Ex-senator Angara calls for amended, more relevant constitution
Former Senator Edgardo Angara believes that changing the Constitution was “overdue,” citing what he described as “corrupting budgetary system” in the country.
“I’ve pointed this out time and again during our budget hearings — the system is rotten and needs to be changed. It requires a constitutional amendment, and it’s about time we took another look at the Constitution to address its infirmities and make it more relevant to the times,” Angara said in his new biography, titled “Edgardo J. Angara: In the grand manner.”
READ: Edgardo Angara’s biography tells a life ‘far from perfect’
“But every time you propose constitutional change, people go up in arms, suspecting you of trying to prolong your term in office,’ he said.
Angara said, “Constitutional change is overdue.”
“We have this pathological fear of change. If you don’t change and innovate, you’re going to be dead. Innovation is the life of this digital age. How can you be so progressive on the social and political issues as well?” he asked.
“The market promotes competition to stimulate efficiency and minimize waste in the industry, but the market cannot take care of the rot in the political system. Let’s bite the bullet,” Angara added.
In his book, the former senator talked about the alleged misuse and abuse of government’s funds, particularly the controversial Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) also known as “pork barrel” and the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP).
READ: SC modifies ruling against DAP, partly grants gov’t MR
He pointed out that under the present Constitution, the heads of the three branches of government — the President, the Senate President and Speaker, and the Chief Justice — can juggle funds within their departments in the guise of savings.
“The President can juggle the entire budget just by saying that’s not for acceleration, its for stimulus, so I’ll cut your savings and put it in one fund. And that’s one way of subverting the power of Congress because he has usurped the power of the purse,” said Angara.
If he had his way, Angara said he would remove that kind of authority and discretion. For better transparency, he said, every project should have a specific line item appropriation.
“We have a corrupting budgetary system that allows the President and other higher officials to have easy access to public funds. And this pork barrel syndrome has even permeated our city councils — in one of our biggest cities, for example, the councilors enjoy a pork barrel like congressmen,” he said.
“Without Constitutional change, you’ll never uproot those diseases,” he said.
Angara admitted that like most other legislators, he also availed himself of the PDAF. But the former senator denied any wrong doing “having been accused, without proof, of diverting some of his pork barrel to a bogus non-government organization.”
“The pork barrel was introduced during the Cory administration. I must admit that I was able to help so many people because of it. But I could also have written the same landmark laws without it,” he said.
He described the “pork barrel” scam allegedly perpetrated by detained businesswoman Janet Lim-Napoles as “devastating.”
“The worst thing is that everyone is involved — the Presidency, the Senate , the House of Representatives. Unfortunately, there’s been quite a successful campaign to mask the ones who are truly at fault by painting everyone as guilty, then no one is guilty,” he said.
Angara said the budget process was also rife with opportunities for the abuse and misuse of public funds. The spending and budgeting system itself, he said, was a “corrupting system.
“For the weak-willed, the temptation to misuse is too powerful. That’s why when the scandal over the pork barrel broke out and I was asked what I thought of it, I said we better give up. I didn’t even realize that it was being abused and misused so cavalierly that brokers were receiving fat commissions and so on,” he said.
“I didn’t even know about the Disbursement Acceleration Program or DAP, a clever and and grander way of subverting constitutional checks and balances, not unlike the way President Gloria kept failing to pass the budget on time during the calendar year, forcing a reenactment of the previous year’s budget, and spend freely.”
He was referring to then President and now Pampanga Representative Gloria-Macapagal-Arroyo. IDL
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