Maharlika no like  

The announcement that House Bill 6398 was filed in Congress by legislator-cousins Martin Romualdez and Sandro Marcos, which is intended to create a sovereign wealth fund, a.k.a. the Maharlika Wealth Fund, has raised a lot of eyebrows.

What need would there be for this pooling of public funds, meant to be then diverted to “investments”, which would earn returns? What would these investments be? Where would public money flow? What sectors? Quickly, tongues started wagging, and the economist in me began pondering.

Would this not be like the government sector directly competing with venture capitalists and investment funds? Or, if not competing, then assuming that the government partners with private businessmen, that it would then be “colluding” with them (collude is meant in its most innocuous sense, i.e., collaborate)?

A powerful relative of the two lawmakers, Senator Imee Marcos, questioned the bill (with a caveat she hadn’t read it yet). Her press release was, she said she was nervous (worried?) because of our currently under-performing economy, and the sovereign debt currently saddling our country. Remember all those foreign loans during the lockdowns wherein the administration quickly hocked our children’s futures)?

The senator herself also flagged the Malaysian fund scandal, 1MDB, which brought down then Prime Minister, Najib Razak, and his imeldific, Hermes-addicted wife, whose name we forget, but whose Hermes Birkin bags, we cannot. The senator was concerned about the “disaster” that happened there and all the corruption that occurred --which, natch, shouldn’t happen to this fund.

That was a nice touch, right? Exactly the right balance of views to make our citizens think the Marcoses aren’t all in it together. Loving the messaging going into this effort. I wouldn’t be surprised if some communications expert dreamed up this “conflict” in viewpoints (I see the Politiko news site already asking if this is a “Marcos Moro-Moro”).

Other senators proclaimed they would “study” the bill, and tellingly, the thrust of their queries seem to be where the source of the funds would be (the bill proposes to source seed money from government banks, as well as the SSS and the GSIS which, has been predicted to go bust because of former president Duterte’s grant of fabulous benefits to military and police servicemen).

Of course, lawmakers are concerned. More money flowing into the new fund from existing sources means less money flowing into their previous destinations. Less cash to be found in the usual spots. Traditional destinations where, perhaps, those lawmakers might have more ability to access them.

If lawmakers see that their normal sources have dried up, then naturally, they are concerned they must be able to somehow access this new fund. So the jockeying and horse-trading begins.

Note that 10% of dollar remittances from our overseas workers, and 10% of our revenues from our BPOs (Business Process Outsourcing) are also diverted into the fund. Another nice touch --these are natural sources of foreign exchange.

The bill has somehow sped past its first committee in just its first week of filing, and already amendments are being proposed (such energetic and dedicated lawmakers, truly with our national interests at heart). The notable insertion seems to be nominating the president himself, coincidentally surnamed Marcos, as the chairman of the fund.

Another proposed insertion was --there must be an alternate chairman if the president is busy (a post assuring power to that designee). After all, the president might be too busy sometimes to worry himself about little details like billions of funds, when there are trillions still out there to be concerned about.

An online petition has sprung up, asking the legislators to take their hands away from the honeypots. Will it work? Let’s see whether the powers that be will listen to the public clamor.