The Senate minority bloc on Tuesday, July 18 criticized the signing into law of the Maharlika Investment Fund (MIF) Act.
Senate Minority Leader Aquilino "Koko" Pimentel III (Senate PRIB Photo)
Senate Minority Leader Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III said its signing into law “is a sad day in the history of our country, as the State, through the MIF, will be engaging, unjustifiably, in an economic activity which is best left to the private sector.”
“This is madness…the Maharlika Fund concept was developed on the fly. If it were an airplane, then it was built while flying it,” Pimentel said in a statement.
“Thus, the law has inherent contradictions because it was rushed. Nobody knows what creature we have created. It could turn out to be a monster, as it has been designed to be a super-GOCC (Government-owned or -controlled corporation),” the minority leader said.
Pimentel said the only way to stop the “madness” is to challenge the law before the Supreme Court.
“Let us remind the powers that be that ‘MIF’ can also mean ‘Madness Isn’t Forever’,” Pimentel said.
“The MIF is a bad idea, a bad decision, a bad act,” added the lawmaker who did not vote on the Maharlika measure.
"Without the required surplus, in the face of our current P14.1-trillion outstanding debt, the signing into law of the MIF Act could significantly exacerbate our national debt," he pointed out.
The former Senate President also cited a recent survey which revealed that 80 percent of Filipinos admit to having little to no knowledge about the proposed measure.
Moreover, he said that when asked about the potential benefits from the newly established Maharlika fund, over half or 51 percent of Filipinos anticipate little to no advantage from it.
“In light of these findings, a more considerate and beneficial course of action for the Filipino people would have been for the President to veto this measure. This would have paved the way for a more meaningful and comprehensive discussion about the MIF among our people and not just among legislators,” he said.
Sen. Risa Hontiveros, who voted no to the MIF Act, also said she is firm on her stand that: “the Philippines does not need the Maharlika law.”
Hontiveros said she sees the country’s national budget, the dividends of the Land Bank of the Philippines (Landbank) and the Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP), as well as the Philippine Amusement Gaming Corp. (PAGCOR), suffering a huge cut, along with the government’s revenues from its privatization program from 2024 and beyond.
“With Maharlika that will be headed by the Finance Secretary, Mr. (Benjamin) Diokno is merely moving public funds around — from urgently needed expenditures to risky gambles; and from fund disbursements scrutinized and authorized regularly by Congress, to investments beyond the reach of elected representatives,” Hontiveros said also in a separate statement.
“With the time lost and political capital used up in promulgating the Maharlika Fund, especially since Mr Diokno and the President still insist that GSIS and SSS funds should still collaborate with Maharlika — Mr. Diokno has failed in his mission of using the mandate of the administration to pursue tax and fiscal reforms and to keep the National Treasury well-funded,” she added.
Hontiveros recalled that during the President’s first State of the Nation Address (SONA), the state leader enumerated more expenditures than new revenue sources.
“Yet, few as there were, none of the new revenue sources have come into being,” she noted.
“Yet the Maharlka Fund took away GFI (government financial institutions) and GOCC dividends that could have been available for items in the President’s first SONA: regional specialty hospitals, Build Better More, potable water systems and even the recently passed condonation of debts of Agrarian Reform beneficiaries,” she pointed out.
“Hindi po yan popondohan ng Maharlika Fund at hindi natin alam kung saan nila kukunin ang panustos (That won’t be funded by the Maharlika Fund and we don’t know where they will get the funding). No thanks to the President and his Finance Secretary,” she lamented.