MANILA -- President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. assured the public on Monday that the money to be invested in the proposed Maharlika Fund will be protected and will only be used on very specific and accountable projects.

In an interview with the press on Monday, President Marcos allayed fears of possible money laundering, saying while private money will be involved with the fund, it’s not a savings account where people park money where it stays.

The multi-billion peso Maharlika Fund will serve as the seed money for the sovereign fund, Marcos explained.

“Now, whenever we come into partnership, we do a G2G (Government-to-Government) with Japan, for example, or we do a PPP (public-private partnership) with some big outfit, then that is only the time that the money has come into the fund to be used for the program,” Marcos pointed out.

“Hindi ‘yun basta’t, ‘O sige, bigyan niyo ako ng ilang bilyong dolyar tapos ilalagay lang ‘yan basta akong bahala na diyan.’ It’s not like that at all. And in fact, even on our end, we will only deploy funds when there is a very specific project to be paid for. So money laundering just won’t come into it,” Marcos said.

The President also responded to comments by some lawmakers about the use of money coming from government-owned and controlled corporations (GOCCs) for the sovereign fund, saying it is not allowed under the law.

“I agree with that. You cannot use funds of the GOCC; pera ng gobyerno ‘yun. What will the government spend? It was a proposal. It’s not something that we have adopted,” the President told the press.

According to the President, every single GOCC has its own charter, and the government has to revise all of those charters to align them with the Maharlika Fund, noting this is not the purpose of the GOCC.

“This is a lot of income that goes to the national government that will go into the Maharlika Fund and cannot be used for the budget of the national government. And we have many things… that we would like to appropriate in the coming years, and we will need those funds,” Marcos said.

“So I don’t think that’s a viable proposition, at least not for us… I know that there are other sovereign wealth funds that have been in that way. But it’s – parang hindi bagay sa atin ‘yun eh. Kaya’t we are a little lukewarm about that idea,” Marcos said. (PCO)