Guess who showed up in a statement of former Cabinet members against the Maharlika Wealth Fund?

Talking of lump sum funds, pork barrel mentor former Budget Secretary Florencio "Butch" Abad would be the perfect person not to disparage MWF but to explain the patently unconstitutional Disbursement Acceleration Program that he authored.

Abad and cohorts branded the MWF as a warped version of a sovereign wealth fund which they claimed "solve a problem of excess" based on the model of other nations.

ThE limiting definition of the yellow personalities led by Abad in the manifesto, however, does not apply to the cases of Vietnam and Timor Leste which both found the necessity of a wealth fund despite being at par or even less in terms of economic development with the Philippines.

Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno said that the expected boom in mining and energy exploration will allow the government to earn from royalties which can then be infused into MWF.

Abad's group claimed that the Philippines does not enjoy an excess in financial resources but a heightened fiscal deficit, "has a so-so export performance, and has not enabled the major commodity exports to bolster foreign currency reserves."

Instead of putting down the capability of the nation, the former officials who appear to have not made a difference during their stint in government should look at the opportunity in maximizing the financial muscle of the nation through the wealth fund.

Diokno knew it well, saying that serious investors make their biggest move when the market is slow and when the potential to earn more is the biggest.

MWF will be different from Abad's DAP which pooled forced savings from the budget to create a lump sum that the President then, the late Noynoy Aquino, can use for political purposes such as the ouster of the late Chief Justice Renato Corona.

Abad walked off with light fines in the DAP misuse case courtesy of then-ally Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales.

Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin, a former Chief Justice and author of the Supreme Court ruling in 2015 that declared DAP unconstitutional, should know the extent of the bastardization of the budget process during the term of Abad.

The SC ruling provided that the "authors, proponents, and implementors" of DAP should be held accountable.

Instead of taking on the MWF, Abad should answer the questions that remained unanswered regarding the DAP primarily how his Liberal Party gained from his wicked creation.

Abad, by the way, remains the person pointed to by pork barrel scam ringleader Janet Lim Napoles as her mentor in an affidavit she executed.

The Palace money pool invented by Abad ballooned to nearly P200 billion before being shot down by the SC.

Had the amount been pooled in the way it is envisioned in the MWF, the infrastructure era that had to wait until President Rodrigo Duterte became President and is now being stepped up under President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos would have fired off way earlier.

Instead, the hallmark of the Aquino administration was underspending due mainly to the juggling of funds in the budget that resulted in the disruption of the government programs.

In an obscene joke, Abad and most of those behind the economy not reaching its full potential during their watch are now saying that the country has not progressed enough to deserve a sovereign wealth fund.