As we have stated in a preceding column, there would be a mad rush to co-author the Maharlika Investment Fund bill after President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., not only publicly pushed for its passage but confessed to owning the idea, more like resurrecting the concept, of establishing a sovereign wealth fund.

From about five principal authors of the proposed measure, headed no less by House Speaker Martin Romualdez Marcos and Ilocos Norte Congressman Sandro Marcos, first cousin, and son of PBBM, respectively, it has now ballooned to 200 eager solons tripping themselves over to ink their signatures as co-sponsors of the controversial bill.

There are of course lawmakers who will refuse to join the stampede. They are the ones who would rather risk losing their budget allocations for their districts and party rewards than be part of a group of loyalists that will not displease the elephant in the room. These are the men and women who listen to the economists, the industrialists, and the legal minds who would genuinely want the presidency to succeed but would guide it cautiously so as not to put at risk the country's resources to waste and plunge it into a state of deprivation.

Those who are so eager to join the bandwagon in the Lower House in co-sponsoring the Maharlika bill must pause to consider undisputed facts and circumstances that argue against the establishment of sovereign wealth at this time.

As admitted by one of the authors, they started on the wrong foot, meaning they did not do their homework. They hastily crafted the bill without the necessary consultations with the legal eagles, the economists, and the investment experts as to the legality of the sourcing of funds for the initial capital of Maharlika and the viability itself of the venture. Most of all, they forgot to use a helluva of a formula not found in the books — common sense.

They included SSS and GSIS as contributors to the MIF when they are privately owned by the members thereof and therefore cannot appropriate them for a public purpose and use without just compensation. Had they insisted on pursuing their original plan they would have violated the Constitution.

They now want the Land Bank and the Development Bank of the Philippines to contribute their excess earnings to Maharlika, but both financial institutions do not have surplus funds. The law creating them require their annual incomes to be placed in the National Treasury, while the remaining half is to be spent on their operations. Even assuming this is feasible, why should their funds be transferred to another entity for investment purposes when they are already doing it?

Initially, they wanted to slash 20 percent of the annual budget and put it in Maharlika, but they know for a fact that we have been operating on a current account deficit. We have been borrowing to fill in the gap, and our indebtedness has already reached 13 trillion pesos plus! Isn't that foolhardy?

This time the bill authors want the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas to pump in 100 percent of their dividends to Maharlika. This is a violation of its charter as it is also violative of the Constitution which grants it autonomy and independence. Its primary function is to maintain the financial stability of the country. Even assuming it can contribute to Maharlika, will such a contribution preserve market stability and promote balanced and long-term economic growth? The very fact of contribution is a dislocating factor vis-a-vis the country's financial stability.

The proponents of the bill while claiming that they have put safeguards to make it corruption free, they have in fact put provisions that precisely remove from it the transparency and accountability required of this gargantuan project. The Maharlika under the proposed law would be exempted from the Government Procurement Act, Salary Standardization Law, Tariff and Customs Code, GOCC Governance Act, and Civil Service Code. Wow, such effrontery!!!

They say that they put four independent members of the 15-member governing board of Maharlika to act as watchdogs, but the 11 members of the board will be government officials, all to be appointed by the appointing power. The four votes of the directors will be crushed by the ten directors with the chairman not participating.

The authors are challenged: Retain the Secretary of Finance as chairman, or better still put back the President to head the Maharlika board, but let 14 members of the board come from the private sector composed of business tycoons known for their integrity and business acumen. That's how Singapore's sovereign wealth fund is constituted. It is chaired by the Prime Minister but the rest of the directors are private citizens with unsullied reputations.

They want to have the bill certified urgent by the President, to short-circuit the legislative process when the President himself said they should do their work and come up with a final draft so we can debate the pros and cons of the finished product, which means they should proceed with caution and serious deliberation, but they seem to be oblivious to the voice of reason.

Why the haste? Why the intransigence? Why cement the distrust?