By Filane Mikee Cervantes
MANILA – A survey by Social Weather Stations (SWS) released Thursday showed at least 46 percent of adult Filipinos expect much benefit from the proposed Maharlika Investment Fund (MIF), which aims to optimize national funds by generating returns to support the administration’s economic goals.
The SWS poll, conducted from March 26 to 29, also found that 51 percent of adult Filipinos said they expect little or no benefit from the MIF.
SWS said around 20 percent of the respondents have at least partial but sufficient knowledge about the MIF, while 33 percent have only a little knowledge about it.
Meanwhile, the plurality 47 percent said they have almost no knowledge or no knowledge at all about the MIF.
The proposed MIF will be invested in a wide range of assets, including foreign currencies, fixed-income instruments, domestic and foreign corporate bonds, joint ventures, mergers and acquisitions, real estate and high-impact infrastructure projects, and projects that contribute to the attainment of sustainable development.
Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno said the establishment of the MIF will provide the government with a long-term source of income that will support generations to come.
It will also ease the burden on the national budget by providing additional funding for other priority projects of the government.
SWS noted that knowledge about the MIF rises with education, wherein those with at least partial but sufficient knowledge about it were higher among those who either graduated from college or took post-graduate studies at 28 percent; those who either had some senior high school, finished senior high school, completed vocational school, or attended some college at 23 percent; and those who either finished junior high school or had some vocational schooling at 24 percent.
The pollster also pointed out that the net expected benefit (computed by subtracting the % who said they will benefit a little/not benefit at all from the % who said they will benefit very much/much) from the MIF was highest among those with extensive knowledge about it at +58 tally, followed by those with partial but sufficient knowledge at +47.
Those with only a little knowledge and those with almost or no knowledge at all about it obtained negative scores of -13 and -22, respectively.
The survey likewise showed that 31 percent of adult Filipinos said they have much confidence that the MIF will not end in corruption, 38 percent were undecided, while 29 percent have little confidence.
SWS said there is higher net confidence that the MIF will not end up in corruption among those who expect to benefit much from it than those who expect to benefit little or not at all.
The March survey was conducted using face-to-face interviews of 1,200 adults nationwide: 300 each in Metro Manila, Balance Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao.
The sampling error margins are ±2.8 percent for national percentages, ±5.7 percent each for Metro Manila, Balance Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao.
Communication Secretary Cheloy Garafil confirmed in a text message on Wednesday that the bill establishing the proposed MIF was transmitted to Malacañang, specifically the Office of the Deputy Executive Secretary for Legal Affairs (ODESLA), on Tuesday.
Garafil said there is no official date yet for the signing of the MIF bill into law.
Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri earlier said the proposed measure creating the MIF would likely be signed into law by President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. by the second or third week of July.
In a media interview on the sidelines of an event in Makati City on June 22, Marcos said he would look into the changes made in the MIF bill before signing it into law to make sure that the national wealth fund would be “well and professionally managed.”
Certified as “urgent” by Marcos, the MIF bill establishes a sovereign wealth fund that will be used to invest in a wide range of assets, including foreign currencies, fixed-income instruments, domestic and foreign corporate bonds, commercial real estate, and infrastructure projects to help promote economic development.
The proposed measure seeks the establishment of the Maharlika Investment Corp. (MIC), which will act as the “sole vehicle for the purpose of mobilizing and utilizing the MIF for investments in transactions in order to generate optimal returns on investments (ROIs).”
Under the bill, the MIF will not touch the funds of the Social Security System (SSS), Government Service Insurance System (GSIS), Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth), or Home Development Mutual Fund (Pag-IBIG Fund).
Marcos’ economic team earlier said the MIF bill adheres to the fundamental principles of economic policy and financial market participation. (PNA)
