Investment, daw?

Whoever is the not-so-bright economic adviser who convinced BBM to launch Maharlika as a sovereign wealth or investment fund did him and the country a big disfavor.

- BOO CHANCO

And the chu-chu-wa-wa chorus of private sector taipans advising BBM, who should have known better, also failed our country by not bringing up the pitfalls of such a Philippine government-managed fund.

Now after more than two years, the only thing certain with the Maharlika Fund is the demand of its CEO to be paid P2.5 million a month, published reports said. That's not a big amount for a really good financial money manager in the private sector. But with the big salary comes the expectation of performance or getting fired.

Enrico Villanueva, a senior lecturer of Economics at UP Los Baños whose field of expertise includes monetary and financial economics and does research on financial markets, posted this comment on X: "Congratulations, Maharlika Investment Corp. (MIC). You finally have a website hosted in DOF domain. Plus, you earned P2.3 billion in interest income on P125 billion initial capital (P75 billion of which was forced out of profitable development lending of LBP and DBP and P50 billion through NG out of BSP & PAGCOR dividends). That's 1.84 percent return per annum. Pathetic for a sovereign wealth fund. Even @Merkadobarkada's mom did better than that with her savings."