Minority senators pushes for veto
BY JOCELYN MONTEMAYOR and RAYMOND AFRICA
PRESIDENT Marcos Jr. yesterday vowed to scrutinize the proposed Maharlika Investment Fund (MIF) bill when he gets a copy of the enrolled legislation and ensure that all concerns raised as to its viability and implementation are sufficiently addressed before signing it into law.
The President, in a media interview after attending the 85th Anniversary of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) held at the SEC main office in Makati City, said: “If the Maharlika Fund, if the bill comes before me, I will sign it.”
Asked if he is happy with the version of the law that was passed by Congress, the President replied: “That is the version that the House and the Senate has passed, and we will certainly look into all of the changes that have been made.”
Aside from an exhaustive review of the measure, Marcos also promised to carefully vet the officials who will manage the proposed sovereign wealth fund.
“The secret to its success is: Who do we put in management? What is their experience? What is their reputation? What is their success rate? We have quite a few good money managers, financial managers there that we can call upon,” Marcos said as he underscored the importance of appointing an independent money manager to handle the Maharlika fund and ensure that it is invested properly and not misused.
He said he will not get involved in the management of the MIF, and neither will the secretary of the Department of Finance (DOF) nor the governor of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP).
“One of the elements that makes that happen is that there is a very clear independence from the day-to-day government function. Those decisions are not made by political decisions in government. The decisions made for the fund are made by finance professionals,” he said.
Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri on Wednesday signed the “corrected” MIF bill, a copy of which was brought to Washington D.C. in the United States by Sen. Francis Tolentino and Senate Secretary Renato Bantug.
The Zubiri-signed measure will now be sent to the House of Representatives for the signature of Speaker Martin Romualdez, after which it will be transmitted to Malacañang for the President’s signature.
The MIF bill was ratified by both houses of Congress last month after the House adopted the Senate’s version of the legislation before Congress adjourned sine die.
The proposed measure seeks to establish the Maharlika Investment Fund Corporation to manage the MIF. The corporation will review and assess where the funds and make sure that these are poured into strategic and commercial activities designed to promote fiscal stability for economic development and to strengthen top-performing government financial institutions through additional investment platforms that will help attain the national government’s priority plans.
VETO
Senate minority leader Aquilino Pimentel III urged the President to veto the MIF bill, as he questioned the integrity and constitutionality of the enrolled MIF bill.
“I call on the President to veto the Maharlika bill. It is an ill-conceived law. We do not have surplus or windfall profits. It is not timely (because) the world economy and geopolitical situation are bad. Congress did not give him what he wanted. This kind of law needs more time to be discussed by the Filipino people themselves. The enrolled bill being sent to him is not the version properly and formally approved by Congress,” Pimentel said.
“Malaki ang tsansa na unconstitutional ang Maharlika law (There is a big chance that the proposed Maharlika law is unconstitutional),” he said, insisting that the enrolled bill that will be sent to Malacañang has been “tampered without proper plenary approval.”
“Today marks a sad day for the 108th Senate which stood strong for over a century as the guardian of our Constitution and the rule of law. The Constitution, the cornerstone of our nation, is no longer being read and followed. Our rules have been rendered meaningless and worthless,” Pimentel said in a statement.
Pimentel was referring to the clerical and typographical errors in the proposed measure which were corrected by the Senate Secretariat, a move that he earlier said was tantamount to falsification since only elected lawmakers are allowed to make “substantive” corrections in measures that have already been ratified.
He reiterated that such corrections should be done in plenary.
“The revisions made were not just a matter of style. It showed flagrant violation of our rules and the Constitution,” he stressed.
Bantug, in a phone interview with the Senate media late Wednesday afternoon while he was still in the US, said the conflicting Sections 50 and 51 of the MIF bill have been “reconciled.”
The plenary-approved Section 50 provided a 10-year prescription period for the prosecution of crimes and offenses, while Section 51 provided a 20-year prescription period.
“The next step is to combine the two (sections). Ang magiging section title is Prescription of Crimes/Offenses. Inangat lang eh. Ang nangyari ngayon pagdating sa body mayroon lang siyang crimes/offenses. So, it’s still there, hindi na-delete (The next step was to merge the two (sections). The section title would be Prescription of Crimes/Offenses. We just lifted it. What happened is the body now has ‘crimes slash offenses.’ So, it’s still there, it was not deleted),” Bantug said.
He said the merging of the two sections can be “classified as style” since they are the same.
“Ang pinagkaiba, prescription of crimes, ‘yung isa prescription of offenses (The only difference is that one referred to the prescription of crimes, while the other one referred to the prescription of offenses). What the secretariat did is to merge them and make them ‘Prescription of Crimes/Offenses’),” he said.
Bantug said the correction was done in accordance with the letter-request of Sen. Mark Villar, chairperson of the Committee on Banks, that “it should be under one section, ‘yung dalawang provision (the two provisions)” and was based on the transcript of the plenary discussions on the proposed measure.
Senate deputy minority leader Risa Hontiveros said constitutional lawyers can best determine if there are legal issues in the enrolled bill.
“Above and beyond the specific technical issue, what this speaks volumes about is the inordinate rush to pass a bill just to acquiesce to wishes of the executive. Nagkandaugaga kaya tuloy ang daming palpak (They were such in a hurry that the bill has many blunders),” Hontiveros said in a statement.
She said the majority bloc had the chance to make the necessary corrections to the bill during the bicameral conference committee meetings, but instead of doing so, the House contingent simply adopted the Senate version to fast track the approval of the measure.
Before Congress went on a seven-week break, the Senate held a marathon session on May 30, which ended at around 2:30 a.m. of May 31 during which senators, voting 19 in favor, one against, and one abstention, approved the proposed measure on second and third reading.
President Marcos Jr. certified the measure as urgent, which allowed the senators to waive the three-day rule in between the second and third reading approval of any proposed legislation.
