Malacañang's impending disposition of big-ticket state assets that would help stem the country's widening deficit is a "heartless midnight fire sale," a senatorial candidate said Monday.

Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino (PMP) senatorial aspirant Jose "Joey" De Venecia III Monday denounced the proposed sale of the Philippine National Oil Corp., Food Terminal, Inc., and Fujimi properties in hope of generating P30 billion in revenues.

“This outgoing government is determined to pawn our future and is content at merely addressing the results of its fiscal imprudence,” De Venecia alleged in a statement.

"There is no rush in selling off the assets at this time. The Fujimi property, in particular, should not be sold at this time because Japan is still recovering from a recession," he claimed.

De Venecia, who testified against the government in the Senate investigation on the NBN-ZTE controversy, further claimed that President Arroyo appears bent on "exiting with a window dressed  fiscal picture showing the Philippine economy is better off than it really is."

He pointed out that “previous auctions to sell off the three assets all failed due to poor market conditions and lack of investor interest but this regime is pig headedly pursuing the midnight sale.”

The information technology expert explained that the planned sale of the three state assets has thrown doubt into which only several "unseen parties" will allegedly benefit from the revenues.

“We urge President Arroyo to back off from consummating the fire sale and prudently leave the decision on the sale of government assets to the next administration,” De Venecia said.

He noted that the only way for the assets to be sold is through a transparent public bidding conducted by an administration, which he said is not tainted "with a reputation for allegedly tolerating graft and corruption."