Villafuerte to public: Let’s give Maharlika Act a chance

WITH the recent endorsement of President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. for the passage of the proposed Maharlika Investment Fund (MIF) Act, a senior lawmaker on Monday appealed to the public to give the proposal a chance.

Camarines Sur Rep. Lray Villafuerte, in a news statement, said the Maharlika bill, which has been certified as urgent measure, is designed to mobilize savings for augmenting funds for big-ticket infrastructure works and other priority programs meant to help the government improve the lives of all Filipinos.

In a related development, House leaders on Monday welcomed the result of a recent nationwide survey showing that half of Filipinos “support” the proposed MIF.

Speaker Martin G. Romualdez issued the statement after the mobilebased poll was conducted by data research firm Tangere last December 8 to 10, before the House approved the MIF bill on third and final reading last Thursday.

“We are happy with the survey, which to us means that we are on the right track in advocating the establishment of this sovereign wealth fund, which is intended to benefit future generations of Filipinos,” Romualdez said.

“It shows that our advocacy has the support not just of major business groups but of the general population as well,” Romualdez said.

The survey had 2,400 respondents: 12 percent from Metro Manila, 23 percent from North and Central Luzon, 22 percent from South Luzon, 20 percent from Visayas, and 23 percent from Mindanao. It had a margin of error of 2.191 percent.

In the same statement, Martin Peñaflor, chief executive officer and founder of data research firm Tangere, said 2,010 or 83.75 percent of the 2,400 respondents were aware of the MIF bill.

Given this administration’s limited fiscal space resulting mainly from the enormous spending by the previous government for Covid-19 response, Villafuerte appealed to all Filipinos to support the President’s appeal for the public to give House Bill (HB) 6608 a chance and wait for the Congress to hammer out what Marcos described as the “perfect” version of this sovereign fund.

President Marcos last week endorsed HB 6608 as an urgent bill, enabling the House to pass it on second reading and then on third reading (by a 279-6 vote) before Congress went on its annual Christmas break from December 17 to January 22, 2023.

“The President has said that it was his idea regarding the MIF, and that our people should give it a try and let the Congress come up with a bill acceptable to the people and with the proper safeguards,” Villafuerte, who is majority leader of the Commission on Appointments (CA), said at the CA committee hearing on the designation of erstwhile University of the Philippines economics professor Arsenio Balisacan as director-general of the National Economic and Development Authority and concurrent Socioeconomic Planning Secretary.