MANILA, Philippines—Is President Benigno Aquino III afraid of Budget Secretary Butch Abad?
That’s what the United Nationalist Alliance (UNA) suggested on Thursday as it assailed Malacañang for practically absolving Abad of any wrongdoing over his brainchild, the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP), which the Supreme Court voided last week.
“What cards does Abad have in his sleeves that the President is so scared of him? Is [Aquino] worried that Abad will take him down with him and tell all he knows?” UNA Secretary General Toby Tiangco said in a statement on Thursday.
“It’s clear that Malacañang is hiding something that it should so quickly exonerate those behind the DAP without investigating. A cover-up is never done in good faith,” Tiangco said.
He criticized the remarks of presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda for “downright clearing” Abad of any liability by saying he did not benefit from the illegal transfer of P170 billion in public funds through the DAP, a controversial stimulus program introduced by the Aquino administration in 2011.
Health workers and militants conduct a picket rally outside the Department of Budget of Management near Malacanang Palace in Manila. The group wants to investigate and impeach President Benigno Aquino lll and Budget Secretary Florencio Abad, as the masterminds and main architects of the Disbursement Allocation Program. NIÑO JESUS ORBETA
Tiangco said Lacierda’s statement appeared to be a departure from President Aquino’s avowal of “tuwid na daan (righteous path),” in which “no one will be spared from any investigation whether a political ally or not.”
“What Malacañang did was clearly in ‘A-bad faith’,” Tiangco said, making a pun on the Cabinet member’s name.
He said the executive could not just give a blanket decree absolving anyone from liability without the benefit of any investigation.
Tiangco further expressed frustration with how Malacañang was purportedly treating his “yellow allies” with kid gloves, even those who were directly involved in the multi-billion-peso pork barrel and DAP controversies.
He noted that Lacierda also defended and cleared Abad from the P10 billion pork barrel scam allegedly masterminded by businesswoman Janet Lim-Napoles in connivance with several lawmakers, dismissing the charges as malicious and ridiculous.
The Navotas representative said he wanted Abad to enlighten the public on how the people’s money was funneled to finance supposed “high-impact” projects like the “Corona impeachment trial, the P250million congressional e-Library, and P135-million spy gadgets purchased by the Presidential Security Group (PSG), to name a few.”
“Why would Lacierda insist that Secretary Abad—who is considered the brains behind DAP— did not personally gain from it? P170 billion is not spare change… He needs to explain what he did with the people’s money,” he said.
Tiangco said Abad skirted the legal process in moving public funds, and exercised the power of appropriation exclusively reserved to Congress.
He said he expected the Department of Justice and the Office of the Ombudsman to look into the dealings of the Department of Budget and Management the same way the agencies did in the pork barrel scam.
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