A dictatorship exists under the Aquino administration, at least in the handling of the country’s coffers with the juggling of tax-payers’ money on a whim in the yearly budget, former Sen. Joker Arroyo said yesterday. “This government is filing cases one after another but they should look at themselves in the mirror and realize what they’re doing,” Arroyo said. “They should explain first before they go on filing again numerous cases. They file cases against so many people. A series of filing of cases, even if the court has yet to set hearings. They should look at themselves,” he stressed. Arroyo had earlier indicated that the Executive may have violated several Constitutional provisions with the farming out of funds from the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) to senators that was described as an incentive after the conviction of former Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona in the Senate impeachment court. “The problem with Malacanang, they don’t care who they go after. That’s not right. Each person has a reputation to protect and they should respect that. They should file cases against themselves,” the former lawmaker said. Arroyo was reacting to Malacanang’s continuing stance defending the validity of the DAP or the so-called stimulus fund program of President Aquino, supposedly made up of “savings” from the yearly appropriations, the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) which was recently exposed to have been the source of alleged additional pork barrel funds of some senators and congressmen distributed several months after the Corona impeachment trial last year. Based on Palace officials’ claims, Arroyo said some P72 billion and P55 billion in savings in the years 2011 and 2012, respectively, went to fund the now controversial DAP and the existence of such amounts would not have known had the issue on purported P50 million “incentives” to some senators been not exposed by opposition Sen. Jinggoy Estrada. “Is there a list of expenditures on DAP, on where these P72 billion and P55 billion were spent? There’s none,” he said on radio. The Department of Budget and Management (DBM), in an apparent effort to dismiss insinuations that the alleged incentives were actually rewards given by the Palace to those who voted to convict Corona issued a press release last week detailing the fund releases and it included the name of Arroyo, attributing P47 million to him. Arroyo was one of three senators who voted to acquit Corona, the two others are incumbent Senators Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. and Miriam Defensor-Santiago. The former senator lost no time in denying and berating the DBM’s claims on his having taken a slice from the DAP incentives saying he had no idea that the amount he sought funded in the 2012 General Appropriations Act (GAA) for his projects would be taken from the DAP, the very existence of which he described as unconstitutional. Arroyo, again, rebuked the Palace’s pronouncements saying that they have stopped releasing DAP funds to lawmakers but will continue disbursements to line agencies and even fund programs for those affected by the recent armed conflict in Zamboanga City. “They cannot do that. They cannot just said that because we saved some money, because it is for a good purpose, we will spend it it in Mindanao or Zambaonga. There has to be a law. It is not possible to set aside funds for whatever purposes that please them. Who will watch it? We don’t know. Nobody knows how the P72 billion or P55 billion was spent,” Arroyo said. “Whoever gave them the power to switch the fund’s use for Zamboanga? There should be a law first to support that. No money shall be paid out of the Treasury without congressional approval. Otherwise, we’re already under a dictatorship. This is what we call budgetary dictatorship. The public funds they get, they spend at will,” he commented. “In the beginning of this administration, I was asked what was my message, and I said what we should do now is unity. What the government should do is to unite the people not to divide the people. You should be a good father of a family,” Arroyo added. “But now, if you criticize the government, immediately you’re perceived as an enemy, you will be made to face charges. What kind of a government is that? That is a patent characteristic of dictatorship. The people are being cowed into silence,” he said. Arroyo also chided Malacanang in invoking an administrative code in the 1987 Constitution being as a basis in coming up with DAP, saying that the very same provision which was issued during the incumbency of the late Pres. Corazon “Cory” Aquino, when he happens to be still then the executive secretary, was “patently illegal.” “Pres. Cory did not use that. Former Pres. (Fidel) Ramos did not use that, also former Pres. (Joseph) Erap (Estrada) and GMA (former Pres. Gloria Arroyo). Now, 24 yrs after it was enacted by Cory Aquino, it was suddenly used,” he said. An administration lawmaker, meanwhile, sought a fresh investigation into whether the architect of the P10-billion pork barrel scam has also designed portions of the Disbursement Acceleration Program. According to Cavite Rep. Elpidio Barzaga Jr. the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) should investigate projects funded by the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) to determine if Janet Lim Napoles and her fake non-government organizations also benefited from the fund. “Since the DBM has already released the letters of request of some senators and considering that the funds of DAP, again allegedly went to the bogus agencies of Napoles, the NBI should motu proprio start an investigation of the projects funded by the DAP,” Barzaga said. In 2011, four senators had sought the release of P100 million each from the DAP, asking that the DBM release it to projects to be implemented by the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR). The senators allegedly asked the DBM to have their DAP funds funnelled to the NGOs linked to Napoles who is tagged as the brains behind the pork barrel scam. Barzaga, a lawyer and stalwart of the National Unity Party (NUP), said also asked the DBM to make public all the letter requests “in order to quell the public perception that the administration is engaged in selective persecution.” “The DBM should also disclose the letter requests of all legislators indicating all the projects requested, the amount and the implementing agencies of these projects,” he said. Once the disclosure has been made, Barzaga said Commission on Audit, the NBI and the Ombudsman should start validating the projects. The DAP came to public attention after Sen. Jinggoy Estrada, among those charged with plunder for channeling his pork barrel funds to Napoles NGOs, accused the administration of “selective” prosecution, noting that the DBM released P50 million to senators who voted for the removal of then chief justice Renato Corona last year. The budget later turned out to be funded by the DAP, which the DBM said was used to accelerate government spending. The Palace, meanwhile, released yet a justification for the use of DAP funds, this time, for the long forgotten and neglected World War 2 veterans. Abad said an amount of P2.9 billion was ordered released for the unpaid Total Administrative Disability (TAD) Pension of a total of 16,980 living World War II veterans, upon validation of the proposed beneficiary list submitted by the Philippine Veterans Affairs Office (PVAO),” Abad said. Abad said that the latest release will support the pension requirements of validated veterans from 1994 to 2012, chargeable against the Pension and Gratuity Fund (PGF). Under the annual budget of 2012 and 2013, the law provided that in the use of savings, priority should be given to the augmentation of the amounts set aside for compensation, year-end bonus and cash gift, retirement gratuity, terminal leave benefits, old-age pension of veterans and other personnel benefits authorized by law, and those expenditure items authorized in agency special provisions and in other sections of the general appropriations Act. “This release supports the government’s budgetary assistance to our living war veterans and their families. It is likewise in fulfillment of President Aquino’s pledge to ensure that timely pension payments are made to our World War II veterans who fought bravely for the country and sacrificed much in the process,” Abad said. Defense (DND) Secretary Voltaire Gazmin reported that PVAO was able to generate P4 billion in savings in 2010, primarily due to the implementation of Automated Teller Machines (ATM) in delivering pension benefits. This amount enabled the agency to pay arrears for TAD of WWII veterans from 2003 to 2009.
Posted on: Tue, 26 Nov 2013 02:11:26 +0000
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