Suspension

Filipinos’ loss of English proficiency must be serious, if we can’t even agree on what “suspension” means.

The Maharlika Investment Fund is still on. Or at least that’s the latest word from President Marcos. The MIF wasn’t put on hold, he said, clarifying the Oct. 12 memorandum signed with his authority and released by his executive secretary, Lucas Bersamin, suspending the implementing rules and regulations of the fund. The memorandum has not been recalled.

If you suspend the IRR of a project, ostensibly for a review or whatever reason may be cited, aren’t you suspending its implementation? And if it’s on hold, it must have been triggered not by a positive development, but by something negative.

But BBM said the project was merely “being improved [to make it] as close to perfect and ideal as possible.”

Most everyone else interpreted the order as a suspension of the MIF, including lawmakers who had fallen all over themselves to pass Republic Act 11954 in record time, ignoring admonitions about haste making waste.

Reacting to the initial reports of a suspension, the usual sycophantic suspects in Congress gave predictably unctuous comments. The top prize goes to Senate President Migz Zubiri, whose chamber had joined the House in railroading the passage of RA 11954, which created the fund: “When so much money is at stake, it is better to proceed with an abundance of caution than to be reckless.”

Such concerns should have been designed into RA 11954 while it was being crafted, instead of after the fact.

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Despite the suspension, among the highlights of BBM’s brief trip to Saudi Arabia was an announcement from Malacañang that the kingdom, upon the invitation of the Philippine government, would look into possible Saudi investment in the MIF.

What Saudi Investment Minister Khalid Al-Falih said was that his government and Saudi businessmen wanted to “learn more about the newly launched Maharlika Investment Fund...”

As we still recall from all the billions in Chinese investments that were touted by the China-loving Duterte administration but which never materialized, there’s a long way from learning more, deciding and then actually proceeding to invest in