A senior lawmaker asked his colleagues on Tuesday not to fast-track the approval of the proposed P270-billion Maharlika Wealth Fund (MWF).
Albay Rep. Edcel C. Lagman said the proposal must pass the “furnace of exhaustive legislative debates and searching scrutiny.”
“Fast-tracking for ‘record’ breaking objectives will be counterproductive as errors and pitfalls are bound to infest a statute which is enacted with ordinate alacrity,” Lagman said.
According to him, overwhelming issues beset the proposal to create a billion-peso investment fund. Lagman said these include the following: 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.
“These issues must be totally ventilated not only in the Congress but also in extensive consultations with the affected public and the concerned multi-sectoral groups,” he added.
Nation-building
THE House Committee on Banks and Financial Intermediaries chaired by Manila Rep. Irwin C. Tieng reconvened last Monday for further consultations regarding House Bill 6398 or the proposed Maharlika Wealth Fund Act (MWFA).
The measure proposes to initially exact funding a total of P270 billion for future investments from top government financial institutions (GFIs), such as the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) and the Social Security System (SSS), and the national government.
The panel and other stakeholders received guarantees from GSIS President and General Manager Jose Arnulfo A. Veloso that the MWFA would be implemented in full transparency if enacted into law.
Veloso said that there would be an independent auditing firm, a Commission on Audit (COA) review, annual reports, congressional oversight, as well as internal and external reviews among others, to ensure that the fund would be properly invested and utilized.
“Ang layunin po natin dito ay magkaroon ng key investment industries and makapag-contribute sa nation-building,” Veloso said. [Our goal here is to have key investment industries and contribute to nation-building.]
Not new
HOUSE Senior Deputy Majority Leader Ferdinand Alexander “Sandro” A. Marcos defended the decision of the House of Representatives to pursue the enactment of a Philippine sovereign wealth fund, specifically the proposed P275-billion MWF.
“Well if you think about it, this isn’t a new idea. [Finance] Secretary [Benjamin E.] Diokno already said they were looking at it during the time of [President Rodrigo] Duterte. If I’m not mistaken, former Senator [Paolo Benigno] Bam Aquino filed a bill in 2016 trying to do the same thing,” Marcos said.
“So yes, it became apparent that the President was in support of creating a sovereign wealth fund but the idea did not come from him per se. Because this is something that has been in the works or something that’s been pushed by not even this administration but past administrations,” he added.
Under the bill, the MWF adheres to the principles of good governance, transparency and accountability. The fund shall be sourced from the investible funds of the country’s top performing GFIs, the Treasury of the Philippines and Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.
The bill said the fund shall be used to invest on a strategic and commercial basis in a manner designed to promote fiscal stability for economic development, and strengthen the top performing GFIs through additional investment platforms that will help attain the national government’s priority plan.
The establishment of the MWF was patterned after the sovereign wealth fund of other countries, to maximize the profitability of investible government assets.