Senate President Franklin Drilon. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines – Senate President Franklin Drilon is urging the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) to release all documents, including pertinent Special Allotment Release Orders (Saros), pertaining to the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) funds which were availed of by lawmakers.
“The records are with the DBM and Secretary Florencio Abad said that the DBM is conducting a thorough research on the matter. Upon the completion of its report, the DBM should release them for the sake of transparency,” Drilon said in a statement on Monday.
“These are public records and it is only right that the public be given access to these documents so that they can scrutinize and find out if public funds were indeed put for public use,” he said.
Drilon made the call following reports that lawmakers accounted for 90 percent of the DAP-Saros but could not verify the exact amount that went to them on top of their pork barrel funds.
The Senate leader also reiterated his earlier call for the Commission on Audit (COA) to conduct a comprehensive audit on the DAP, and investigate if there were red flags in the implementation.
A COA full-blown audit, he said, would find out if DAP funds were misspent.
“The COA should heed calls for a complete audit of DAP. Only a COA report would dispel fears that these funds were used for personal gains,” Drilon said.
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