Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, December 15) — The Maharlika Investment Fund could be tapped as one of the ways to bankroll big-ticket public-private partnership projects (PPP) under the Marcos administration, officials of the PPP Center said on Friday.
Maharlika Investment Corp. (MIC) President and CEO Rafael Consing met with PPP Center officials as the two agencies explore a “close partnership” to make PPP projects in the pipeline “more viable and bankable,” according to PPP Center Deputy Executive Director Jeffrey Manalo.
“We see a very close partnership with the MIC in terms of making sure that their pipeline or the PPP pipeline could support some of the pillars identified by MIC,” Manalo said.
The multibillion-peso Maharlika fund – the Philippines first sovereign wealth fund – adds to the growing financing tool for President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s infrastructure program that is currently being funded through a mix of official development assistance, private sector money and the national budget.
Funding PPP projects will also be in parallel with one of MIC’s investment pillars directed at large-scale agro-industrial parks – which in turn jibes with the plan of the PPP Center to unlock idle assets of state universities and package them as a PPP project.
The newly enacted PPP Code created the PPP Governing Board that includes the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) as a member, as lawmakers – led by Albay Representative Joey Salceda — underscored the role of the CHED in harnessing some 56,000 hectares of landbank held by state universities and colleges.
In his previous TV interviews and press briefings, Consing had said that he is on the lookout for “spaces” for agro-industrial clusters and peri-urban agriculture projects where the Maharlika fund can be parked.
PPP Center’s Manalo said the financing structures would depend on the project.
“I understand Maharlika will have their own approvals process on which track to go on a per-project basis,” he said.
There are already two projects under the PPP mode that involve state university land – the University of the Philippines Los Banos agro-industrial IT park (₱15.20 billion) and the UP Philippine General Hospital (PGH) cancer research institute (₱21.30 billion).
Those two projects involving UP land assets are among the 109 PPP projects in the pipeline.
The new law, which takes effect on Dec. 23, also allows faster approval of PPP projects by raising the threshold to ₱15 billion – from ₱300 million previously – the value of projects that will need the approval of President Bongbong Marcos who sits as the chairperson of the NEDA Board.
Of the 109 PPP projects in the pipeline, 22 are above the ₱15-billion threshold.
By Lois Calderon, CNN Philippines
Published Dec 15, 2023, 8:46:56 PM
