nd district Rep. LRay Villafuerte has enumerated six advantages of the proposed Maharlika Investment Fund (MIF), which is expected to be enacted soon after the House of Representatives and the Senate reached an agreement on it. “As another, potentially immense funding instrument for priority investments of the national government, the MIF has the makings of a prime source of fresh capital for accelerated infrastructure development, agricultural modernization and food security, climate action, energy development and other big-ticket projects," Villafuerte said in a statement Friday, June 2. Under the enrolled bill that's awaiting President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr.'s signature, the Maharlika Investment Corporation (MIC) will be created the corporate body to be created to oversee how the MIF's authorized capital stock of P500 billion would be used. With this, Villafuerte--majority leader of the powerful Commission on Appointments (CA)--said the Marcos administration would be empowered to do the following: 1) Spend much more on programs to stimulate economic activity and sustain the post-pandemic growth momentum; 2) Raise investment spending on infrastructure projects, which has the highest multiplier effect on the economy, and create a lot more jobs and livelihood opportunities; 3) Level up investments in agriculture modernization and food security, if not self-sufficiency, which will raise farmers’ incomes, boost harvests, and bring down the retail cost of farm goods for the benefit especially of ordinary consumers; 4) Improve standard of living and accelerate poverty reduction, benefitting poor and low-income families; 5) Allow higher spending on priority programs like digitalization, transportation, and communications and make the Philippines an attractive hub for investors, hence all the more generating foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows that will generate more jobs; and 6) Save its internally-generated resources and set aside more public funds for other projects beneficial to the people, without need for more foreign borrowings. As pointed out by the President’s economic team, Villafuerte said the MIF could partly bankroll the government’s 194 flagship projects that have been approved by the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA). The required total funding for these is a whopping P9 trillion. Unlike other state-run corporations,the MIC can maximize use of government assets through its would-be investments in projects that generate bigger returns, Villafuerte said. The House of Representatives adopted on Wednesday, May 31 the Senate's version of the MIF. This move hastened the process toward enactment as the two legislative chambers no longer had to butt heads in a Bicameral Conference Committee meeting. The MIF will essentially act as a sovereign wealth fund, which other countries in Asia already have.