The Daily Tribune
The slinking Aquino administration is trying to evade responsibility over the misuse of public funds by seeking a moot ruling from the Supreme Court (SC) on the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) since it was effectively discontinued this year, according to Solicitor General Francis Jardeleza during the other day’s oral arguments on the controversial Palace program.
The last time the orals were held, however, it was the same Jardeleza who was arguing against the issuance of a temporary restraining order on the DAP, saying that projects under the program will be hampered.
The SC, however, appears bent on pursuing its determination of the constitutionality of the DAP setting the final arguments on Feb. 18, in effect rejecting a moot ruling.
Aquino and his Palace clique may be anticipating an adverse SC ruling that the DAP has violated provisions of the Constitution and the Jardeleza gambit was a desperate offer of a compromise which, after the Palace threats and maneuvers against them, the justices do not appear willing to admit.
Palace ally Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago had laid out the consequences of an SC ruling, stating the unconstitutionality of the DAP, saying that such a decision would in effect make the P50 million or more distributed to senators after the ouster of former SC Chief Justice Renato Corona as a patent bribe and Noynoy would be open for impeachment, bribery being one of the grounds for the removal of a president.
Asked by one of the Associate Justices for the reason of the Palace decided to drop the DAP, Jardeleza’s reason was that the program has been effective, one of the many classic Palace paradoxes that Filipinos have to live with every day.
It has been effective in a way, in the targeted removal of the impeached Corona but ask any economist if it did achieve its mandated goal of stimulating the economy and many will give a negative reply.
For one, former Budget Secretary Ben Diokno said dropping P50 million from a chopper would have a better effect in stimulating the economy rather than channeling it through legislators as additional pork.
When in the Priority Development Assistance Fund, the Palace vigorously sought its retention before the SC, despite the P10-billion pork barrel scam that it had stage-managed against three specific opposition senators, with the SC having ruled it unconstitutional, this time around it will have to be DAP not falling to the same decision at all cost.
A moot ruling would be face-saving for the Palace and more importantly it would avert Noynoy being charged with an impeachment offense.
The danger of the DAP being declared unconstitutional was clear and present in Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio’s exchange with the government DAP defenders saying that Noynoy cannot use the power to augment under the budget for the DAP since the pool of funds is not part of the government budget.
That was the same argument forwarded by Diokno who said that since the DAP did not exist in the general appropriations law, it stands to reason that it cannot be augmented.
The argument on the side of Noynoy’s Palace is that the DAP is not a fund but a program to stimulate the economy which does not justify the use of it as an “incentive” for the senator-judges who voted to convict Corona.
With the moot strategy apparently crashing in flames, the Palace would have to think of another legal maneuver to prevent the inevitable SC ruling.
That would take resourcefulness and a bright mind that are simply lacking among members of the Palace mob.
No comments:
Post a Comment