By NESTOR MATA
WHEN President Noynoy Aquino’s propagandists in the Palace, political allies, and the yellow-tainted media said about his supposed surge in popularity rating, they presumed it would hide a shocking cover-up involving him and his Congressional allies.
The latest of Aquino’s many undeterred violations of the Constitution is the P2.606-trillion national budget for this year 2015, as passed by Congress sans debate, which he signed two days before Christmas Day.
“It’s ‘pork-free’,” Aquino claimed. “Wala na sa ating budget ang PDAF o Priority Development Assistance Fund, na naging instrument ng pagungulimat ng iland mapasamantala. (The PDAF or Priority Development Assistance Fund, which some took advantage of by turning it into an instrument of corruption, is not in our budget).”
This is a false claim! It’s the latest of Aquino’s many, many unconstitutional acts from the very start of his presidency in 2010. That was when he bribed members of members of both houses of Congress to impeach and remove then sitting Chief Justice Renato Corona from the Supreme Court.
To do it, Aquino illegally used millions of public funds from various appropriations and transferred them to the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP), which was crafted on his instruction, but this was struck down as unconstitutional by the high tribunal. Others who were involved in the DAP were the members of the Senate and the House of Representatives, the Commission on Audit, Commission on Elections
Instead of carrying out the high tribunal’s ruling and directive, Aquino and his Congressional allies repeated the crime by railroading the approval of the P2.606 trillion 2015 national budget. They have resurrected all the presidential discretionary pork barrel lump sums, which were ruled out as unconstitutional by the high tribunal, by re-defining them as “savings” to allow Aquino to use the funds for whatever he may consider political useful to him.
Contrary to Aquino’s claim, this year’s budget is still very much filled with “pork barrel funds” which he can very well use as funds for his Liberal Party candidates in the coming 2016 presidential elections. And on top of this, Congress, at Aquino’s behest, also rammed through without debate a P22.3 billion 2014 “supplemental budget,’ which is supposed to exhaust before the end of the year.
This was exposed by the budget watch Social Watch Philippines (SWP) that thoroughly examined Aquino’s 2015 national budget, which is higher than the P2.265-trillion earmarked for the 2014 budget.
“Several budget vulnerabilities are apparent. Skirting the Supreme Court decision, the bicameral conference committee report raised PDAF-like funds in at least five agencies to P47.18 billion from the House-approved P37.33 billion,” according to SWP lead convenor Leonor Magtolis-Briones. She said several issues are clearly unconstitutional, such as the separation of the branches of government, cross-border transfers of funds, funding of items not in the General Appropriations Act, the use of un-programmed funds, and how “savings” were defined and declared.
“The executive department originally proposed a total of P33.38 billion in the National Expenditure Program,” noted Briones, a former National Treasurer. “This translates into a total increase of P13.46 billion from the proposed budget. These cross-border transfers were precisely the reasons for the unconstitutionality of the DAP, but were legitimized in the 2015 national budget.”
Briones cited a special provision in certain special purpose funds which allows the executive to declare them as “savings” to augment deficiency in the budget of the executive, legislative and judiciary, including constitutional commissions and offices, such as the E-Government Fund, International Commitments Fund, Miscellaneous Personnel Benefits Fund, National Disaster Risk reduction Management Fund, Pension and Gratuity Fund and Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Program.
“There are provisions which are very vague in the budget,” Briones pointed out. “In section 69 (a) and (b), there are no restrictions to deficiencies brought about by ‘justified’ modifications or adjustments for programs, activities and projects. How are ‘justified causes’ identified? There are no guidelines.”
Briones noted that the declaration of “savings” is also not clear. “Though the phrase ‘at any time’ is removed from the original provision , the qualifier ‘during the validity of appropriations’ in Sec. 68 still implies the intention to declare ‘savings’ at any time of the year,” she said. “There should be a clear provision on when ‘savings’ should be declared. Ideally, it should be declared at the end of the year following the usual meaning of ‘savings’. If ‘savings’ can be declared at any time of the year and realigned whichever way the executive pleases, the 2015 General Appropriations Act becomes superficial and the Congress loses the power of the purse”.
Another issue is the restitution of the illegally used funds, she said. It is required by the law that illegal expenditures have to be given back to the people, and it does not negate guilt even if the money were given back. “The wheels of accountability started moving with the Supreme Court decision on the PDAF. The DAP decision is a further step. For the public and media, there is no turning back!”
Clearly, the 2015 national budget is absolutely not “pork-free” as falsely claimed by Aquino. It is indeed the latest of his unconstitutional acts in office, and something must be done quickly to reverse the disastrous course that an arrogantly imperial Aquino and his submissive and abysmally ignorant political cohorts in Congress are taking before they plunge our country down the chasm!
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Quote of the Day: “Politicians make one fundamental mistake when they are in office. They think that they are absolutely essential to the government of the country and that no one else is in the least able to carry own its affairs.” – Anon.
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