Loss of DAP shelves P2B in DILG projects–Roxas

Interior Secretary Manuel “Mar” Roxas II: Postponed projects. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

CEBU CITY, Philippines—Over P2 billion worth of Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) projects have been placed on hold after the Supreme Court struck down portions of the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) for being unconstitutional, Interior Secretary Mar Roxas said on Monday.

“I have ordered the review of all ‘unobligated’ projects which have yet to be bidded out or covered by contracts,” Roxas told reporters on the sidelines of the League of Municipalities of the Philippines convention at the Waterfront Hotel here.

“We will temporarily postpone these projects in deference to the Supreme Court decision,” he added.

Roxas said that more than P4.5-billion worth of projects implemented by the DILG were funded through the DAP, whose controversial creation has been credited to Budget Secretary Butch Abad.

Roxas said that more than P2 billion had been allocated to the procurement of firearms and other equipment for the Philippine National Police as part of its modernization program.

About the same amount, he said, had been earmarked for various socioeconomic projects under the Transformational Investment Support Program for the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

The rest of the money went to “smaller projects” of the department, Roxas said.

“We are giving additional assistance to the local government units in the ARMM since the poverty incidence in that area is higher than in other regions,” he said.

Because of the Supreme Court decision, Roxas said the PNP would have to forego 900 patrol vehicles that were to be distributed to each municipality in the country.

Roxas, meanwhile, downplayed insinuations a P20-billion assistance fund released to various towns and provinces was similar to the DAP and the pork barrel of lawmakers.

The financial aid, which the Aquino administration distributed through its Grassroots Participatory Budgeting Process, or “bottom-up budgeting,” was approved by Congress under the General Appropriations Act, Roxas said.

He denied the funds were being used by the DILG to court mayors and governors in support of his purported 2016 presidential bid.

“These funds are being given out equally to the mayors and governors regardless of their political affiliation based on the proposals they and people’s organizations had proposed to combat poverty in their communities,” Roxas said.

“This only becomes an issue because some people want to see evil in the implementation of this program,” he said.