“Hindi handa.”

That’s how Marikina Rep. Stella Luz Quimbo put it as she announced the decision of the House leadership to scrap a plan to tap the pension fund of civil service and private workers for the country’s sovereign wealth fund.

What is a sovereign fund? Click here Explainer: A Beginner’s guide to Maharlika Fund

Quimbo, an economist and one of the principal authors of the proposed bill creating, said she still believes that there’s legal cover for the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) and Social Security System (SSS) to invest their surplus funds. But the public is not ready to risk putting their hard-earned savings to potential higher interest-earning instruments overseas. So, they have to listen to the public.

“Can you say that it was a political decision on your part?” ANC’s host Karen Davila asked.

“You can say that,” replied Quimbo, who is also the vice chair of the House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations.

Quimbo hastily called a press conference last night and announced that the House leadership and the economic managers have decided to scrap GSIS and SSS among the sources of seed money for the so-called Maharlika Investments Fund.

Instead, gains from peso devaluation by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas will be used as seed capital.

Quimbo lamented that the economic team who drafted and presented the bill failed to hold consultations from all the stakeholders.

“Admittedly, we started on the wrong foot. We expected that there was due diligence, there was sufficient consultations. But unfortunately, maybe not,” she added.

The House leadership met economic managers last night following public furor caused by the proposal to use P125 billion of GSIS and P50 billion of SSS as initial capital for the Maharlika Fund.

“When we started to hear the bill and have a series of consultations, we realized that kulang talaga ang consultation. Obviously, at this point in time, it is not right for us to include GSIS and SSS as a fund contributor.

“We are very happy to have a speaker who listens and is very proactive. So when we make recommendations, he acted on it,” she explained.

She said maybe in the future, GSIS and SSS contributors would realize that when they put their surplus money into the Maharlika Fund, their fund would grow more and they will enjoy more benefits.

Aside from Quimbo, other co-sponsors of the bill are House Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez, Reps. Ferdinand Alexander Marcos, Yedda Mariek Romualdez, Ranuel Jose Mannix Dalipe, and Jude Acidre,

The House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations would convene on Friday to amend the bill.