Former Senator Joker Arroyo INQUIRER.net FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines – Former Senator Joker Arroyo on Thursday called for the scrapping of the controversial Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP).
“The DAP is the unfortunate progeny of a misadventure at the DBM. It should simply be abolished,” Arroyo said in a statement.
DBM is the Department of Budget and Management headed by Secretary Florencio “Butch” Abad.
Arroyo said scrapping the DAP would not need a congressional action, saying President Benigno Aquino III could simply stop fund releases through the DAP and proclaim it “window closed.”
The Aquino administration has been criticized for allegedly funnelling millions of pesos worth of projects to some senators through the DAP after the impeachment of then Chief Justice Renato Corona.
But Arroyo said the controversy surrounding the DAP was not enough to push for Aquino’s impeachment.
“Impeach the President? Let us not trivialize the process of impeachment. When overused, it is drained of its cathartic value and it becomes terribly stale,” he said.
“I have always maintained that not every misstep of an impeachable officer is impeachable,” said the former senator .”
“Besides, with the DAP in place, impeachment will not reach first base. The solution. Simple. Just scrap DAP,” he added.
Arroyo said the country could not afford to be rocked with endless and controversies as the Supreme Court is already saddled with so many constitutional cases.
“So with COA (the Commission on Audit) and the Ombudsman,” he said.