MASAMANG ASAL

The President’s bad faith

By Emil Jurado | Jul. 22, 2014 at 12:01am 
 

Despite attempts of the Aquino administration to make the public think that the Disbursement Acceleration Program did good for the economy and public interest, the controversy is a no-brainer.
There are three branches of government: the Legislative (keeper of the purse by annually enacting the General Appropriations Act), the Executive (which implements the GAA and all other laws), and the Judiciary, which sees to it that the law and the Constitution are rightfully observed.

 Thus, when either the Legislative or the Executive goes out of bounds —like when players commit a foul during a basketball game—the referee, the Judiciary, calls the shots.
Well, when the Executive went out of bounds by creating the DAP, authorizing the President to disburse and allocates public funds, a function of the legislative, the Supreme Court says, “Hey, that’s not your function! That’s Congress’ function! Thus, when you commit something illegal or unconstitutional, you are accountable and liable.”

Similarly, in the case of the PDAF or Priority Development Assistance Fund, which was ruled by the Supreme Court as illegal and unconstitutional, the Court said: “Hey, you senators and congressmen, it’s not your job to implement the PDAF by having your pork barrel funds go to agencies or beneficiaries of your choice. That’s the job of the implementing agencies or the Executive.”
What’s worse in the case of DAP is that it was used to bribe congressmen and senators to impeach, convict and oust Chief Justice Renato Corona.
The revelation that 90 percent of the DAP went to legislators speaks volumes on what the President did.
When President Aquino threatened the Supreme Court that by ruling the DAP was unconstitutional, a head-to-head confrontation could ensue which would require the intervention of the third branch of government (meaning Congress, whose members could file an impeachment case against the justices), he was actually speaking like a despot. What he is telling us is that he can use the people’s money in any way he wants. And that’s bad faith.
As a former congressman and senator, the President knows that he could just have sought a supplemental budget for that purpose. But he did not. Instead, he and his Budget Secretary, who was also a former lawmaker and thus should have known better, created the DAP surreptitiously.
As they say in Filipino “na buking sila (they were caught red-handed)!” In the same vein, if President Aquino and Abad, and every lapdog in Congress, would like to pursue the notable programs of the DAP, they can still file a supplemental budget for that purpose instead of going against the Supreme Court.
Summing it up, as former Chief Justice Reynato Puno said, the DAP was worse than the PDAF since the latter was a law under the GAA. The DAP was not. President Aquino must have thought that they could fool his “bosses” by arrogating unto himself the functions of Congress to use public funds to serve his purposes.
The unfortunate aspect of it is that Mr. Aquino is still immune from suits as President. He could be impeached, which will most likely not prosper. Abad however could be charged with malversation of public funds.
But, instead of Abad taking the bullet for the President, it’s latter taking the bullet for Abad. That’s the sad part of it because to the President’s mind, if Abad goes down, he may go down with him.