Budget Secretary Florencio Abad. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines—Budget Secretary Florencio Abad denies using the Disbursement Acceleration Programto give incentives to Senators who voted for the impeachment of former Chief Justice Renato Corona.
Abad told the high court that the DAP was not used to ensure Corona’s conviction; he stressed that the funds were not given to the senators, instead, the senators were asked to recommend priority projects/programs subject to the President’s approval.
“DAP had absolutely no relation to impeachment of former Chief Justice Corona…Sometimes, your honor, we are not correctly quoted in the reports. Those [DAP] releases were not releases given to the senators. What happened there was that the senators made recommendations to the President to augment certain items that are deficient in the budgets of certain appropriations for certain projects.
“There was money that changed hands — that was completely not true. There was no money given to the senators. What the President did was to approve recommendations… those releases were not made in consideration of whatever it was in relation to the impeachment; it has absolutely no relation to the impeachment,” Abad said.
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