Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman (File photo by RYAN LEAGOGO / INQUIRER.net)
MANILA, Philippines — The Marcos administration’s economic team on Tuesday redoubled their push for the proposed law that creates the Maharlika Investment Fund (MIF), saying the MIF was not only advantageous but needed.
The government’s team of economic managers on Monday issued an eight-page statement defending the MIF bill after economists at the University of the Philippines (UP) called on their current and former colleagues in the administration to reconsider their position in pushing for an MIF that has “confused goals” and is “defective and poses a serious threat to the country’s economy.”
Meanwhile, Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman told reporters that the MIF bill, which breezed through Congress, has not yet been transmitted to the Office of the President.
Finance officials earlier said President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. was expected to sign the bill into law before Congress starts a new session in July.
When asked whether the MIF bill was discussed during the Cabinet meeting held on June 13, Pangandaman said: “Not yet. It was not part of the agenda.”
In their statement, the economic managers reaffirmed their support for the establishment of the MIF as a vehicle for economic growth.
They said that the MIF was aligned with the Medium-Term Fiscal Framework (MTFF) and brings into action the Philippine Development Plan (PDP) 2023 to 2028.
MIF objectives clear
The UP professors and lecturers, in a 27-page discussion paper published by the School of Economics, said the MIF “has amorphous developmental goals and speaks of development only in the broadest possible terms.”
The MIF was not anchored to the MTFF and “does not even make any reference” to the PDP, the academics said.
But the economic team said the MIF fits into one of the strategies laid out through the PDP—to “diversify and explore alternative sources of financing … [And] new instrument formats will also be explored to reach new markets and investors.”
Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno, who chairs the executive department’s Economic Development Group, is a professor emeritus at the UP School of Economics (UPSE).
Pangandaman is an alumna while Secretary Arsenio Balisacan of the National Economic and Development Authority joined the UPSE faculty in 1998 and served as dean from 2010 to 2012.
The economic team added that the objective of the MIF was clear, which was to invest funds that are available in government agencies and use them for investment purposes on the basis of their individual mandates.