A-BAD BOY!

By Ado Paglinawan  
OpinYon

DBM Secretary Florencio Abad and President Aquino (File Photo)

“It’s Abad, stupid!”

A Filipino-American columnist writing all the way from Washington DC could not have said it better.

Ma. Lourdes Tiquia explains, “whoever thought the pork offensive surely got rid of so many obstacles along the way to 2016. But the design was too centric to some characters, the operators are not left with enough elbow room and exit strategies…”

She correctly compared the current issue to the 2013 elections where the total number of votes is a runaway total that cannot be supported by historical precedence in terms of turnout and simple addition of results.

Tiquia continues “The alphabet soup of discretionary funds increases day to day,” and in the ensuing developments, it is Budget Secretary Florencio Abad who is caught in the center of the controversy.”

Rightfully so, because Abad is the gatekeeper for the P1.3 trillion presidential pork or discretionary funds.

Deeper than Poster Girl Napoles

Significantly, the PDAF or Priority Development Assistance Fund that Malacañang throws as incentive or bribe for servile and compliant behavior by legislators, constitute only P25 billion or less than 2% of the entire pigsty. And the scam that involves the Aquino administration’s Plunder Poster Girl Janet Napoles may not even exceed 10% of that PDAF.

But the pit has become even deeper.

“Now there is DAP,” Tiquia continues , “or Disbursement Acceleration Program.

No less than Secretary Abad himself admitted that this fund was what Senator Jinggoy Estrada referred to in his privilege speech that Malacañang used to bribe senators to convict former Chief Justice Renato Corona.

Because of mounting calls for transparency, Abad had no choice but to release the breakdown of DAP fund disbursements made from October to December 2012.

Based on letters of request, Senators Antonio Trillanes (P50 million), Manuel Villar (P50 million), Ramon Revilla (P50 million), Francis Pangilinan (P30 million), Loren Legarda (P50 million), Lito Lapid (P50 million), Jinggoy Estrada (P50 million), Alan Cayetano (P50 million), Edgardo Angara (P50 million), Ralph Recto (P23 million), Koko Pimentel (P25.5 million October, P5 million November and P15 million December), Tito Sotto (P11 million October, P39 million November), Teofisto Guingona (P35 million October, P9 million December), Serge Osmena (P50 million), Juan Ponce Enrile (P92 million) and Franklin Drilon (P100 million).

In August 2012, two releases, Greg Honasan (P50 million) and Francis Escudero (P99 million).

No releases were made in 2012 to Senators Ping Lacson, Joker Arroyo, Pia Cayetano, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Miriam Defensor Santiago. Arroyo, Marcos and Santiago voted not to convict the former Chief Justice.

However, Abad said Pia Cayetano got P50 million in January 2013 and Arroyo got P47 million in February 2013.

Joker and Miriam Reacts

Arroyo however resented his being used as a Palace scapegoat telling reporters that “the money given to him was an item in the GAA budget and not part of the apparently new presidential discretionary fund that Secretary Abad just pulled out of his pocket.”

The veteran Senator charged that Abad becomes liable under the law for falsifying legislative documents while his co-conspirators in the Palace should answer for impropriety, if not outright bribery. “This illegal and unconstitutional infraction also makes the President liable for his own impeachment,” said Arroyo.

Senator Miriam Santiago also alleged that “lawmakers who voted to convict former CJ Corona and who received additional pork barrel before or after May 29, 2012 verdict can be presumed guilty of bribery because of the timing of the two events.”

Santiago cited Article 204 of the Revised Penal Code, “Any judge who shall knowingly render an unjust judgment in any case, repeat in any case, submitted for him for decision shall be punished by prison mayor, and perpetual and absolute disqualification from public office.”

The law, Santiago explains, does not only cover the senator judges in the Corona impeachment trial but also the members of the House of Representatives who voted to indict the chief justice who also got additional pork.

Like Joker Arroyo, Miriam Santiago thinks the DAP disbursements violates equal protection which is the keystone of all human rights.

Santiago added “In releasing funds, the executive branch cannot play favorites when carrying out Constitutional commands such as social justice, social services and equal work opportunities.

Abad Continues to Lie

Abad explains that DAP was formulated in 2011 to ramp up spending and help accelerate economic expansion? “Which is which?” Tiquia asks.

She said that with PDAF, the identification of projects is already assumed to be “implementation”. With DAP, the reasoning becomes even more ridiculous.

In addition the timing of DAP releases is also questionable with releases occurring on the last quarter of 2012 with two getting their shares a month earlier.

Tiquia says “how can senators accelerate economic expansion when reelectionists filed their candidacies in October 2012 and when there is a public works ban for the campaign that started in February 2013?

Abad is in quicksand here.

Trying to squeeze free, Abad said the releases came from the Personnel Services and Unprogrammed Funds. This is pork raised from the application of the Accretion Law and the rationalization of positions in the bureaucracy.

The lady columnist challenged that assertion by Abad, “Imagine, PS is being used as ‘discretionary’. Shouldn’t those be savings and realigned before usage.”

This is why the more Abad talks, the deeper he gets himself and his President into the quagmire.

A-bad Explanation?

Washington DC-based columnist Ma. Lourdes Tiquia returns to taunt Abad’s escape clause: “Is he suggesting now that the legislative branch is now the engine of economic growth? That is an ‘A-bad’ explanation because it suggests that the legislature handles the task better than the executive branch or it contributes more that the strength of the OFW remittances.”

Now that Pandora’s box is open, Tiquia says the ideologue and brains thrust of this administration has resulted in the betrayal of public trust…“writing a script smacks of doublespeak that assumes that we are all stupid. As Madonna starts a revolution that is a 17-minute movie on FOI, Abad prevaricates.”

Sad, but the president’s men are trying heaven and earth first to cover up the great pile of dung they have created, and second, using the same as a shameless and ludicrous premise for the President to retain the swine yard.

But does he not know that any and all origin and destination of corruption involving the pork barrel is the Presidency? Three executive offices are necessary to perfecting any pork use – Executive Secretary who signs “by authority of the President”, the Secretary of Budget Management who is the gatekeeper of the funds, and finally the Implementing Agency.

This is to say – any mud thrown at any other direction will surely end up in his face.

Worse, the pattern is starting to suggest that the Department of Budget Management has become an assembly plant where not only are they manufacturing fake legislative documents, fake memoranda of agreement and fake special allotment release orders (SAROs), but in cahoots with implementing agencies coddling fake NGOs.

In her contribution to The Manila Times, the FilAm pundit said she used to have a high regard for Florencio Abad.

“Today, he is a bad dream we need to shake of,” caps Tiquia.

***
Ado Paglinawan, himself is based in Washington DC. A former Philippine diplomat who served in the Philippine Embassy under Ambassador Emmanuel Pelaez, he in presently a strategic public policy consultant and continues to be an internet-based journalist and publisher of The Soberano, a US eMagazine of La Solidaridad para Soberania en Las Islas Filipinas.

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