Sometimes the noblest intentions do not necessarily end up with spectacular results. Or even just popular acceptance.
But maybe we shouldn’t even be making hasty conclusions at this point.
We’re referring to House Bill 6398, or the Maharlika Investment Fund, filed last week by Speaker Martin Romualdez and five other lawmakers, which seeks to establish a P275-billion sovereign wealth fund that can be tapped for investments here and abroad to support economic development projects.
As originally conceived, the fund would have come from the Government Service Insurance System (P125 billion), Social Security System (P50 billion), Land Bank of the Philippines (P50 billion), Development Bank of the Philippines (P25 billion), and the General Appropriations Act (P25 billion).
Romualdez said the creation of wealth fund would provide an “opportunity to ensure their respective funds’ optimal asset allocation as well as ensure that resources are efficiently channeled to investments that will provide the most value not only to the participating GFIs but also to the country.”
He noted that having the Maharlika fund would help achieve the objectives of the Marcos administration’s “Agenda for Prosperity” and its eight-point socio-economic roadmap.
He also cited Singapore and Indonesia as countries that have successfully used their sovereign wealth funds.
Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno said the proposed sovereign fund was conceptualized when he was still governor of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas to take care of future generations of Filipinos.
Albay Rep. Joey Salceda, one of the authors of the measure, indicated that President Marcos Jr. has committed full support, describing the bill as “utos ng pangulo” (an order of the President).
But the Maharlika investment fund did not find favor with critics who began to raise serious questions.
Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman said the proposed measure to create Maharlika should undergo thorough scrutiny: “Overwhelming issues beset the Maharlika proposal like its fiscal propriety, economic timeliness, legal constraints, protection of pensioners’ and depositors’ benefits, excessive emoluments and allowances of officials, precipitate investments, tax exemptions, and magnet for corruption.”
The country’s biggest business organization, the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry, while initially voicing approval of the measure, later retracted its stand, saying that drawing funds from government financial institutions such as the GSIS and SSS might negatively impact the sustainability of the country’s welfare system and adversely affect the country’s financial standing among international creditors.
Last week, Marikina Rep. Stella Quimbo, senior vice chair of the House appropriations committee and a co-author of HB 6893, announced that the lawmakers behind the Maharlika sovereign wealth proposal had decided to drop the GSIS and the SSS as mandatory contributors to the sovereign wealth fund in the wake of mounting opposition from other legislators, business groups, and civil society.
If that’s the case, the plan to rush the approval of HB 6893 before Congress takes a break before year-end would have to be adjusted, thus leaving the early passage of the bill uncertain at this point.