Drilon asks COA to audit DAP-funded projects

Senate President Franklin Drilon: File appropriate charges. FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—Senate President Franklin Drilon on Tuesday dared the Commission on Audit (COA) to investigate how lawmakers allocated hundreds of millions of pesos under the controversial Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) and initiate charges if there was any evidence of misuse.

“We nominated the projects. What is important is, were these projects implemented properly?” Drilon said in an ANC interview, a transcript of which was provided by his staff.

“I am asking the COA to audit all of these DAP projects. If it is not properly used, then file appropriate charges,” he added.

Drilon received P100 million worth of projects funded by the DAP after the Senate convicted Chief Justice Renato Corona in May 2012 for dishonesty in his statement of assets, according to the Department of Budget and Management (DBM).

The DBM said the P50 million in additional pork barrel funds given to 20 senators who voted for Corona’s conviction came from the DAP.

The Supreme Court has scheduled oral arguments on petitions to declare unconstitutional the DAP, a little-known impounding mechanism for government savings and unused funds that came under public scrutiny after Sen. Jinggoy Estrada charged in a privilege speech that “incentives” were given to the senators to convict Corona.

“We did not get these funds. We nominated projects that can be implemented at that time. The issue was how it was used. I can account for every single peso,” Drilon said.

Drilon said the COA inquiry should be on whether the funds were used properly or for the benefit of fake nongovernment organizations (NGOs), referring to phantom agencies allegedly used by detained businesswoman Janet Lim-Napoles turn legislative pork barrel funds, euphemistically called Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF), into kickbacks for lawmakers.

Senators Juan Ponce Enrile and Ramon Revilla Jr., along with Estrada, have been charged with plunder in connection with the purported Napoles racket.

A photograph of Drilon with Napoles, who is charged with plunder in connection with an alleged P10-billion PDAF scam, has been going the rounds of social media websites.

Senate Majority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano on Monday sought to disabuse critics that receiving funds from the DAP constituted a crime.

“These days, when the people find out that we received funding they immediately assume we stole the funds,” Cayetano said.

Cayetano was reacting to an Inquirer report that he and five other senators—Antonio Trillanes IV, Ralph Recto, Francis Escudero, Teofisto Guingona III and Sergio Osmeña III—received P100 million each in 2011 on top of their annual PDAF allocation of P200 million each.

“Requesting funds and stealing the funds are two different things,” Cayetano told reporters. “Not all who requested funds or received funds are evil. Is there anything wrong with it if the funds went to good projects? Now the public views the receipt of funds as stealing.”

Trillanes said: “I allocated every single peso of it properly and none went to bogus NGOs or ghost projects. These are listed at our website for transparency. I hope we would re-focus on those who stole public funds.”