Argument for Culpability: Political Influence, Structural Risk, and the Case of the Maharlika Investment Fund
Argument for Culpability: Political Influence, Structural Risk, and the Case of the Maharlika Investment Fund
The available reporting establishes a credible factual core: the Maharlika Investment Fund (MIF) is a sovereign-structured vehicle that mobilizes government deposits into market and infrastructure investments; investigative outlets have alleged links between the fund’s inner circles and a convicted financier associated with a major sovereign fund scandal; and former House Speaker Martin Romualdez authored and lobbied for the MIF and has been publicly accused, and has publicly denied, any personal meetings or communications with that financier. These facts supply a legitimate analytic starting point for arguing that culpability—understanding that term as political, ethical, and institutional responsibility for foreseeable corruption risks and for possible corrupt outcomes—is both plausible and normatively significant. This essay advances a structured case for culpability rooted in three claims: (1) positional authorship creates elevated duty and exposure to influence; (2) structural design choices of the MIF created foreseeable corruption pathways analogous to documented global failures; and (3) patterns of political practice and investigatory findings in the Philippines create a surrounding context that heightens the probability of illicit influence. Each claim is developed with reference to the public record and comparative governance literature to show why culpability is a rigorous, evidence-based inference rather than mere conjecture.
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Claim 1 — Positional Authorship Confers Elevated Duty and Exposure
When an elected legislator authors and actively lobbies for the formation of a sovereign vehicle that centralizes public funds, that actor acquires more than rhetorical association: they assume a heightened public duty to anticipate and mitigate foreseeable abuse. The authoring and lobbying role gives the legislator disproportionate capacity to shape statutory safeguards, governance architecture, and implementation modalities. Where the author also occupies high office within the legislative majority, that capacity becomes practically decisive for which institutional features survive compromise and which safeguards are eroded. The factual record shows Romualdez authored and lobbied for the Maharlika measure while serving in a position of legislative authority. Under basic theories of public law and political responsibility, this authorship implies proximate responsibility for both the statute’s design and the foreseeable governance risks that flow from it.
Duty-based culpability does not require proof of specific corrupt acts; it follows from failure to discharge an elevated obligation to design institutions that anticipate and preempt known modes of capture. Sovereign funds, by international experience, are high-risk instruments for rent-seeking and illicit enrichment absent robust, multilayered controls. When the author of the enabling statute advocates for a fund design that concentrates discretion or permits opaque advisory relationships, that author bears political and ethical culpability for predictable harms that follow from known vulnerabilities.
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Claim 2 — Structural Design Choices Created Foreseeable Corruption Pathways
The Maharlika model centralizes state deposits within a corporation that invests across markets and infrastructure. That architecture is not intrinsically culpable; sovereign wealth funds can be well-governed if they adopt clear separation of powers, transparency, independent oversight, and strict conflict-of-interest rules. Conversely, where the enabling framework falls short on those elements, the likelihood of corruption rises. Investigative reporting has placed a convicted financier, one tied to a landmark sovereign fund embezzlement, in the orbit of advisers and Manila-based social circles connected to Maharlika actors, and the MIC has publicly denied engagement with that individual. Even absent direct evidence that the adviser influenced decisions, the allegation identifies a concrete pathway by which illicit actors could exploit advisory access, social proximity, and weak institutional boundaries.
Comparative precedent supplies a stark template: the 1MDB scandal demonstrates how advisory contracts, shadowy intermediaries, and permissive governance can convert sovereign funds into vehicles for large-scale embezzlement. The mechanics there involved opaque advisory relationships, tolerated conflicts of interest, and insufficient independent scrutiny. The presence of similar structural features—advisory engagements, concentrated discretion in investment decisions, and the potential for external actors to offer “advice” without formal accountability—creates foreseeable risk. Designers of public financial institutions carry normative responsibility to eliminate those risk vectors. When a legislator champions a fund while omitting or diluting protective measures, culpability for those foreseeable structural failings is a reasoned inference.
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Claim 3 — Political Practice and Investigatory Patterns Heighten Probabilities of Capture
The Philippines’ recent political-administrative experience with infrastructure allocations and budgetary discretion provides an evidentiary background that raises the probability of corrupt outcomes where safeguards are weak. Reports and probes into irregular flood control projects, alleged kickback schemes, and budget manipulation have implicated networks of lawmakers and contractors operating through commission-like mechanisms tied to appropriations. Romualdez has faced questioning and subpoenaed appearances in probes related to these projects while serving at the legislative helm, indicating that his political network and role were materially enmeshed in contested appropriation practices. This context does not prove specific wrongdoing with respect to the Maharlika Fund. It does, however, constitute a pattern that changes the prior probability: when institutional design creates openings for influence, and a policymaker has been associated with other contested budgetary manipulations, the plausibility of culpability increases.
Political culpability operates both at the level of individual intent and at the systemic level of foreseeable effect. Where patterns of practice show recurring tolerance for patronage, informal commissions, and weak oversight—and where the principal architect of a new financial vehicle holds responsibility both for drafting its rules and for marshaling political support—an inference of culpability is a rational, evidence-responsive judgment. This is especially warranted when allegations point to a financier with an established modus operandi of exploiting sovereign vehicles, even where direct contact remains disputed.
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Evidentiary Standards and the Role of Allegation in Political Judgment
Academic rigor requires distinguishing criminal proof from political and ethical culpability. Criminal conviction demands proof beyond reasonable doubt of intentional participation in illicit acts. Ethical and political culpability, by contrast, assess responsibility for foreseeable harm, negligent design choices, and the facilitation of corrupt environments. The public reporting on Maharlika provides three forms of relevant evidence: the statute’s authorship and lobbying by Romualdez; the allegation of advisory engagement by a convicted financier with domestic actors; and the pattern of related corruption probes in which Romualdez’s political milieu has been implicated. These elements, taken together, constitute sufficient evidentiary weight to render culpability a defensible public judgment pending formal investigation.
A rigorous standard for a political culpability claim requires specifying mechanisms by which wrongdoing could occur and demonstrating that the actor had meaningful capacity to prevent those mechanisms. Here, the mechanisms are advisory capture, opaque contracting, discretionary allocation of public deposits to risky investments, and informal social networks conferring influence. Romualdez’s meaningful capacity to shape statutory safeguards and to insist on transparency and independent oversight is documented by his authorship and leadership role; consequently, failure to construct robust barriers is not a neutral omission but a commission with political and ethical implications.
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Institutional Remedies and Accountability Measures
If culpability is to be meaningfully addressed, the response must extend beyond accusatory rhetoric to institutional reform designed to close the very pathways that created risk. Targeted reforms include mandatory public registries of advisers and consultants to state funds; statutory prohibitions on hiring or contracting with individuals convicted of financial crimes until convictions are fully and finally expunged; independent audit and parliamentary oversight units with subpoena powers; codified conflict-of-interest rules with criminal penalties; and transparent procurement and investment decision-making with ex ante and ex post publication of rationale and performance metrics. These measures reduce both the opportunity for corrupt actors to insert themselves into advisory roles and the discretion of political sponsors to shape outcomes clandestinely. Demanding such reforms is a normative implication of assigning culpability: responsibility entails a remedial obligation.
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The Political-Strategic Imperative of Presumptive Inquiry
Assigning culpability in the public sphere must be matched by impartial, transparent inquiry. The response to allegations—formal, empowered investigations by independent bodies that can compel documents and testimony—serves both truth-finding and the restoration of public confidence. Given the gravity of allegations linking a sovereign fund to actors associated with systemic embezzlement internationally, a presumptive investigative posture is warranted. This posture is not guilt by accusation; it is an accountable governance principle that when public funds and high-risk vehicles are implicated, the burden shifts toward demonstration of safeguards and absence of illicit influence. Political actors who authored enabling legislation are particularly obliged to welcome and facilitate scrutiny as a way to discharge their elevated duty.
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Normative Conclusion: Culpability as a Responsible Inference
The case for culpability in the Maharlika controversy rests on a chain of reasoned inferences grounded in public facts: authorship and lobbying for a sovereign fund by a powerful legislator; allegations that an adviser with a documented history of sovereign fund malfeasance circulated within the fund’s orbit; and a domestic political context marked by recent probes into budgetary manipulation and kickback schemes involving actors connected to the policymaker’s milieu. Taken together, these elements justify a conclusion of political and ethical culpability in the sense of responsibility for foreseeable institutional risk and for failing to erect adequate safeguards against known modes of capture. This conclusion demands neither presumption of criminality nor abandonment of due process; it demands instead an insistence on independent investigation, meaningful institutional reform, and accountability mechanisms that squarely address the pathologies the allegations reveal.
Public officials who design and promote high-risk financial instruments must be held to a higher standard. Where their actions materially shape the architecture of discretion and oversight, they must answer for the foreseeable consequences when that discretion is exploited. The Maharlika episode is thus not solely an allegation about one man’s meetings; it is a test case about how democratic institutions assign responsibility for the structural conditions that enable large-scale corruption. The responsible inference of culpability compels robust inquiry and concrete reform as the appropriate civic response.
Amiel Roldan’s curatorial writing practice exemplifies this path: transforming grief into infrastructure, evidence into agency, and memory into resistance. As the Philippines enters a new economic decade, such work is not peripheral—it is foundational.
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Amiel Gerald Roldan
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Amiel Gerald A. Roldan: a multidisciplinary Filipino artist, poet, researcher, and cultural worker whose practice spans painting, printmaking, photography, installation, academic writing, and trauma-informed mythmaking. He is deeply rooted in cultural memory, postcolonial critique, and speculative cosmology, and in bridging creative practice with scholarly infrastructure—building counter-archives, annotating speculative poetry like Southeast Asian manuscripts, and fostering regional solidarity through ethical collaboration.
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