The Daily Tribune
AS SOLGEN SEEKS MOOTING OF DAP SUIT
Solicitor-General Francis Jardeleza, during the continuation of the oral arguments yesterday, tried to push the issue of the presidential pork barrel, known as the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP), mooted.
The funds from DAP were utilized by both President Aquino and his Budget Secretary Florencio “Butch” Abad to bribe the senator-judges with P50 million to P100 million each for them to convict the then Chief Justice Renato Corona during his impeachment trial. Those who voted to acquit got nothing, although Abad then tried to disguise Sen. Joker Arroyo’s inclusion in the Abad claimed additional pork barrel, when some P400 million was a congressional insertion.
But during the orals, Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio hinted at the DAP’s uncons-titutionality at least on the aspect of augmenting savings for unprogrammed projects not found in the budget.
State lawyers insisted the suits questioning the legality of Malacañang’s pork barrel, otherwise known as the DAP, has been mooted and that the program has been scuttled by government bean counters.
At the continuation of the oral arguments before the Supreme Court (SC), Solicitor General Jardeleza said the disbursement mechanism was stopped last year, adding that the chief executive gave up on DAP last year as line agencies have already achieved normal levels of budget utilization.
Jardeleza insisted that DAP was merely a procedure adopted by the Department of Budget and Management to use savings to augment other budgetary items in the annual General appropriations Act (GAA), speed up public spending, and pump prime the economy during the first half of the present administration.
“The President no longer has any use for DAP in 2014. This is a compelling fact and development that undermines the viability of the present cases, and puts in issue the necessity of deciding these cases in the first place,” Jardeleza pointed out, saying that the petitioners should no longer question the disbursement program but the specific disbursements under the DAP.
“We challenge the petitioners to pick and choose which among the 116 DAP projects they wish to nullify…,” Jardeleza said as he maintained that its implementation from 2011 to 2013 did not violate any provision of the Constitution.
Jardeleza said DAP was legal since its disbursements of funds under it was approved by the President and that the disbursements had appropriation cover.
He added that the government also had sufficient savings to support the disbursements.
Jardeleza told the Court that the President should be given some leeway in disbursing the budget and government’s savings.
While the use of the government funds is programmed in the budget, Jardeleza stressed that the President must be allowed “to maximize and prioritize” the use of large amounts considering that the government is paying interest for loans obtained to partially support this spending.
Jardeleza noted that the P149 billion funds released through DAP were put to good use, supporting 116 government projects that included latest technologies to beef up the country’s disaster planning response.
He was referring to the Disaster Risk assessment and Mitigation (Dream) as among the projects funded by through DAP.
He was referring to the Disaster Risk assessment and Mitigation (Dream) as among the projects funded by through DAP.
Dream is part of a larger initiative of the Department of Science and Technology (DoST) called Nationwide Operational Assessment of Hazards or Project Noah.
Through Dream, the OSG said, the government has created reliable, detailed, up-to-date flood models of the country’s major river basis and watersheds.
The Palace through the OSG, submitted to the Court documents to prove that the government had sufficient savings for augmentation and, in accordance with the law, had been disbursed under DAP by the President to augment existing items in the GAA.
He also asked the Court to take judicial notice of the fact that the Congress has never expressed disagreement with the way the Executive has complied with Congress’ definition of savings found in the GAA.
The Solicitor General added that the government did not violate any law when it tapped savings to boost funding of projects, programs and activities itemized in the GAA.
Article VI, Section 25 (5) of the Constitution that authorizes the President and heads of other branches of government and constitutional commissions to augment any item in general appropriations law for their respective offices from savings in other items of their respective appropriations.
“In the absence of such disagreement between the Executive and the Congress, this Honorable Court has no occasion to exercise its powers ‘to allocate constitutional boundaries,” Jardeleza pointed out.
“We should not unnecessarily constitutionalize questions that are patently consigned by the Constitution to the judgment of our political branches,” it added.
Justice Carpio insisted that the Palace cannot use the power to augment provisions under the GGA to augment non-existing items in the GAA.
He stressed that “the power to augment is the power to augment existing items” only.
Carpio underscored that based on the National Budget Circular (NBC) 541, the President authorized the withdrawal of unobligated allotment of agencies with no level of obligations as of June 2012 and the amount will be used to fund certain projects even those not considered in the 2012 budget.
“If the way the 15 justices will read this it says that it will be used to augment non existing items in the budget then it would violate the Constitution.” Carpio said.
Jardeleza claims the savings were not actually used to augment projects not contemplated in the GAA.
The petitioners seeking to scrap DAP earlier argued that DAP is unconstitutional as it violates the exclusive power of Congress to appropriate funds.
The petitioners seeking to scrap DAP earlier argued that DAP is unconstitutional as it violates the exclusive power of Congress to appropriate funds.
They said the use of the DAP violated Section 29 (1), Article VI of the Constitution, which requires that “no money shall be paid out of the Treasury except in pursuance of an appropriation made by law.”
They also argued that the constitution prohibits transfer of funds between branches of government without the necessary law.
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