President Benigno Aquino
MANILA (Mindanao Examiner / Oct. 3, 2013) – Legislators have criticized President Aquino for defending the so-called Disbursement Acceleration Program, which is more scandalous than the controversial Priority Development Assistance Program.
The DAP, according to lawmakers, is patently unconstitutional, just as what constitutionalist Father Joaquin Bernas and other experts in the Philippine Constitution also claimed.
Rep. Antonio Tinio said the President and Department of Budget and Management Sec. Florencio Abad should be held accountable for using funds which is not intended for the DAP projects.
“It is unconstitutional for the President to term as savings unobligated allotments before the end of the year because only savings can be realigned. All public funds spent on items not considered in the budget violate the Constitution. In fact, this DAP is bordering on the impeachable and heads should roll for the misuse of people’s money,” Tinio said, adding Aquino and Abad realigned “forced and premature pseudo-savings” to projects that are not stated in the General Appropriations Act.
Based on the national budget, the amount of unused appropriations did not include “budgetary adjustments” moved from one agency or department to another, to the tune of P288.11 billion in 2011. Such adjustments ballooned to P358.41 billion in 2012, the year Abad came out with National Budget Circular No. 541 justifying the DAP.
As much as P76 billion in savings from various government agencies have been used by Aquino under the DAP to justify the release of the funds for different government projects. One report said more than P8 billion has been released by Aquino to the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao for its so-called Comprehensive Peace Program which is unheard of.
It was not immediately known how much money the government has taken from the equally controversial Malampaya Fund, which is derived from revenues and taxes from gas and oil off Palawan province.
Rep. Neri Colmenares also challenged government agencies to show all its liquidation reports of funds after the Department of Agrarian was dragged into controversial funding of projects involving hundreds of millions of pesos.
“As it is only the Department of Agrarian Reform would bear the brunt of the case, but the P900 million disbursement of DAR is just a small portion of the total P23.6 billion misused from the Malampaya Fund. Sa ngayon kasi e DAR ang napupuruhan dahil nagsubmit sila ng liquidation, paano naman yung ibang ahensya na bilyon-bilyon ang nakuha?” Colmenares asked.
“President Benigno Aquino should also stop being a hypocrite and admit that he is also misusing the Malampaya Fund. Malacanang recently presented a partial list of what the current president did with the fund to cover up the whole extent of its misuse,” he added.
Deputy Presidential Spokesperson Abigail Valte said the government used the funds for 10 energy-related projects amounting to P15 billion since June 2010 and this includes public transport assistance or the so-called Pantawid Pasada Program; the acquisition in the United States of the Hamilton-class cutter BRP Gregorio del Pilar for the protection and security of the Malampaya Natural Gas-to-Power Project; Sitio Electrification Program; the coverage of fuel requirement, generator sets rental and half of capital expenditures requirements of the National Power Corporation-Small Power Utilities Group, among others.
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