House Minority Leader Marcelino Libanan on Monday appealed to the Senate leadership to support the proposed Maharlika Investment Fund (MIF).
Libanan of 4Ps party-list group issued the statement after Speaker Martin Romualdez announced on Sunday that President Marcos had included the proposed MIF under the bills in Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council (LEDAC) list, making it a priority measure for the administration.
Libanan said the designation of MIF under LEDAC could be the President’s was way of telling senators to give priority to passing the measure.
“We prioritized this in the House because it is very important to our country. [We hope] the Senate deliberates and decides on it quickly,” Libanan told reporters.
He said the House of Representatives — “without hearing any instruction from the Palace” — fulfilled its legislative mandate to act on the measure, approving d its version of the MIF in December 2022.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. had declared the Maharlika Investment Fund bill as one of 11 priority administration measures, Speaker Romualdez said on Sunday.
This was also confirmed by Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri who said the Maharlika Fund as well as measures pushing for minimum wage hike top the Senate agenda as the Congress session resumed Monday.
Romualdez said the 11 measures are now part of the bills adopted by the LEDAC, bringing to 42 the total number of priority measures.
“President Marcos approved 11 bills designed to address key issues on public health, job creation, and further stimulate economic growth as part of his administration’s priority legislation. These measures will be the focus of our legislative efforts when Congress resumes session this Monday,” he said.
Aside from the Maharlika Fund, other priority measures include amending the Armed Forces of the Philippines Fixed Term bill; Local Government Unit Income Classification; amendment to the Universal Health Care Act, and the Bureau of Immigration Modernization measure, among others.
“It will be on a best-effort basis. We will try to pass the remaining eight bills from the original priority list. If we could do that, we would have approved all the urgent measures identified by President Marcos in less than a year,” he said.