‘Be my president, but don’t touch my money’

By all accounts, President Marcos enjoys high approval ratings since winning the presidency in the May 2022 elections, by a majority vote which is unprecedented under the 1987 Constitution. Mr. Marcos enjoys public support for momentous decisions like granting expanded access and use of Americans to Philippine bases despite the risks this decision entailed for Philippine security and relations with China. He has also had wide leeway in appointments and policy decisions (e.g., importation of sugar). He has gained approval for his various trips abroad.

Why then is there so much public opposition even among his allies in the Senate, and more so in media and the public sphere over the Maharlika Investment Fund (MIF)?

Sure, there remain serious, even fatal flaws in the Senate bill which has been adopted by the House of Representatives and is ready to be transmitted to the President for his signature. Lone oppositionist Sen. Risa Hontiveros voted against it. Sen. Chiz Escudero says the goal of the MIF is vague and nebulous while the Maharlika Investment Corp. (MIC) has not hurdled the “test of economic viability” the Constitution requires for the creation of new government-owned and -controlled corporations. Sen. Imee Marcos laments the undue haste in passing the bill and questions the “added value” of the MIF, in view of the existing investment mechanisms.

However, more time for amendments and clarifications may simply show the bill is indeed “unsalvageable and beyond repair,” as Sen. Koko Pimentel has declared. Senators think they have sufficiently circumscribed the bill with safeguards to prevent the failure of the MIF through poor design, poor risk management, incompetence, or corruption. Some senators worry they have gone overboard to make the MIC inutile to achieve its goals.

The continuing opposition to the MIF despite the Senate’s efforts to “sanitize” it belies a lack of trust in the guarantees Mr. Marcos has been giving. I see five sources.

Distrust #1: The reputation of the Marcos mind. It will never be clear what the real goal and intention of the MIF is, leaving only the fact that the idea and design come from Ferdinand Marcos Jr. Many political analysts are trying to divine where and why the idea of MIF was first broached by whom. The name Maharlika says it all. Maharlika is a Marcos brand name. It is the name associated with open-ended grand centripetal schemes for concentrating wealth and resources.

Distrust #2: Mr. Marcos showed the back door by which the various pension funds that have been excluded from the seed funds by the Senate could eventually be involved in the fund. He said that eventually, these pension-fund managers could invest in the MIF the way they could decide to do so in other investment instruments. Apparently, eventually dipping into the pension funds is only a matter of timing and opportunity.

Distrust #3. Mr. Marcos has tremendous appointing and persuasive powers over the officials of the MIF and of the various pension fund institutions. People are afraid that, eventually, this president will tear through all the safeguards.

Distrust #4. The very existence of MIF itself is like the eye of Sauron that will attract all types and manner of schemes for privatizing public resources. Creating this nebulous investment vehicle without a working prototype ensures that how it will be used will lean toward evil.

Distrust #5. The clarity and urgency with which the President is hell-bent on creating MIF contrast with the lack of strategic direction for the country over the long term. Planning is driven by discrete events such as presidential trips abroad and upcoming key speech events like the Sona. Where is the strategy of the Philippines that should center on food, health, livelihood, mobility, shelter, and education, produced, distributed, managed, sustained, and controlled locally by communities and their local governments and not concentrated at the national level where it is prone to capture by predatory political and dynastic interests?

In a word, I think the Filipino people are telling Mr. Marcos: “Be my president, but don’t touch my money.”

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