Senate Bill No. 2020 or the Maharlika Investment Fund (MIF) bill can be signed into law by President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. by the second or third week of July after the Speaker of the House inks the measure this week.

After being signed into law, the Implementing Rules and Regulations will be prepared by the national government’s economic managers and a council, which will recommend to President Marcos the people who will manage the MIF, according to Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri.

“They have to be the best of the best that will be approved by this council. This council is also fixed, those who will be members of council,” Zubiri said in an interview with news channel ANC on Monday.

“There are criteria like head of business groups, they are head of other agencies and the Bangko Sentral of the Pilipinas for example, one the head of course of (the) Department of Finance, and then it would be from the private sector which the criteria is very strict. It’s similar to judges (who) go through the Judicial Bar Council,” he added.

Zubiri said they must have an experience in private banking and finance.

“Not necessarily just government experience, because it’s easy to just pick out someone from government and put in there. So, he must have the background,” he explained.

Zubiri reiterated that the MIF bill was not rushed or tampered by the Senate, assuring that the provision in the measure citing a 10-year prescription of crimes and offenses was properly discussed in the plenary and can be found in the transcript of records.

He recalled that was presiding over the regular session when Senate Deputy Minority Leader Risa Hontiveros proposed a 20-year prescription period but was declined by Senator Mark Villar, the bill sponsor.

“It’s here, I have the transcript of record. The 20 years was an honest oversight. It’s honest mistake by our secretariat. There was only one prescription period and that’s that 10 years,” Zubiri explained.

“We have to reflect on the true intention of the provision as reflected on the transcript of records. Any legislator knows that. This is before the enrollment process. Kasi tampering kapag na-enroll mo na ang (Because tampering is when you have enrolled the) bill and it’s signed by me and the Speaker and the President,” he added.

This, after Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel III recently brought up what he described as “tampering” of the MIF bill, referring to Sections 50 and 51 which gave two different prescription periods and were eventually combined, removing Section 51.

Tampering, Zubiri assured, will never happen in the Senate under his watch.

Wage hike proposal

Meanwhile, Zubiri admitted that raising the wage hike to at least PHP100 more faces rough sailing in the Senate as it is not among the priorities of economic managers.

A PHP40 minimum wage hike will take effect on July 16.

On June 27, the National Wages and Productivity Commission approved to raise the daily minimum wage for private sector non-agriculture workers from PHP570 to PHP610.

Agriculture, service and retail establishments with 15 or less employees and manufacturing firms with less than 10 employees will now earn PHP573 daily from PHP533.

The wage hike has been approved by the Committee on Labor and Employment, chaired by Sen. Jinggoy Estrada.

“What we could do is we could amend it and come up with the committee report, proposing a P100 wage increase, minimum wage increase, additional minimum wage increase for our workers. So we can work on that para malapit na po ‘yan sa (so it can be near the) PHP150 na prinopose natin (that we proposed) from the very beginning,” Zubiri said. (With reports from Leonel Abasola/PNA)