MIF bill opened for amendments
The Senate on Tuesday opened the period of amendments for Senate Bill 2020, which seeks to create the controversial Maharlika Investment Fund. During the plenary session, Senate Minority Leader Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III delivered a lengthy “turno en contra” speech to express his opposition to the passage of the MIF bill.
In his speech, Pimentel raised doubts about the promise of profit from the MIF, stressing that it will only “lead us to the road of debt, debt, and more debt as if we’re not already swimming in debt of P13 trillion.”
“What is most certain in the midst of all these uncertainties to be brought about by the MIF is that the endless road to their promised land will be built with the blood, sweat, and tears in the form of the hard-earned taxes paid by every Filipino,” he said.
The lawmaker also flagged what he described as a “grave procedural error” that the upper chamber had committed.
He noted that SB 2020 should have been referred to the Senate Committee on Government Corporations and Public Enterprises.
“Having read the final version of the committee report more than once, I am more convinced now that the proper committee where the bill should have been referred to at the very start should have been the Senate Committee on Government Corporations not the Committee on Banks,” he said.
To recall, Pimentel made a motion in January to change the referral of Senate Bill 2020 from Senator Mark Villar’s Committee on Banks, Financial Institutions, and Currencies to the Committee on Government Corporations and Public Enterprises.
Villar is the principal author and sponsor of the proposed MIF bill.
Pimentel’s motion, however, was denied after a total of 19 senators agreed to reject it. Only Pimentel and Senator Risa Hontiveros voted in favor of the motion.