UNA secretary general Tobias Tiangco. FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines — United Nationalist Alliance (UNA) secretary general Tobias Tiangco dared Budget Secretary Florencio Abad to present a masterlist of the allocations of the disbursement acceleration program (DAP) funds amid reports that these were used to bribe lawmakers to convict then chief justice Renato Corona.
He made this reaction after secretary Abad accused him of politicizing the issue because he belongs to the opposition.
“Kung wala silang tinatago, bakit hanggang ngayon hindi sila maglabas ng transparency list?” Tiangco, also s Navotas representative, said in an interview with Inquirer Radio 990 AM on Monday.
(If they’re not hiding anything, why are they not releasing a transparency list?)
“What’s important is the transparency of the DAP,” he added.
Abad accused Tiangco of politicizing the issue reported by the Philippine Daily Inquirer that around P5 billion in DAP funds were released to members of the House of Representatives before, during and after the impeachment trial.
The House leadership and its prosecution team were also reportedly “rewarded” between P25 million to P50 million in DAP funds after Corona was convicted in May 2012.
In the Inquirer report, Tiangco described DAP as “an excuse to cover the P50-million bribe to senators and P10 million given to congressmen for the conviction” of Corona over false declarations of net worth.
Tiangco hit the budget department for not releasing the complete names of senators and representatives who received the controversial funds.
He also said the DAP should have been coursed through the implementing agencies and not to lawmakers.
The DAP, criticized as the president’s pork barrel, was created by the executive branch in 2011 supposedly to pumprime the economy. Its constitutionality was questioned in the Supreme Court for being created without legislative approval.
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