Behind ‘Maharlika’

By Reni M. Valenzuela

The government has a problem, unrecognized/ignored and much bigger than funding. Money is indeed a problem for the BBM administration but just next to the real problem/s.

Why do we have POGOS, e-sabong, casino and the likes, with all the evils, crimes, corruptions, destructions, depravities and inanities that go with them and which run counter to every Filipino’s dream to progress and have a good life – is basically why the government now deems the Maharlika Investment Fund (MIF) to be necessary.

Governance, as in life and business, is not all and not always about ROI and mammon.

Risk-taking is good, but only as far as the risks involved are within soundness of judgment or unshackled discretion. I admire the government’s unshaken determination to push the MIF or Sovereign Wealth Fund except that those who push it appear to be seeing just what’s immediately before them, ignoring everything and everyone else along the way, and what lies ahead, using instruments. Lenses are for humans. Blinkers are for horses.

Are we a democratic country just by virtue of holding elections? Lest our officials forget, it is the people that is sovereign, not any Fund or anything or anyone else in a democracy.

Proponents of “Maharlika” talk/argue as if the massive opposition to its creation is all noise. They advance and defend the “act” as though the protest acts and legitimate/logical voices opposed to it are not reasons enough and compelling enough for the Senate to repel the bill, decisively and hastily, in like manner as it was approved/passed (wildly) by the so-called “House Supermajority” that behaved like one big fraternity, all in the name of politics.

No, sirs/madams, it is not only the political opposition who are against “Maharlika.” It’s almost the whole country, I mean the seeing Filipinos, not the hordes who got gypped by trolls and fake news in social media and who are the ones usually getting interviewed by poll firms for so-called “political/social pulse.”

I have no qualms about the good intentions of “Maharlika” as stated in the bill to “create jobs, promote trade and investments, strengthen connectivity, expand infrastructure, achieve energy and food security.” However, it looks appetizing to me, but just on the outside, in a similar way as the forbidden fruit appeared irresistible to Adam and Eve.

The MIF may have lured/convinced the gullible, but without them realizing that what’s inside could be poisons and venoms. Whatever form MIF may take even after perhaps undergoing multiple revisions, it would be improvident still, if not crazy, for the Filipino people to bite it at this juncture. Proverbs 12:15, 16:25.

Given the dogged, weird insistence/obsession of the bill’s “pushers” to have their way no matter what happens (que sera sera) all the way to “prosperity” or “ecstasy,” not to mention the varied constraining arguments already brought up to their attention, “Maharlika” is also beginning to look like an illegal drug to its “pushers” as cocaine or meth or ecstasy to drug addicts/dependents. The obsession is irrepressibly frantic.

The more obstinate our officials become in pushing their Sovereign Wealth Fund baby, the more reasons the sovereign people have to reject/veto the bill.

“Maharlika” doesn’t seem to be about progress anymore. What’s behind it?

Drop the unwell overture, altogether.

r********************s@y************.com (Email protected)