‘Lawmakers may be held liable for DAP ’
Lawmakers who benefitted from President Aquino’s Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) could also be held liable, a magistrate of the Supreme Court (SC) said yesterday.
The insider explained to The STAR that while their ruling last week voiding executive acts under the DAP cleared beneficiaries of projects, it paved the way for investigation and prosecution of authors, proponents and implementers of programs under the unconstitutional stimulus fund.
“The decision speaks for itself. The authors, proponents and implementers – including lawmakers who received the fund and passed it on to their beneficiaries – have the burden to prove their good faith that the court demands. And that should be done in the proper tribunals, which is not this court,” said the senior justice who refused to be named for lack of authority to publicly tackle the implications of the SC decision.
Anti-pork barrel crusaders have supported this opinion of the insider.
Former Manila councilor Grego Belgica, one of the petitioners in the case, believes that among those who could be held liable are the senators and congressmen who received DAP funds from the Palace.
“They can be charged with graft and malversation unless they can prove good faith. As the SC said, good faith pertains only to the projects and recipients who received it in good faith – not to the perpetrators or senators and congressmen whose acts were tantamount to graft and malversation,” he told The
yesterday. Some senators have admitted receiving DAP funds from the Palace several months after they voted to oust chief justice Renato Corona in his impeachment trial. Among them is Senator Antonio Trillanes IV, who claimed he thought the DAP funds were part of his pork barrel.
‘Begin probe now’
Belgica, who was also a petitioner in the SC ruling last year that struck down the Priority Development Assistance Funds of lawmakers, said the Department of Justice and Office of the Ombudsman should now start investigation on DAP appropriations just as the Commission on Audit did in line with the SC decision.
“It has to be started now so government and identified officials who utilized DAP funds can defend themselves in court and bring evidences to prove good faith in their illegal acts,” he said.
He said the probe can start with the evidence packet the solicitor general provided the court during oral arguments last January and February.
Belgica, however, admitted that considering the level of officials involved and the magnitude of the scam, it will be very hard to hold everyone culpable.
But he rebutted the defense of the Palace that the DAP was approved in good faith.
Belgica said this has yet to be proven before the proper tribunal – as required by the SC ruling – and the executive department has the burden to do so.
He also pointed out the “misleading” statement of Palace spokesman Edwin Lacierda that the declaration of the DAP as unconstitutional does not mean that the President and Budget Secretary Florencio Abad are now criminally liable.
“Criminal liability comes after the declaration of unconstitutionality. It doesn’t take a lawyer to know that transferring funds from the executive to the legislative body is illegal. It doesn’t need a court decision to know it is a crime as it is clearly written by the text of the Constitution,” he said.
“Unless they can prove good faith then all their alibis amount to nothing,” he said.
The DAP ruling has triggered the filing of an impeachment case against President Aquino and calls for resignation of Abad, who both approved the stimulus program.
Unconstitutional scheme
In a 92-page decision penned by Associate Justice Lucas Bersamin, the high court held that the acts and practices under the DAP violated the constitutional doctrine of separation of powers and the provision prohibiting inter-branch transfer of appropriations.
Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio and Associate Justice Arturo Brion cited possible liabilities of the President and Abad in their separate opinions in the ruling declaring DAP unconstitutional even as they stressed that ruling on these issues is beyond the power of the high court.
In his 27-page concurring opinion, Carpio said it is no less than President Aquino who violated the constitutional doctrine of separation of powers of the three equal branches of government in approving the DAP releases that amounted to over P149 billion from October 2011 to September 2013.
The magistrate cited the admission of Abad before the high court that the DAP, National Budget Circular No. 541 and related executive issuances were approved by the President.
“The President under the DAP and NBC 541 usurps the power of the purse of Congress, making Congress inutile and a surplusage,” Carpio stressed, short of suggesting a ground for impeachment.
Carpio said what was more puzzling is that “a majority in the Senate and in the House of Representatives support the DAP and NBC 541 when these executive acts actually castrate the power of the purse of Congress.”
Brion, for his part, detailed the possible culpabilities of Abad.
“There are indicators showing that the DBM secretary might have established the DAP aware that it is tainted with unconstitutionality,” he said in his 62-page opinion.
Brion believes Abad cannot invoke good faith in justifying the DAP that he created.
“Armed with all these knowledge, it is not hard to believe that he can run circles around the budget and its processes, and did, in fact, purposely use this knowledge for the administration’s objective of gathering the very sizeable funds collected under
the DAP,” he said.
Question Hour
The independent bloc in the House of Representatives urged yesterday the leadership of the chamber to summon Abad to the Question Hour to shed light on the still undisclosed and puzzling details of the DAP.
Leyte Rep. Ferdinand Martin Romualdez, leader of the bloc, said despite the SC ruling and the growing public clamor for the Aquino administration to be transparent about the DAP, Abad has yet to bare details of the fund.
He said Abad can no longer invoke sub judice as the SC has ruled on the legality and constitutionality of the DAP.
“We are all for transparency and accountability and the Question Hour will help give us answers to so many confusing DAP details,” said Romualdez, president of the Philippine Constitution Association, one of nine petitioners in the SC that questioned the legality of DAP.
Buhay party-list Rep. Lito Atienza, a member of the independent bloc, said Abad should be honest and not waste the opportunity to face lawmakers to bare “the many secrets of the DAP.”
“If indeed, these DAP funds were put in Napoles-like NGOs, then a clear case of plunder should be filed against those who received and those who disbursed it,” Atienza said, referring to alleged pork barrel fund scam mastermind Janet Lim Napoles.
The Question Hour is provided for in Section 22, Article 6 of the Constitution. The questions for the concerned official should be sent in advance by lawmakers.
DAP-free budget
Meanwhile, lawmakers also urged Malacañang to make sure the proposed P2.6 trillion national budget for 2015 will not contain any spending initiative similar to the DAP.
Davao City Rep. Isidro Ungab, chairman of the House committee on appropriations, and Romualdez said Malacañang should ensure that the budget proposal will comply with the SC when it submits the measure when Congress resumes session on July 28.
Romualdez said Malacañang is currently preparing its budget proposal and under the Constitution, the President has 30 days after the opening of session in July to submit the document so he has still time to check the details of the measure.
He said Congress should put some provisions in the 2015 national budget that would prevent the executive branch from implementing possible illegal spending programs, particularly on items or projects not listed in the General Appropriations Act.
“Congress should take note of the ruling made by the Supreme Court when it outlawed some portions of DAP by putting provisions in the national budget that would silence or bar DAP-like initiatives. We have to guarantee a budget that is free from any abuses in the Palace’s fiscal utilization of government savings,” the lawmaker said.
No money from DAP
Vice President Jejomar Binay and the Home Guaranty Corp. (HGC) yesterday denied receiving P2.243 billion from the DAP.
Recent reports stated that Binay, chair of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council, received DAP funds through the HGC and the National Housing Authority.
HGC president lawyer Manuel Sanchez said reports are apparently intended to malign the vice president’s name as part of the demolition job against him.
Sanchez clarified that the amount, which was allegedly reflected in the Department of Budget and Management’s records, corresponds to the appraised value of the air rights’ above the Philippine National Railway (PNR) track from Buendia in Makati to the junction of Samson Road in Caloocan.
“What we are asking for is proper compensation for our transfer of the PNR air rights to the Department of Public Works and Highways. We bought it. It is only right that we get paid in return once we transfer it,” Sanchez said. –