(Due to its timeliness, we yield this space to the statement of the CARMMA coalition or the Campaign Against the Return of the Marcoses and Martial Law – Ed.)
THE PROPOSED Maharlika Wealth Fund filed in Congress by the Marcos Jr. administration, through Marcos’ cousin and son, should be junked. It is a callous plan to gamble the people’s hard-earned money in GSIS (Government Service Insurance System) and SSS (Social Security System), as well as in government-run banks and agencies, through a scheme that is prone to corruption.
At a time when the people are cash-strapped, facing the impacts of the high inflation rates and low wages, and the country is in need of more funds allocated to social services like healthcare, agriculture, and education, as well as aid and assistance as we have still grapple to rise back from the crisis and the pandemic, the Marcos Jr. government wants us to enter into a money-making scheme.
Who will benefit from this? This proposed bill lacks all the transparency, accountability and checks and balances needed in the handling of people’s funds. With the dictator’s son, Ferdinand Marcos, Jr., as head of the Maharlika funds, we are reminded of the horrors of his father’s administration amassing ill-gotten wealth from the nation’s coffers.
We are reminded of the coco levy funds that have not been distributed to the coconut farmers who should have benefitted from it, how these funds were illegally taken by Marcos cronies, and how these were greedily used to fund these cronies’ businesses. Not another coco levy fund with the Maharlika funds!
Instead of meddling with the people’s contributions in the SSS and GSIS, why doesn’t Marcos Jr. pay for their family’s estate tax deficiencies? The P203 billion of the Marcos estate tax is almost the same amount that they want to squeeze out from SSS and GSIS members, and from funds of Landbank and the Development Bank of the Philippines. Why not tax the rich instead of getting the pension funds of the struggling Filipino working class and professionals?
The Marcos Jr. government is nearly six months into power. While it has not concretely addressed the people’s cries for relief amidst rising prices, low wages and unemployment, making the Maharlika funds a priority legislation just shows that the Marcoses are beyond deodorizing their name. Just like the “good old times” of the Marcos Sr. dictatorship.
