Senate Minority Leader Aquilino ‘Koko’ Pimentel on Thursday said that the proposed Maharlika Investment Fund bill has been tampered “without plenary authority”.
In a statement, Pimentel said that the enrolled MIF bill was not the version “properly and formally approved” by two chambers of Congress.
“Merong provision diyan na ginalaw without plenary authority," he added.
The Senate Minority Leader is pertaining to the conflicting provisions in Senate Bill 2020 or the Maharlika Investment Fund Act of 2023.
In Section 50, the prescription for anyone who will violate the law is set at 10 years while in Section 51, the prescription is specified at 20 years.
Senate President Juan Miguel ‘Migz’ Zubiri earlier said that the Senate's majority bloc discussed the corrections including Senator Mark Villar’s letter of correction through the messaging platform Viber.
“The revisions made were not just matter of style. It showed a flagrant violation of our rules and the Constitution,” Pimentel said.
The Senator expressed dismay for the Senate, saying that “tyranny of numbers does what it wants to do, railroading and bulldozing all legal concepts out of the way."
The Makabayan bloc lawmakers in the House first called on Zubiri to retract his approval of the MIF as they said that the correction did not follow the legislative process.
The Maharlika bill is now inches away from becoming law. It only needs the signature of House Speaker Martin Romualdez before it will be sent to the Office of the President (OP).
President Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos Jr. has declared that he will sign the controversial bill once he receives it.
