Former senator Joker Arroyo. INQUIRER.net FILE PHOTO
Congress allowed Malacañang to usurp its powers like a “willing rape victim,” former Sen. Joker Arroyo said Friday.
Instead of protesting, the Senate and the House of Representatives hired a constitutional law expert to defend President Benigno Aquino III’s Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) in the Supreme Court, Arroyo said, referring to President Aquino’s economic stimulus plan that the high tribunal struck down on Tuesday.
Created by Budget Secretary Florencio Abad through National Budget Circular No. 541 in 2012, the DAP pooled the savings of government agencies and channeled the funds to infrastructure projects, a strategy aimed at boosting the economy through faster government spending.
Its legality was challenged in the Supreme Court last year and on Tuesday the high tribunal ruled against Malacañang for usurping Congress’ power of the purse and violating the constitutional separation of powers between the legislative and executive branches.
“Did the President usurp Congress’ powers? Definitely. But Congress did not complain, just like a willing rape victim,” Arroyo said in a telephone interview.
‘Unbridled incursion’
When they were impleaded in the DAP cases, the Senate and the House could have protested the “unbridled incursion” into their constitutionally protected power of the purse, and aligned [themselves] with the petitioners, Arroyo said.
At the least, the two chambers could have played a “passive role” and kept quiet, he said.
“But no, Congress retained a high-caliber constitutional law professor to defend the President’s DAP. With that, Congress surrendered its constitutional power and duty to the executive,” he said.
Saved from its ‘own folly’
In the end, it was the Supreme Court that saved Congress from its “own folly,” Arroyo added.
Retired Supreme Court Justice Vicente Mendoza represented Congress in the DAP case.
He failed to convince the Supreme Court that the stimulus program was legal.
In separate concurring opinions, the justices said the President usurped Congress’ power of the purse, and that Abad “may have knowingly” created an unconstitutional program.
Associate Justice Antonio Carpio argued that President Aquino, while implementing the DAP and NBC 541 in 2012, disregarded specific appropriations in the budget law.
Mr. Aquino, he added, treated the budget as his “self-created all-purpose fund, which the President can spend as he chooses without regard [for] the specific purposes for which the appropriations are made in the [General Appropriations Act].”
Bedding the invader
Arroyo likened the Senate’s acquiescence to Malacañang in the DAP to a victim of invasion siding with the invader.
“They were invaded, their powers were encroached [upon], and their neighbors complained. But they sided with the invaders,” he said. “They went to bed with the invaders.”
Arroyo said Congress had the duty to recover the power of the purse, but it took the Supreme Court to restore the power to the legislature.
“No sweat from Congress,” he said. “They lost the territory; they didn’t try to recover it.”
Arroyo said the Supreme Court ruling showed that the President “crushed” Congress, but added: “But at what price? His survival is now in peril.”
Earlier, Arroyo said he was not in favor of impeaching the President because this would be a divisive move.
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