THE Maharlika Investment Fund bill has been passed at the House of Representatives on second reading as President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. certified the measure as urgent.
Marcos called for the urgent enactment of House Bill 6608 which created the MIF in a letter dated December 14 presented to the House.
The President said this was needed “in order to establish a sustainable national investment fund as a strategic mechanism for strengthening the investment activities of top performing government financial institutions and thus pump-prime economic growth and social development.”
Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno and House Speaker Martin Romualdez earlier also called on Marcos to certify the bill as urgent.
Government economic managers have been pushing for the bill despite opposition from various sectors.
Proponents of the bill had to revise the measure by removing state-run pension funds from the MIF’s sources of funding.
Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel III said the Filipino people are being set up for something that he does not know yet and he intends to find it out when the measure reaches the Senate.
“We are being set up for something. What that something is, I don’t know yet. We will try to find out when we interpellate on the Maharlika Fund bill. What is it that they really want to achieve with this measure? And why is this measure urgent at all?” he said.
