Former National Treasurer Leonor Briones, head of the budget watchdog Social Watch Philippines: President Aquino is vulnerable to an impeachment complaint. PHOTO from Facebook account
MANILA, Philippines–“The question now is: Who is accountable and who should be penalized?”
Groups seeking to nail President Aquino over the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) would have to consider a key document previously mentioned by Budget Secretary Florencio Abad while trying to defend the controversial budget impounding system.
Former National Treasurer Leonor Briones said she was not sure if Abad was able to furnish the high tribunal a copy of the President’s so-called “written instruction” for the implementation of the DAP. She said the document would indicate that the secretary of the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) was not acting on his own, but was instead following “instructions” from the President.
During the court hearing in November, Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio had sought evidence that the President had authorized Abad to create the DAP.
Last November during the high court’s oral arguments on DAP’s legality, Carpio looked for links to the President authorizing Abad to create the DAP.
Carpio said he saw nothing.
But Briones recalled that Aquino had issued public pronouncements defending the DBM’s move to accelerate spending through DAP.
In October last year, the President lamented before foreign correspondents that the DAP was being “unjustly and oddly vilified in the media.”
Back then, he sought to distance the DAP from the graft-ridden Priority Development Assistance Fund, saying “the only thing one could remotely relate to PDAF were those projects undertaken through consultation with our legislators.”
As in the PDAF practice before, the DAP allowed legislators to receive additional lump-sum appropriations coming from “savings” pooled by the DBM.
Briones on Tuesday said that President Aquino could be held liable after the Supreme Court struck down the DAP as unconstitutional.
“He is vulnerable to an impeachment complaint,” Briones told the Inquirer in a phone interview.
Briones, who heads the budget watchdog Social Watch Philippines, said she and her group were not surprised by the court decision.
“There’s no other way but to declare it unconstitutional because it is clearly unconstitutional. It’s a victory for us in Social Watch because we have been campaigning against the abuse of savings since 2006,” she said.
Where the buck stops
The DBM did so on the strength of National Budget Circular No. 541, which allowed Abad’s agency to collect “unobligated allotments of agencies with low levels of obligations as of June 20, 2012, both for continuing and current allotments.”
In case Abad acted alone, Briones said it would have to be determined whether the President was “responsible for the actions of his Cabinet members.”
“To me personally, I would not expect the President to know the constitutionality of every item in the budget. He could only be acting on the advice of his Cabinet members or advisers,” she said.
But with the budget secretary implementing the DAP and the President publicly defending the mechanism, Briones said “either Abad or the President or both” could be made accountable now that the practice had been declared unconstitutional.
Heads must roll
Malacañang declined immediate comment. “I will refrain from making any comments until I see the full text of the SC decision,” Abad likewise said.
Sen. Jinggoy Estrada exposed the lump-sum funds during a privilege speech after he was implicated in the PDAF scam.
He said that the DBM made available DAP funds for senators’ projects after the impeachment of Chief Justice Renato Corona, prompting the Palace to reveal details of the DAP.
“Heads must roll and budget officials must be held accountable. I thank the Supreme Court for respecting and upholding the Congress’ exclusive power of the purse,” Estrada said in a statement.
But Sen. Ralph Recto doubted that an impeachment case against the President would prosper.
“The impeachment process is also political. I don’t see that happening realistically because I think the President has many supporters in Congress,” Recto told reporters.
He said there were people who may believe there’s a basis to impeach the President, but making this attempt successful was another matter.
As to whether Abad should resign, he said it was Abad’s personal decision to make.
Charge it to experience
Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV said he did not think an impeachment case against the President over the DAP ruling would prosper. The President has not been accused of pocketing any funds, he noted.
“If [the impeachment case] would pass in the House, it would not pass in the Senate. This is not a case where he declared savings and then pocketed the funds, that would be another matter. In this case, he used the funds to fulfill his mandate as President of the Philippines, he spent it on programs he believed would help the country’s development,” he told reporters.
Asked who should be held liable for the DAP, he said he received information that the Supreme Court’s ruling was prospective.
Longtime practice
“So they will charge it to experience. Maybe they did this in good faith in the first place. I think with the credibility of the President, the public is willing to give him the benefit of the doubt,” he added.
Members of the Makabayan bloc, one of the petitioners in the case, expect an impeachment complaint against President Aquino. House leaders said this was improbable given the President’s broad support at the chamber.
ACT Teachers Rep. Antonio Tinio said: “For sure, President Aquino will be facing an impeachment complaint when Congress reopens at the end of this month which will certainly cast a dark cloud over his upcoming State of the Nation Address.”
But Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. said the court decision did not provide any grounds to impeach the President. He said the President had always practiced “good faith and sincere intentions” in his policy decisions.
Belmonte said that this practice of impounding the budget and transferring funds to other agencies had been a “longtime practice.”
“Incidentally, they have no votes,” said Belmonte noting that at least one-third vote of the 290 House members was required to impeach the President.–With reports from Gil C. Cabacungan and DJ Yap
Aquino ‘vulnerable’ to impeachment—ex-nat’l treasurer
Aquino impeachment won’t prosper—Recto