Senate on track to approve Maharlika fund next week
MANILA, Philippines — Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri said Thursday the upper chamber is set to approve the controversial proposal to create the Maharlika Investment Fund which has been once again certified as urgent by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
Zubiri said in a text message that with Marcos’ certification, the Senate’s plan is to approve it on second and third reading after the periods of interpellations and amendments end.
“We are accommodating the last few members who want to interpellate on Monday then we can open the period of amendments immediately after,” he said. “As a certified measure we can close and approve the bill on that same week.”
The Senate president said he hopes that the House of Representatives, which passed in December a markedly different version of the bill creating the Maharlika fund, will adopt the upper chamber’s “improved” version that carries “more safeguards” against misuse.
Senate Bill No. 2020, which seeks to establish the Maharlika fund and the corporation that will manage it, is currently undergoing debates for a week now, with senators taking turns asking questions to Sen. Mark Villar who is shepherding the passage of the measure in the upper chamber.
Marcos certified this bill as urgent, citing global economic headwinds, the adverse effects of the Ukraine-Russia war and international interest rate hikes.
“There is a compelling need for a sustainable national investment fund as a new growth catalyst to accelerate the implementation of strategic and high-impact large infrastructure projects that will stimulate economic activity and development,” Marcos said in his messages to the Senate.
A presidential certification that a bill is urgent allows the legislature to bypass the three-day rule or the constitutional requirement for bills to be approved on third and final reading three days after it is approved on second reading.
Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel III said the minority bloc — composed of him and Sen. Risa Hontiveros only — will question and object to the certification of the Maharlika fund bill.
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