“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” – George Santayana (1863-1952), writer and philosopher
You have to hand it to multi-generational criminal gangs and clans, they stick to what they know.
It was definitely worse off when Congress included people’s GSIS and SSS funds as required contributors to the tune of P125 billion and P50 billion, respectively.
For the young and uninitiated, the Government Service Insurance System and the Social Security System are where public and private employees entrust part of their hard-earned monthly salaries to the government (as required by law), and from these funds, certain financial benefits and services — triggered by such risks such as retirement, death, disability, calamity, unemployment, and maternity — are sourced.
Sans any savings or disposable income in government, and already trillions of pesos buried in debt from international and local creditors, the Maharlika Investment Fund was going to gamble with people’s private monies that had been entrusted to government to fund benefits and services they are already entitled to under the law.
That would amount to the legal phenomenon of expropriation, the involuntary taking of private property for public use, which would be illegal without just compensation (the government would have to buy your contributions from you before they can use them for other purposes).
Congress has, however, just recently walked back on the inclusion of GSIS and SSS. While that is undoubtedly welcome news, grave concerns and questions remain. Not the least of which is how amazingly unaccountable this fund will be. Under House Bill 6398, it explicitly asks, under Article VII thereof, that the Maharlika Investments Fund and its corporation, the Maharlika Investments Corp.be exempted from the application of regulatory laws and all taxes.
By exempting the Maharlika Fund and Maharlika Investments Corp. from literally all kinds of taxes, they maximize profits for themselves without any income guaranteed for government in general, while minimizing financial accountability.
Both will also be exempted from the Government-Owned & -Controlled Corporations Governance Act, which would ensure that heads of the Maharlika Investments Corp. be actually qualified and competent persons; the Government Procurement Reform Act, which would require that transactions and procurements by the Maharlika Investments Corp. be fair and publicly accountable; the Philippine Competition Act, which would prevent the Maharlika Investments Corp. from financing or setting up their own monopolies in the future; the Civil Service Law, which would mandate that qualified and competent persons be employed as staff in the Maharlika Investments Corp.; the Salary Standardization Act, which would require their compensations to be consistent and comparable to their duties; and the Dividends Law of 1994, which would have required the Maharlika Investments Corp. to release profits to beneficiaries when income is actually realized, and not hoard them indefinitely.
This is, of course, reminiscent of the Coco Levy Fund scam of Marcos Sr., wherein under legal fiat (Republic Act 6260), coconut farmers were levied an additional tax to create and maintain a Coconut Investment Fund run by a Coconut Investment Company that would raise money for what they said was the development of the coconut industry.
Sound familiar yet? Of course, no development of the coconut industry materialized. Instead, Marcos Sr., Danding Cojuangco, and Juan Ponce Enrile famously enriched themselves with the fund, investing the money in companies and industries owned by their friends and allies, wherein they themselves became part owners. The Coconut Investment Fund was an abject, albeit dizzyingly expensive, failure.
Income and success for the Maharlika Investment Fund is hazy at best. Other sovereign wealth fund projects around the world have also failed. One such failure even resulted in the imprisonment of a former Malaysian prime minister in 2020 for corruption involving their own sovereign wealth fund.
But of course, risking government money isn’t so much a concern for the people behind the Maharlika thieving project. Even if it all falls apart, their pockets will already be lined with too much gold for them to feel the pain. Kickbacks and exchange deals were, and remain the norm in Philippine political society, and it gets exponentially more lucrative the higher up you go.
This is what the complete absence of accountability over the Maharlika Investment Fund seeks to safeguard. And anyone with any experience in Philippine politics knows that where no one’s looking, crooks will be crooking.
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Author’s email: micahdagaerag@outlook.com
