Humpty Dumpty?

Haste makes waste is the trite lesson from the fate of the proposal to legislate a Maharlika Wealth Fund.

That is what happens when a handful of congressmen fail to scrutinize proposed bills, especially when it is “mahirap intindihin,” as in this rather arcane subject of sovereign wealth funds, likewise supposedly authored by our economic managers.

For all intents and purposes, after a barrage of opposition from so many quarters, not limited to the “usual suspects” of pinks and reds, but including those who want to give the Marcos administration a chance to succeed, the MWF, per national scientist and economist Raul Fabella, is “beyond repair.”

Remember Humpty Dumpty? “All the king’s horses and all the king’s men, could not put Humpty together again,” said the nursery rhyme. Fabella and a chorus of economists, mostly from the same UP School of Economics as Ben Diokno and Stella Quimbo, have similarly declared.

Like a slow striptease, proponents have been removing the funding sources, starting from the hefty pension funds of the GSIS and SSS, followed by the P25 billion from the national government, which would require a supplemental budget as the GAA has already been “speedily” passed by Congress.

Thereafter, the amendment by one man TWG, Rep.Joey Salceda, to make the president the chair of the board to oversee the funds has likewise been stripped off, with the Secretary of Finance as his replacement.

So what happens now to the term “sovereign” and the solid guarantees of good financial housekeeping that brilliant economists like former Pres. GMA and Salceda touted?

Still, Sec. Diokno, as good a guarantee of professional management one can get in these benighted isles, with the rather muted support of NEDA’s Arsi Balisacan and BSP’s Philip Medalla, tells us that the pension funds of private and government workers can yet prospectively invest in Maharlika once their respective boards decide to join the gravy train it promises.

All this brouhaha in the space of one week began and tumbled since the House Committee on Banks chaired by my congressman and neighbor Irwin Tieng approved the proposal “in principle.”.

The House Majority Floor Leader’s assurance that the chamber would pass Maharlika on second reading by today is now kaput. As we wrote last Thursday, back to the drawing board, and please sharpen your pencils this time.

As we have maintained in this space, the idea of a professionally managed wealth fund is not necessarily objectionable, but please do complete staff work first, from the funding sources to the basic definition of intent, surplus if any, as well as transparency and fund management parameters.

And arm yourselves with a well-prepared communications plan, properly implemented.

No wonder Joey Salceda has stopped defending the bill and left it to fellow Leni supporter and the other HOR economist, Stella Quimbo, to defend the indefensible draft legislation.

First blood may have been stanched for now, but let’s see in the coming new year how the “trust” levels have been damaged.

***

Reading historian-columnist Ambeth Ocampo is always insightful.

He wrote last Wednesday, Dec. 7, in his PDI column aptly titled “Déjà vu” about how Emilio Aguinaldo, upon the advice of his ilustrado cronies, authorized the issuance of a 20-million-peso bond float (likely the equivalent of 200 billion now, maybe more) a few months after the proclamation of the First Republic in Kawit.

Wrote Ocampo: “On Nov. 26, 1898, Aguinaldo issued a decree stating his agreement with Congress for the Republic to take on an interior loan of 20 million pesos, to be redeemed 40 years from the date of issue. Subscribers … were promised 6 percent interest payable annually…and if the Treasury saw fit … interest could be paid every three months.”

Apolinario Mabini, the “Brains of the Revolution,” opposed the bond, and if you read his reasons for objecting to it, they are eerily similar to what many of us now find objectionable with the Maharlika proposal.

The bond issuance did not materialize, and so did the First Republic, when the Spanish conquistadores and the American imperialists negotiated the fate of the islands and our continuously “enslaved” people in the Treaty of Paris.

Still and all, there are ways and means to revive a fund that would hopefully spur development. Unfortunately, it’s too late in the day to alter the GAA, or the charters of some of our GOCC’s and their “earmarks.”

***

Eyebrows were raised from among the business community, particularly the apolitical PEZA investors, when the Commission on Appointments grilled DTI Sec. Fred Pascual on the appointment as OIC of Tereso “Teo” Panga, a long-time career official of the agency who was drafted into government service by the highly respected steward of our ecozones, Lilia de Lima, who served Cory, FVR, Erap, GMA and PNoy until she retired in 2016.

To the Duterte administration’s credit, it wanted to retain De Lima despite her being the aunt of Senator Leila, but the lady preferred graceful retirement.

Our friend and fellow Caraganon, Cong. Johnny Pimentel, brought out alleged unfair treatment of four sub-alterns by OIC Panga.

The Surigao representative is understandably sympathetic to our common friend, former Butuan City congresswoman Ching Plaza, who was appointed by Pres. Rodrigo Duterte in 2016, but removed through Memorandum Order Circular 1, series of 2022 issued by the Office of the President.

The same has been sustained by a DOJ Opinion, which stated that the assumption of the most senior official, in this case Panga, was valid.

PEZA employees and ecozone investor-companies, such as the Semi-Conductor and Electronic Industries, now headed by Dan Lachica, which is one of the most important industry-locators in our ecozones, has written in support of Panga, who has been quietly instituting reforms in the agency, sans any political motive.

Comadre Ching Plaza should realize when “time is up” for political appointees in government, and allow career officials with a clean and competent record to professionally steer this all-too-important agency.

***

Blissfully, another Caraganon, Atty. Angelo “Jijil” Jimenez of my adopted hometown of Butuan, has been elected to steer the University of the Philippines for the next six years.

Jijil, who has served with utmost distinction as labor official, assigned to the Middle East and Japan, and later within OWWA, is one career official and barrister who has never lost the idealism of his student days at the premier state university.

Congratulations and Godspeed!

***

The president is off to Brussels for the EU-ASEAN conference, and will be back in time for the Malacanang Christmas party as the week ends.

The announcement coming from the DFA states that he will be meeting with a prospective investor, the Semaris Group, which operates the vast Rungis “bagsakan” near Orly in the suburbs of Paris.

Years back, the same group expressed interest in coming to the Philippines, specifically to the Clark Ecozone, then supervised by CDC, a subsidiary of BCDA, or the Bases Conversion Development Authority headed by Sec. Vince Dizon.

Rungis is a huge produce and food equipment distribution center where farm products from Spain, Portugal, Italy, provincial France and other parts, are brought in daily, by rail and container vans, processed or re-packed, and sold to wholesalers and the restaurants of Paris.

Complete with state-of-the-art cold storage and other facilities, Rungis is the modern and sophisticated version of the Filipino “bagsakan.”

While time does not permit the president to visit Rungis this time, he should be fascinated by this sprawling wholesale market operated by the Semaris group, an idea which no less than the great Frenchman Charles de Gaulle himself conceptualized, after seeing how Les Halles in the center of Paris had become too congested and obsolete.

Rungis replicated here, albeit on a limited scale given the present state of our agriculture, would be a big boost to the economy.

Fact is, with parallel visioning, Ferdinand E. Marcos Sr. started it in his time, through the NFA-operated Food Terminal in Taguig.

But like other “Marcosian” initiatives, successors neglected the project, and by the time PNoy took over, he ordered part of the real estate sold.