Pimentel: Recent amendments to House-approved Maharlika fund bill show lack of research

The latest amendments to the proposed law creating the Maharlika Investment Fund (MIF) showed that the administration and the lawmakers pushing for it did not conduct enough research, Senate Minority Leader Aquilino "Koko" Pimentel III said Saturday.

"The brainstorming on a very controversial proposal like a sovereign wealth fund should have been done before the announcement of the plan to the public," Pimentel said in a text message.

"It is now obvious that this [administration], its [economic] managers, and its allies in the House [of Representatives] have not done the necessary foundational research and hard work needed to come up with the conceptual framework of their very own proposal," he added.

The lawmaker made the remark after Albay Representative Joey Salceda disclosed that the House of Representatives had dropped dividends from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) and state-run banks as a possible source of the MIF. 

The MIF bill was approved by the House of Representatives on third and final reading on December 15.

The latest development prompted Pimentel to question who proposed the creation of a sovereign wealth fund for the Philippines.

"This is not mentioned in the [State of the Nation Address] and is not on the list of [Legislative Executive Development Advisory Council] priorities. Hence, the question is: Where is this coming from? Who thought about this? Capitalists who have diminished incomes because of the slowdown in the world economy?" he asked.

President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. said on Friday he had no hand in the revision of the House-approved version of the MIF bill.

Marcos was in Davos, Switzerland, this week to attend the World Economic Forum (WEF).

At a breakfast meeting with chief executive officers on the sidelines of the WEF earlier this week, Marcos said the proposed sovereign fund is expected to support infrastructure projects in energy, agriculture, and digitalization. — VBL, GMA Integrated News