Who’s afraid of state capitalism?
Second of 3 parts
ONE obvious problem in the debate over the creation of the Maharlika Investment Fund (MIF) is that President Marcos Jr., his political lieutenants and economic managers have been unable to communicate what the MIF proposal involves in detail.
They have overestimated Marcos’ political support, and underestimated those very much against him and his family, and thus miscalculated that it would be a breeze to pass the law creating it. While he won with 59 percent of the votes, his rival had 30 percent. This is still a substantial sector which, more importantly, includes the noisy, chattering class with the most access to media. I haven’t heard of a Yellow believer supporting the plan, while the Yellow and Red ideologues were quick to condemn it without even reading the bill.
Marcos and his officials had also wrongly thought that the decades-long propaganda against the martial law regime had been buried by his landslide victory. Marcos and his family indeed appear to be unconcerned about undertaking a program to debunk the anti-Marcos lies spread, and still being disseminated, by the Reds and the Yellows.
A good example is that even an economist — note that he was even awarded the stature of a National Scientist — claimed the SWF would extend “behest loans” to favored businessmen as what allegedly happened during martial law.
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