Good Faith on DAP? Its not about how it was used “As a lawyer and with at least 12 years of experience behind him as a congressman who was even the Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, it is inconceivable that he did not know the illegality or unconstitutionality that tainted his brainchild,” Associate Justice Arturo Brion said in his separate opinion. “Consider, too, in this regard that all appropriation, revenue and tariff bills emanate from the Lower House so that the Chair of the Appropriations Committee cannot but be very knowledgeable about the budget, its processes and technicalities. In fact, the Secretary likewise knows budgeting from the other end, i.e. from the user end as DBM Secretary…With all these knowledge, it is not hard to believe that he can run circles around the budget and its processes, and did, in fact, purposely use this knowledge for the administration’s objective of gathering the very sizable funds collected under the DAP,” Brion said. Brion also took note that fellow Justice Antonio Carpio, the most senior justice in the Supreme Court, “had occasion to cite examples of why Secretary Abad could not have been in good faith.” Carpio said the Budget Department implemented DAP contrary to high court decisions on savings and the power to realign. Also, while the DBM through Abad told the Supreme Court during the one of the oral arguments that the Bureau of Treasury had certified that revenue collections for fiscal year 2011, 2012 and 2013 exceeded original revenue targets, they failed to present evidence to prove their claim. Brion said that Abad, when questioned by Associate Justice Lucas Bersamin’s during one of the oral arguments admitted that fund transfers made to the Commission on Audit and the House of Representatives pushed through despite constitutional prohibition. Link >> newsinfo.inquirer.net/616590/why-sc-justices-not-biting-abads-good-faith-defense
Posted on: Thu, 03 Jul 2014 08:40:14 +0000
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