Informing the public about the need for a sovereign wealth fund should be the next move to clear the way for the Maharlika Investment Fund bill by countering an expected deluge of attacks from the detractors as the measure is debated in the Senate.

Even Presidential Chief Legal Counsel Juan Ponce Enrile said the pros and cons should be weighed carefully.

President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. certified the Maharlika Investment Fund bill because its intention, goal, and objective are considered "good, Enrile said.

In coming up with the Palace backing to the measure, Enrile, however, cautioned BBM of the many "imponderables" that the bill entails.

The veteran public servant who once served as finance secretary of BBM's father, former President Ferdinand Marcos Sr., said no matter how brilliant the aim of the sovereign wealth fund "in businesses and investments, there are always ifs and buts that you can't anticipate."

"You're lucky if you make money in the first year, it takes time, it follows the ups and downs of foreign economic factors," according to Enrile.

He cited the trend in the global equities market which has softened lately due to the inflation uptrend globally.

"It's all loss, everything is in red," he added. If there are profitable days, these are quite limited," he explained.

Enrile has, from the start, expressed the need for the proponents of the measure to review it carefully.

The economic condition of the world, he said, is volatile and so many things can't be anticipated.

He added that even the best analyst can only do guesswork when it comes to determining the right environment for investments.

Several existing sovereign wealth funds and money invested in them have grown but Enrile said each of the funds such as those of Norway and Singapore has a differing basis for their creation.

"Singapore has the Straight of Malacca, Norway is a petroleum, oil, and natural gas producer serving the interest of Scandinavian countries and the United Kingdom," Enrile averred.

He said the Philippines, however, has a limited economic force so "we have to study the proposal carefully."

The proposal hurdled the House without throwing a sweat, but the situation will be entirely different at the Senate since several of the senators indicated that it will go through a process that starts only in January.

BBM, nonetheless, said the measure is being perfected and the detractors should pass judgment when it is completed.

The MIF is one of the innovations that the government had devised to widen the sources of finances for "Build, Better, More" projects which seek to improve on the highly successful Build, Build, Build of the previous administration.

Marcos also plans to expand the scope of government assistance to the poor, the percentage in the population which had increased slightly after two years of the ravages of the pandemic.

Thus, the goal for the MIF is to catalyze recovery and propel the economy to a momentum that would be faster than before the global plague struck.