Politicizing the proposal to create a sovereign wealth fund may again result in the country missing the bus of opportunity.

The constant barrage of criticisms has been pointing to the country not being ready to embark on the pooling of public funds since it will be a magnet for corruption.

The pocketing of public money is an endemic problem and waiting for it to be resolved is like asking for Armageddon.

The setting up of the fund needs no complicated explanations since it will be merely pooling money that is already being invested the way it will be employed in the Maharlika Wealth Fund, the only difference is that it will now be centralized in a specific body.

Pension funds need to be invested for these to grow and benefit the future of contributors which are mainly wage earners. So much so that the government also expects its financial institutions to wisely manage and invest public funds entrusted to them.

In the harsh reality of a competitive world, realizing the investment return is based on the amount of money that you throw in, which should be the function of the proposed Maharlika fund.

The rush in putting up the Maharlika Wealth Fund, which one senator tied up in the P10 billion pork barrel scam has been criticizing lately, is all about getting ahead in the post-pandemic world where the race for economic development becomes frenetic.

Just last week, sovereign wealth fund China Investment Corp. and global banking giant HSBC raised $1.27 billion to invest in British companies reflecting the aggressive atmosphere in the new economy.

In the ASEAN region, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, and East Timor have their equivalent of a sovereign wealth fund which means that if the senators keep on throwing obstructionist roadblocks, the Philippines will again be far behind its neighbors in terms of building wealth.

Politics have been blamed for the country's lag in realizing its full potential. The obstructionism in the Senate is a classic example of the cause of the periodic stupor experienced in the phenomena called the boom-and-bust cycle.

House leaders gave the assurance that enough safeguards will be in place to ensure that the funds will be efficiently managed but unrelenting critics raised the specter of Malaysia's 1MDB in which officials were caught dipping their hands into the sovereign money pool.

"As for the risk of a 1MDB repeat, the BSP has more powers over this fund than Malaysia's monetary authorities had over 1MDB," said one of the brains behind the proposal.

In the bill, the Maharlika Investment Corp. which will handle the MWF will be an independent institution but under the supervision of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas that can impose sanctions on mischief.

"I am also open to an amendment in the proposed MWF Act which spells out that the fund will remain a BSP-Supervised Financial Institution, just to ensure that BSP oversight will continue to apply," the same proponent said.

Creating an MWF is a timely idea, a novel proposal that some groups and personalities are taking advantage of to muster public concern that they hope will translate into votes in the future.

Political opportunism is the kind of investment that Filipinos do not need.