MANILA, Philippines — Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri rejected on Thursday accusations of tampering with the controversial bill that seeks to create the Maharlika Investment Fund.
“There’s no such thing as tampering. There was never a plan to tamper, no sinister move to tamper the measure,” Zubiri said.
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“We just want to put on record that we just reflected the true intention of the provisions as reflected on the transcript of records. The enrolled bill—the one I signed in Washington DC—is the truthful reflection of the intent of the members of Congress,” he added.
An enrolled bill is the final version of a legislative proposal that has been certified as correct by the secretary of the Senate and the secretary general of the House of Representatives, and signed by the Senate president and the House speaker.
Zubiri signed the Maharlika Investment Fund last week in the United States where he was on a working visit.
The bill was not immediately transmitted to Malacañang for President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.’s approval after lawmakers found errors in the measure.
‘Honest oversight’
Zubiri issued the statement after Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel III urged President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. to veto the measure, saying a provision was tampered with without plenary authority.
Pimentel was referring to the sections 50 and 51 on prescription of crimes and offenses, which gave two different periods for violations of the proposed law.
The third reading copy of the Maharlika fund bill provided to reporters by Sen. Mark Villar’s office has two sections on the prescriptive period of offenses committed under the proposed law, one of which provides for a 10-year period, while another provides for a 20-year period.
Sen. Mark Villar, the bill’s sponsor, asked the Senate leadership to merge the two provisions and retain the 10-year period as the correct one.
Zubiri said this was “honest oversight” by Senate staff and secretariat.
“The process is not tantamount to falsification,” he said.
Marcos said last week that he will immediately sign the Maharlika fund bill once the executive department receives it.
Faculty members of the University of the Philippines School of Economics earlier expressed their reservations with the Marcos administration's pet measure, saying it “violates fundamental principles of economics and finance and poses serious risks to the economy and the public sector—notwithstanding its proponents’ good intentions.” — with reports from Xave Gregorio, Ramon Royandoyan and Cristina Chi