Making life worth living
By Ellen Tordesillas
Malaya
By Ellen Tordesillas
Malaya
Aquino’s dare: ‘Impeach me’
Aquino haters can try impeaching him for going with his Budget Secretary’s concoction of the Disbursement Acceleration Program but as Sen. Miriam Santiago correctly predicts, it will not prosper.
Not because it was legal as Abad and his spokesmen aver but simply because he controls both chambers of Congress. And for the very reason that he makes everybody happy with the releases that he finds himself now in hot waters.
The DAP was “discovered” by the public after a few days of twisting by Malacacañang and its allies on the P50 million releases to each senator (it turned out others got more like Senators Franklin Drilon, P100 million, Chiz Escudero P99 million, and Juan Ponce Enrile, P92 million) after the impeachment of Supreme Court Renato Corona in May 2012 that Estrada revealed in his speech, “Untold story of PDAF”
Santiago said DAP violates the Constitution and she is in the same line with other legal experts including Fr. Joaquin Bernas, S.J who said the creation of the DAP to fund new budget items is unconstitutional because the law limits the president to realign savings only in existing budget items.
Bernas cited Article 6, Section 25 of the Constitution states that “the President… may, by law be authorized to augment any item in the general appropriations law for their respective offices from savings in other items of their respective appropriations.”
“The word used in the law is ‘to augment savings.’ This means that that there are already items which can be augmented and this also means that you cannot create new items. If you create new items, it means you’re already making an appropriation. That can be done only by Congress,” he said in a TV interview.
Impeachment vs Aquino won’t prosper.
Santiago said what Aquino did “ would be culpable violation of the Constitution or bribery and in both cases he (Aquino) will become, in theory, impeachable.”
But she herself said impeaching Aquino would not be easy because “he controls all the House and the Senate. And remember that people who want him impeached would have to get one-third vote in the House and two-thirds vote in the Senate so that’s not going to be practical. It will only be theoretical.”
Worse,the money in that illegal fund was given to congressmen and senators, the people who would be voting on the impeachment complaint. No way that any impeachment related to DAP would succeed. That’s the reason why Aquino dares challenge his critics to impeach him.
But that doesn’t mean no one would try just what happened to Gloria Arroyo. Several impeachment complaints were filed against her but not one prospered and reached the Senate because she was good at satisfying the greed of the congressmen. Aquino might have to do the same because he is dealing with almost the same personalities – politicians who are truly non-partisan, whose loyalty is only to themselves.
Bomb was not a dud after all
A tragedy for the Filipino people.
When Estrada delivered his “Untold story of PDAF”, many derided it as a dud. Kwitis pala, hindi bomba, they said.
They laughed at him for not presenting anything to deny his alleged multi-million take from the alleged brains of the pork barrel scam Janet Napoles.
They expected Estrada to deny his links with Napoles. Estrada didn’t do that because he had a different battle plan and apparently it’s a “scorched earth strategy.”
When Estrada questioned, why only the three of us (together with Sen. Ramon “Bong” Revilla, Jr. and Juan Ponce-Enrile),he must have thought of the President’s justification when the latter accompanied Napoles to Camp Crame, “… damay damay na.”
Damay na nga lahat.
Indeed, it turned out that Jinggoy’s speech was a huge bomb that rocked the entire Senate. The impact is being felt now. Whether or not his expose was masterminded by his Ninong Juan is irrelevant. The so called DAP was still a bribery before or after Corona’s impeachment. A bribe in the form of reward could be before or after the act.
Jinggoy’s action was no different from a criminal who after being arrested squealed on his colleagues. Many criminals were arrested and convicted because of one who squeled on them.
Would the case prosper? I absolutely agree with Miriam Santiago that there’s no way. Like GMA, the current administration is in control of both Houses so much so that not even the powerful INC was able to succeed influencing other lawmakers whom she helped elected many times in the past. Money now has become much more important that a religious group’s block voting. Because money can buy votes.
The only way even if there’s a slim chance for this case to prosper is the combined effort of the public and media. Once people’s cry is louder and louder, something good may still come out of this even if we’re not completely satisfied. If there’s got to be change, it is now.
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DAP- pork in another form
Making life worth living
By Ellen Tordesillas
Malaya
By Ellen Tordesillas
Malaya
Thanks to Inquirer for photo.
Malacañang must be feeling beleaguered.
Press Secretary Edwin Lacierda went all the way from Malacañang to ABS-CBN to appear personally in Anthony Taberna and Gerry Baja’s radio program “Dos por Dos” to insist that DAP (Disbursement Acceleration Pogram) is not violative of the Constitution according to the opinion of former Senator Joker Arroyo.
Arroyo said it’s the first time that he heard such an animal called DAP.
Former National Treasurer Leonor Briones questioned the legality of this DAP, which was created in October 2011, two months before the start of the impeachment against Corona. “Is there an executive order? Is there a provision in the Constitution which legitimizes its creation?”
Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago has also questioned the constitutionaity of DAP and has asked the Commission on Audit to look into the DAP.
DAP surfaced as the new buzzword in political patronage DAP after Sen. Jinggoy Estrada exposed that Malacanang gave each of the 20 senators who voted to convict Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona on May 29, 2012, for culpable violation of the Constitution and betrayal of public trust P50 million each.
Estrada said it was not a bribe. He called it “incentive.” The public saw it as political patronage, the common practice in political systems to award a special favor to persons whose cooperation the giver needs.
The evolution of Malacañang’s reactions (I will refrain from saying “lies”) on Estrada’s P50 million expose would have been amusing if it were not our hard- earned money.
In the beginning they outrightly denied it. But some senators confirmed the distribution of the post-Corona largesse. Sen. TG Guingona admitted he got lump sum. Former Sen. Panfilo Lacson, they discussed it in a caucus but he did not get his share.
Senate President Franklin Drilon, who initially denied it, later said it was the much-maligned PDAF (Priority Development Assistance Fund) which were withheld during the four –month Senate impeachment.
The Department of Budget later admitted they released lump sums after the Corona impeachment . They gave out the list which showed that Drilon, who was the chairman of the Senate Finance committee got P100 million, Sen. Chiz Escudero P99 million, and then Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, P92 million.
DBM changed tune and said it was not PDAF. It’s DAP, Malacañang said. Lacierda said they money (P72 billion in 2011) came from the savings?
“Is savings illegal,” he challenged critics.
Mr. Secretary, that’s not issue. The question is the legality of the re-alignment of savings, without Congress approval.
As Briones said, “If the source is from different savings then we have to clarify constitutional provision. Who has power to realign? Isn’t it the legislature? After the budget is passed and the President realigns again, how do you call that? It is pork. Clearly, the source has to be clarified as to legitimacy and constitutional basis.”
Briones said DAP is clearly pork barrel. “By definition and tradition and international language, pork is given to legislator. Is it correct? No because it is pointed out that their function is to create laws not implement projects.” she said.
Lacierda said the question should be was the money under DAP used properly? Isn’t that the same issue with PDAF?
- See more at: http://www.ellentordesillas.com/2013/10/01/dap-pork-in-another-form/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+EllenT
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