MANILA, Philippines—In the face of escalating fears of global depression, Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) president Winston Garcia is pushing through with the state-run pension fund’s plan to invest the rest of its $1-billion Global Investment Program to take advantage of buying opportunities brought about by market panic.

“This is the time to buy, everything is dirt cheap,” said Garcia in an interview with the Philippine Daily Inquirer at the GSIS headquarters in Manila a day after he revealed a list of roughly $600 million worth of stocks and bonds in the US, Asia and Europe in the first batch of investments of the program.

Garcia said he was taking his cue from “wise investment gurus” like Warren Buffett, whom he said made “bottom-feeding” stock investments in General Electric and Goldman Sachs in recent weeks.

“I expect the market to start recovering by June or July next year, so it’s time to start buying now,” he said.

Garcia said his optimism stemmed from the financial reforms being adopted to prevent the pitfalls that led to the current market crash, specifically the “mark-to-market” practice that allows corporations to book long-term profits in the current year.

“This whole turmoil was caused by an accountant,” he said, “but the regulators have learned their lesson and corporations will emerge stronger from this turmoil.”

In a newspaper advertisement, GSIS said it invested P10.456 billion in global fixed-income instruments, P4.127 billion in global equities, P3.08 billion in global property securities, and P8.875 billion in cash, short-term notes and other investments, for a total of P26.54 billion.

The list showed GSIS investments in four US banks — Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., Fifth Third Bancorp and US Bancorp — and investments in debt papers of three US investment or commercial banks—T Goldman Sachs Group Inc., JP Morgan Chase & Co., and Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc.

A few days ago, to silence critics worried about the impact of the collapse in the American and European financial markets on its overseas portfolio the GSIS claimed that its investments had grown by P1.245 billion, or five percent, since making its global investment shift six months ago. With editing by INQUIRER.net