opinion
08 EDITORIALS
It’s More Fund in the Philippines!
the heights publications
THE OFFICIAL STUDENT PUBLICATION OF E. RODRIGUEZ JR. HIGH SCHOOL
CARLO ESGUERRA The bill seeking to establish a Maharlika Investment Fund (MIF) , a Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF), that the government can use to make investments, has been approved on third and final reading at the House of Representatives. We completely disagree, this SWF usually uses the excess money that the government couldn’tuse. Let us ask, do we really have extra money? Then why don’t we use it to improve health care facilities and other commodities? 2.9 million Filipino families experienced involuntary hunger based on a survey that was conducted by Social Weather Station (SWS). The government should focus on this rather than a SWF. According to the Banko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), current inflation rates range from 7.4 percent
to 8.2 percent, people are suffering from the effects of COVID-19 and high inflation rates, and yet they prioritize the creation of a state wealth fund. According to the Department of Budget and Management (DBM), the national budget for 2023 is nearly locked, and we can no longer afford to insert or realign 275 billion pesos. We know for a fact that there is no surplus in the budget. Rather, we are in deficit. We know that we have to invest in our sovereign fund, but the economic status does not make any sense. This is not the right time to create such things like this. It’s no surprise that millions of confidential funds were not properly safeguarded; the opposition is weak. The government should not jeopardize what people have now for a speculative benefit in the future.
Enhanced or delayed search of the crème de la crème JOHN ROI BLAS The National Schools Press Conference (NSPC) announced that they would be only taking the 1st place from the press conferences of each region in the individual and group categories to compete in the national press conference this year instead of taking the top 3 finishers. This change has caused debate within campus and EROD journalists on whether the change is beneficial or detrimental to determining the “most capable” competitors in the country One argument is that this would help in filtering out those who truly are deserving and capable enough to step up to the national stage. This change would help in choosing only the “best” to represent their respective regions and would also help relieve congestion of competitors during the press con. On the other hand, the difference between the 1st and 2nd or 3rd place may be very miniscule. Just because someone failed to secure 1st place it doesn’t mean that they are less capable than the “winner”, having the top 3 is a safer bet to find the “top journalist”. Having 3 representatives per region would also show more options to the judges. This is because having the top 1 of each region would not guarantee that they would perform the best out of the top achievers of their area. Retaining the old system of taking the 3 best performing journalists of each region would help find the bona fide 1st place the National School Press Conference seeks to find. This decision should give honor to the friendly competition taking place between confrères and to give rightful credit to those who worked hard and are good enough to reach the national level.