Marcos bares use of stimulus fund to buy CJ impeach votes Written by Angie M. Rosales Monday, 23 September 2013 08:00 P475M DISBURSED TO 6 SENATOR-JUDGES A senator who is among those the Aquino administration is trying to pin as culprits in the P10-billion pork barrel scam hit back yesterday revealing the use of supposed stimulus fund of the Aquino administration under a so-called Disbursement Allocation Plan (DAP) to apparently bribe six senators who sat as judges in the Senate impeachment court to vote in favor of convicting former Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona in the voting that took place in May 2012. Sen. Ferdinand Marcos Jr., one of the senator-judges then, raised possible irregularities in the Department of Budget and Management’s (DBM) release of P475 million lump sum allocations to six senators through the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) last year, which on paper was intended for livelihood projects nationwide, but were actually meant to “induce” them to go with the Malacañang-initiated impeachment of then Supreme Chief Justice Renato Corona. The agency is headed by Budget Sec. Florencio Abad who is a key official of the Liberal Party (LP) of Aquino and who lately confirmed the regularity, supposedly, of lawmakers’ endorsement on the beneficiaries and implementing agencies of their appropriated funds. The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) had said in a statement in January, 2012 that 96 percent or P69.3 billion of the P72.11 billion Disbursement Acceleration Plan (DAP), which is part of the stimulus fund of the Aquino administration, was released to agencies and government-owned or -controlled corporations (GOCCs) in 2011. Abad said the DAP were released to agencies and GOCCs to ramp up spending. “The DAP contributed immensely to the government’s increased spending in the last months of the year, allowing agencies to quickly implement programs and projects aligned with the Aquino Social Contract to the Filipino People,” Abad said. Marcos, however, reiterated that he did not request the use of his Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF), totaling P100 million supposedly, for projects implemented through non-government organizations (NGOs) set up by scam brains Janet Lim Napoles. Marcos said the P100 million that is being attributed to him was supposedly part of the P475 million which the DBM incidentally released in six special allotment release orders (SAROs) all at the same date on Dec. 6, 2011 and made available or in notices of cash allocation (NCAs) a year after. Alongside this development, two other senators being accused of purported involvement in the misuse of their pork barrel are poised to debunk the charges and bare more damning, supposedly, anomalies in the disbursement of government funds. Sen. Jinggoy Estrada is like to bare the involvement of other senators with other NGOs, those not identified with Napoles, in their purported PDAF misuse. Senate Deputy Minority Leader Vicente Sotto III gave hints as to the possible content of Estrada’s privilege speech expected to be delivered on the floor either today or tomorrow. “There could be some bombshells. He might mention the allegations concerning the rest of the 82 NGOs, a full-blown allegations (contained in the Commission on Audit) in the report,” Sotto said in an interview with dzBB, adding that Estrada took some time in studying the content of the special audit report of the CoA on PDAF, supposedly concerning a total of 12 senators. So far, only Estrada, Minority Leader Juan Ponce Enrile and Sen. Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr., have been implicated and charged with plunder over alleged PDAF misuse. “If you’re one of the legislators concerned and you do not have something to hide or do not have a hand on any irregularities, even if they will implicate you, you need not worry about it,” Sotto said. “It’s possible also that he (Estrada) will express his sentiments over the charges against him because we have yet to hear his side on the issue,” he added. Enrile who according to Sotto was already discharged from Makati Medical Center last Wednesday and is likely to be back to attend the Senate session today, is also out to disprove the charges against him. “Based on our last conversation over a week or almost two weeks ago, he said something to the effect that he welcomed the filing of the complaint against him as it will now give him an opportunity to refute the charges,” he added. “And since all of the allegations are based on what their accusers are telling the media, he said that they (accusers) should await his counter statements on the filed cases. Those are not the exact words but that’s the impression he gave me. He wanted the complaint to be filed so that he can present his evidence,” Sotto said. In the continuing “saga” over the alleged PDAF scam, Marcos said he was surprised by the statements made by Abad, which was carried by a major broadsheet last Sept. 20, refuting his claims that his signatures were forged in the said P100 million “transaction.” Abad insisted that Marcos even sought out then Senate President Enrile to back him up in granting his request for the funds through a letter dated Nov. 23, 2011 and even sought for a switch in implementing agency. “Just so we’re clear: I have not seen any of the letters that Abad is referring to. It would have been more constructive if he checked with my office first but, instead he chose to vilify me in the press,” he said in a statement. “As I said before, the first time I heard about this P100 million allotment was when CoA wrote me on Sept. 4 and asked me to confirm my signature on a document which allegedly came from my office,” he said. In an effort to aid COA with its investigation, we immediately sent them proof that the documents were falsified. Since the initial batch relating to this were falsified, it would be prudent to treat everything with utmost caution,” he said. Marcos was also puzzled by Abad’s claim that the contested amount did not come from the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) of the Executive as the CoA’s letter-inquiry sent to his office was clearly “in connection with the audit of DAP released through National Livelihood Development Corp. (NLDC).” “Hence I rightfully presumed, since it is within CoA’s mandate to audit such funds, that it was in connection with DAP. Is the secretary now saying that the CoA is incorrect? If so, then he should verify this with CoA, not me,” he asserted. Apart from the programmed releases to senators pursuant to the PDAF provisions of the then 2011 General Appropriations Act (GAA), Marcos maintained that he was unaware of any other “additional” or unprogrammed funds allocated to his office. “There’s a difference between the two: PDAF is allocated to senators by law. DAP, on the other hand, is an initiative of the Office of the President whereby high impact projects are chosen to be funded. Since the DAP belongs to the Executive branch, they are the ones who should determine which projects to fund,” he said. “Instead of doing this, the DBM allowed certain legislators to determine which projects to fund then and now they’re saying it’s the fault of legislators? There is something wrong there,” he said. “As for the additional P100M that was allegedly released to my office under the DAP, I would not have even known that such a release existed were it not for COA’s letter to me last September 4, 2013 informing me of such fact. So again, how could I have requested for the release of these funds when I didn’t even know it existed?” Marcos pointed out. “I do not know the exact nature of the funds released under the President’s DAP so I’d rather not speculate.“What I find puzzling though is why the DAR said that the DBM issued six ‘special’ SAROs for six senators? What makes the six senators ‘special’? Why not all 23 senator-judges?” Marcos said in raising the allegations on the supposed “inducements” to upper chamber members to rule for the indictment of Corona who was impeached by the House of Representatives in Dec. 2011. “I would like to believe that during the impeachment trial, all the senator-judges were swayed by the facts and not by supposed incentives or rewards,” he said. Marcos happens to be among the only three senators who voted to acquit Corona. Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago and then Sen. Joker Arroyo were the two others. Twenty of their colleagues voted to convict the former Supreme Court chief magistrate. The issuance of six consecutively numbered SAROs and the corresponding NCAs on the same date and for the same projects likewise casts serious doubts on Abad’s claim he sought the funding and the switching of the implementing agencies, the senator said. “When the COA first wrote to me, it mentioned only one SARO dated 15 March 2012. Now it turns out that the DBM issued six SAROs on 6 December 2011. Note that all six SAROs were issued to the DAR secretary for the ‘beneficiaries of the CARP program’ and that the funds were deposited on the same date “to cover for the requirements of the livelihood projects in various LGUs. Anyone who has worked in government will tell you that this is highly irregular,” he pointed out. “Normally it takes several months from the time the SARO is released to the time the cash is deposited in government banks. Based on the records of DBM, however, all six SAROs were issued and the corresponding cash deposited to government banks on the same date. “This would imply that all six Senators made the same request for the same project and that all six SAROs were released on the same day. Furthermore, the NCAs were released on the same day as the six SAROs. This series of events is highly improbable. To add insult to injury, the DBM is now saying that the senators are to blame for these irregularities,” he said. “There are so many questions that need to be answered. So many irregularities that need to be addressed. So instead of laying the blame on a select few and instead of continuing this trial by publicity, DBM’s time would be better spent by assisting the COA with their investigation,” he said. Administration allies who figured in the misuse of the PDAF will not be spared from the long arm of the law, Speaker Feliciano Belmonte said. He added the fears of the political opposition that the law would be selective in pursuing the charges against those involved in the scam in unfounded. He was referring to a statement by Sen. Jinggoy Estrada. “Justice Secretary (Leila) de Lima made several statements that there will be second and third wave of filing. It is premature for him (Estrada) to even assume that allies of the President would be spared.
Posted on: Sun, 22 Sep 2013 17:16:08 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015