By Nestor Mata
Malaya
Malaya
PRESIDENT Noynoy Aquino hopes to stop the rising tide of anger of anti-pork barrel groups that was fanned last week by his televised speech in which he defended and refused to abolish his highly controversial Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP.) Alas, his speech, marked by arrogant self-assurance, self-righteous and self-congratulatory, turned out to be a fiasco, and so he now plans to go to the “grassroots” to drum up support for the budgetary system that was concocted by him and his camarilla of advisers inside Malacanang Palace.
He seems conveniently short of memory of the fact that more and more Filipinos, rich and poor, the poorest of the poor, urbanites and rural folks, Catholics, Protestants, members of the Iglesia ni Cristo, Muslims, and other religious organizations are outraged over his DAP, actually his presidential pork barrel fund. The misuse and abuse of millions of his pork barrel funds for bribery and other dubious political transactions has been exposed..
The constitutionality of DAP has been the Supreme Court as “an insidious sabotage of the Constitution and clandestine subversion of the General Appropriations Act.”
Budget experts, too, have also thoroughly analyzed the DAP and found out that it has no legal basis. One of them, Prof. Benjamin Diokno of the UP School of Economics, noted that DAP has “a shadowy characteristic” in that it has no legal personality, that it was never mentioned in the 2011 and 2012 national budgets, and that “it is a colossal laundering machine where all ‘savings’ are cleansed, dried, pressed, and then reissued as new authorities to spend for programs, projects and activities that have not gone through prior congressional review.”
Diokno, who was former Secretary of Budget and Management from 1998 to 2001 and former Undersecretary of Budget Operations from 1986 to 1991, also pointed out that “DAP was trumpeted as quick disbursing, but as of 2011 only P53,8 billion, or 74,6 percent was spent. None of the DAP released to DPWH has been spent as of end 2011…and most of the DAP releases went to programs, projects and activities unmentioned in the General Appropriations Law, and hence unconstitutional.”
As a budget expert, Diokno emphasized that DAP violated the Constitution and the basic doctrine that once Congress has approved the budget, and the President has signed it into law, the President cannot rearrange the budget and create a budget within the General Appropriations Act (GAA). And legislators cannot and should not participate in the implementation of the budget. “Any act that would upset this intended balance of power is deemed repugnant and unconstitutional,” he said. ”The President cannot slice and dice the budget, reshape and change its budgetary priorities, and come up with an altered package – a new, unauthorized budget within the budget. Allowing it effectively changes the balance of power.”
Diokno, who is also a columnist on economic affairs of this newspaper, Malaya Business Insight, said that “an ideal budget system is one which is transparent, where Congress has the power of the purse, where the power of the President to impound appropriations requires congressional concurrence, where the Commission on Audit exercises some prosecutorial power, and where ‘savings’ are strictly defined and observed.” But, he bluntly added, “such an ideal budget system is unlikely to emerge given the present leadership…True reforms in the flawed budget system can only be done by a truly reform-minded president, which Aquino is not!”
Oops, President Aquino has blundered again! His DAP has been shown unconstitutional by the country’s best and brightest of constitutional and legal minds, and, as a well-known budget expert has clearly pointed out, his method of decision-making, particularly in the handling of the GAA, was patently flawed and legally infirmed.
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Quote of the Day: “Look at the President. He started with the idea of a balanced budget, but look at the thing now. He tried but couldn’t do it by persuasion what he can’t do it by law. So he may just have to give it up and say, “I have tried but I guess it’s back to the old ways of an unbalanced budget!” – Anonymous Political Commenter
Thought of the Day: “The Constitution was enacted for the people, made by the people, and answerable to the people.” – Daniel Webster
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