Palace desperate with claims Cory did a DAP — Joker Written by Angie M. Rosales and Charlie V. Manalo Saturday, 26 July 2014 00:00 font size Print Be the first to comment! Malacañang yesterday received a beating from a former senator and one-time executive secretary of the late President Corazon “Cory” Aquino who disproved claims made by Department of Budget and Management (DBM) Secretary Florencio “Butch” Abad that the former leader also impounded government savings and used it for other purposes. “The administration must be so desperate that it has gone to such lengths, just to save its face, to even invoke President Cory as an implementor, 25 years ago, of an unconstitutional program similar to DAP (Disbursement Acceleration Program),” former Sen. Joker Arroyo said in a statement sent to reporters. “(Former President ) Cory (Aquino) did no such thing. Before Congress convened in 1987, Cory issued 305 Executive Orders as she then exercised law making powers under the Freedom Constitution. “None was challenged except 2; in both cases, she accepted this in good grace that an oversight might have been made because the very competent Office of Deputy Executive Secretary for Legislation was doing the work of 225 legislators was undermanned. “Besides, Cory did not do things in secrecy. Ask her Budget Secretary then, Gem Carague, and the Deputy Budget Secretary, Ben Diokno. They will attest to Cory’s straightforwardness,” he said, referring to the budget secretary during the administration of the mother of incumbent President Aquino, former DBM Secretary Guillermo Carague and his then immediate subordinate Benjamin Diokno. Diokno who eventually served as DBM chief during the assumption to the presidency of now Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada in 1998 to 2001 also slammed Abad as well as Senate President Franklin Drilon for reiterating during Thursday’s Senate hearing that previous administrations, dating back as far as that of the first Aquino government, also adopted a scheme similar to DAP. Diokno said both Drilon and Abad are trying to mislead the public by saying that past presidents also had DAP. “The use of savings in the past was for impoundment of funds for fear of unmanageable fiscal deficit and that savings were never used for funding new programs and projects that were not prescribed in the General Appropriations Act (GAA),” he said. The former DBM secretary expressed belief that President Aquino whipped up his own pork barrel by coming up with DAP to be able to realign savings to non-existent budget items in the GAA without seeking the approval of Congress. The DAP, he even stressed, may be considered as Aquino’s own pork barrel considering that he controls where the money will be spent. In his opening speech and presentation before Senate probers, Abad claimed that the “generation and use of savings—of which DAP is an example—is not a new practice.” “Under the leadership of then-President Cory Aquino, the use of savings took the form of the imposition of reserves, where allocations were withheld because of a fiscal deficit; the practice was thus named the Reserve Control Account. This way of using savings continued on in the Ramos and Estrada administrations. Under the Arroyo administration, the practice was plainly dubbed the ‘use of Overall Savings.’ “The practice of generating and using savings bore different names because each administration faced its own unique set of economic and fiscal challenges,” Abad said before the Senate finance committee chaired by Sen. Francis “Chiz” Escudero. “Historically speaking, cross-border transfers from one branch of government to another or to fiscally autonomous agencies—were not uncommon. The slides show that over the last 22 years, savings have been used to augment the budgets of Congress, the Judiciary, and other constitutional bodies independent from all three branches of government. “Not only has it been done before. We knew that we could implement DAP because the law permitted it. “Chapter 5, Sec. 38 of the Administrative Code explicitly says that the President is authorized to suspend or stop the use of funds allotted to an agency—and to do the same of all other expenditures in the National Budget—if public interest so requires it. “The use of savings is likewise supported by Section 39 of the same chapter, which says that savings can be used to cover a deficit in any other item in the National Budget if the President so approves it. “Finally, Section 49 says that savings provided in the General Appropriations Act may be used to settle the obligations of priority activities that will promote the economic well-being of the nation, among others,” Abad explained. Drilon, in “grilling” Abad, echoed the DBM chief’s claims that “cross-border transfers of funds have been done since 1992.” “The interpretation of Cory, Ramos, Estrada, Arroyo was also the same nterpretation of President Aquino, is that right?” Drilon asked, to which Abad replied in the positive. Drilon was clearly acting in defense of the Palace and the DAP. Then Drilon fired back at critics, especially the criticism made by former National Treasurer Leonor Briones that the DAP funds given to lawmakers should be refunded. “The forme national treasurer has no basis for doing saying that lawmakers should refund the DAP funds they got, since we never received any funds,” he said, adding that the legislators merely proposed or nominated projects to be funded and that even Cabinet members exercised the same to which Abad affirmed during the hearing. “All lawmakers, whether Aquino ally or opposition can nominate projects,” Drilon said, which Abad seconded. But for over two years, Malacañang and the Liberal Party expended more than P200 billion of the people’s money, away from the watchful eyes of the public and without the approval of Congress, to flex its political muscle in the 2013 and 2016 elections. From 2011 to 2013, the Aquino Administration conveniently withdrew “savings” from different agencies of government to pool the money into one big impounding reservoir called the DAP. United Nationalist Alliance (UNA) secretary general, Navotas Rep. Toby Tiangco yesterday said it appears that DAP is worse than the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) since lawmakers received 9 percent of the P167 billion worth of DAP funds from 2011-2013 over and above their “pork barrel”. “DAP is really worse than the PDAF since Malacañang just gets the funds from other agencies whose projects are already programmed for important projects and gets these fundings for DAP,” Tiangco pointed out. He added that this has become a convenient practice by DAP architect and Department of Budget and Management Secretary Abad for more than two years without being tracked or noticed by Congress and the public. “Abad’s reason for DAP is to accelerate high-impact projects to stimulate and pump-prime the economy, but it appears that the money was used mostly as a political leverage and juggernaut for the 2013 senatorial elections, and a pump-priming mechanism for 2016,” Tiangco said. Between 2011 and 2013, more than 900 DAP-Saros were released to legislators on top of their allotted PDAF which has a cap of P70 million per congressman, and P200 million per senator. “DAP is worse and much more dangerous than PDAF because there’s no limit as to how much ‘pork barrel’ legislators can receive, and Secretary Abad was given by Malacañang a blanket discretion in selecting who would be its beneficiaries. There is no need for feasibility studies with Abad. As long one is an ally, you fall under their criteria,” Tiangco added. According to Tiangco, Abad strayed from the DAP criteria set by DBM and there many vital projects like the rehabilitation of airports, seaports, lighthouse nationwide that were shelved to finance deeply flawed and unnecessary projects like the P40 billion BSP capitalization, P10 billion for DILG’s relocation program, the P2 billion for the Bangsamoro Peace Process, P150 million for CoA’s IT program, the P70 million stem cell research, and many more. “With all the billions of the people’s money transferring from one agency to the other, it is impossible that there is no blessing and approval of Malacañang in each and every move made by Secretary Abad,” he stressed. Tiangco said the results the Liberal Party’s juggernaut in the 2013 Senatorial polls is now up and rolling as the entire nation saw how allies of the Administration became instant apologists and champions of the DAP which was already declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. “With many of them beholden to Abad, allies of the Liberal Party in the Senate have become apologists, puppets and vulnerable to the dictates of Malacañang. What happened to the principle of checks and balances? What happened to an independent Legislature? This is very alarming and worrisome because the Legislature’s independence and oversight functions are jeopardized,” Tiangco said.
Posted on: Fri, 25 Jul 2014 15:57:12 +0000
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