Abad may have saved country from ruin, still he must resign asap
WHETHER or not Budget Secretary Florencio Abad “saved PH from financial ruin”—in the words of Communications Secretary Ricky Carandang (Inquirer.net, 10/4/13)—is totally beside the point. The point is, Abad committed a culpable violation of the Constitution! And since he is not among our impeachable officials, sheer delicadeza demands that he resign to save President Aquino from continuing public censure.
As things are, I amnot sure if the Palace spokespersons still do not understand (or are they just conveniently refusing to understand?) that in inventing the now publicly denounced Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP), Abad committed a grossly illegal and unconstitutional act.
That which I am relatively sure of is that he violated Section 25(5), Article VI, of the Constitution: “No law shall be passed authorizing any transfer of appropriations; however, the President, the President of the Senate, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and the heads of Constitutional Commissions may, by law, be authorized to augment any item in the general appropriations law for their offices from savings in other items of their respective appropriations.” Alas, does it really take a lawyer to clearly realize that, pursuant to the above provision, the DAP which Abad created should have been covered—and it was not—by a specific or enabling law? Needless to emphasize, that law must originate from the legislature, not merely from the say-so or amemorandum of the President.
One recalls that the aforementioned prohibition against any transfer of budget appropriations without legislative authorization did not appear in any of our past charters. Obviously, the current prohibition is aimed at stopping the previous practice of allowing presidents to recall unspent appropriations from prior years and to appropriate and disburse them in the current year. In intent and effect, the DAP has practically given the President the power to appropriate, which power nevertheless belongs solely to Congress.
It may now appear a bit ironic that Abad—who, according to Carandang, had saved the country from financial ruin through his much ballyhooed DAP—is now being publicly asked to resign. Well, let’s just put it this way: The end does not justify themeans.