Aquino asks his execs to rebutt Binay point by point

Vice President Jejomar Binay has not heard the last of it from President Benigno Aquino III.

And if the President directed his Cabinet secretaries to respond to Binay’s allegations “with specifics,” he himself would handle the controversies “on the level of principles and values.”

“He said, ‘I will respond on the levels of principles and values because that is why I am President. We are pursuing very important priorities on the basis of principles that we hold dear,’” Budget Secretary Florencio “Butch” Abad told the Inquirer on Friday.

Binay resigned from the Cabinet on Monday to lead the opposition in preparing for next year’s national election.

In a televised address to the nation on Wednesday, he criticized the Aquino administration as “insensitive” to the plight of the poor and “inept,” and said the charges of corruption that the President’s allies had leveled against him would not stop him from running for President next year.

Responding on Thursday, Mr. Aquino said he gave Binay a high-profile job in the government to save him from becoming a “spare tire.”

Overseeing the administration’s housing and migrant workers affairs programs enabled Binay to maintain his high ratings after the 2010 elections, Mr. Aquino said.

“And then this is how he repaid me,” Mr. Aquino told reporters, referring to Binay’s attack after leaving the Cabinet.

Officials told to explain

Unstung, Binay carried on during a visit to Navotas City on Friday, blasting the administration for making life harder for the poor.

Abad said he received instructions from the President on Thursday afternoon to answer Binay’s allegation that the budget department withheld the internal revenue allotment (IRA) for 2013.

“[The President’s] instruction was let’s first deal with the specifics that came out and let the people with their own competencies respond to them,” Abad said, referring to Cabinet officials like him whose projects or programs were identified by Binay in his attacks against the administration.

Abad said the President wanted his officials to “explain to the public at least once and tell them [the real] score with respect to those [allegations].”

Other Cabinet officials apparently received the same instructions.

Justice Secretary Leila de Lima disputed Binay’s claim that the administration is resorting to “selective justice” in prosecuting public officials accused of corruption.

DAP, pork barrel scam

Yesterday, Binay zeroed in on Abad, charging that the budget secretary had gotten away with his roles in the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP), which the Supreme Court had struck down, and the pork barrel scam.

Responding, Abad said, “His problem is either he does not understand or refuses to understand the [Supreme Court] decision on [the] DAP.”

“The [Supreme Court] did not make any findings of wrongdoing or graft in its decision. In fact, in its latest decision, the [court] reiterated [more clearly] the doctrine of operative fact, which presumes our acts and decisions with respect to [the] DAP regular and done in good faith,” he said.

He said it was the “obiter dictum” in the original DAP decision of the Supreme Court that “tended to undermine the presumption of innocence and the regularlity of acts of officials when performing their functions.”

Obiter dictum is Latin for “by the way,” a remark made in passing in a court decision that does not affect the judge’s final resolution.

Not blind defense

Abad said the second decision of the Supreme Court, based on the government’s motion for reconsideration, “effectively removed that obiter.”

He added that when President Aquino defended his officials from issues such as the DAP, “it was not a blind defense.”

“He also confronted us, the President. He [asked] us what the real score was,” Abad said.

When the DAP controversy fell hard on the administration, Abad said he offered to resign from the Cabinet not as an admission of wrongdoing but as an acknowledgment of the fallout that “unnecessarily led to the [temporary erosion of the President’s credibility].”

Abad said he also explained to the President that he was never involved in the pork barrel scam.

‘Hypocritical’

He said he found it “a little hypocritical” for Binay to be “ranting about these things because he is also a recipient of the PDAF (Priority Development Assistance Fund).”

“Two housing agencies he chaired, the NHA (National Housing Authority) and [the] HGC (Home Guaranty Corp.), received P11.450 billion in DAP funds in October 2011. He never raised any issue when the two agencies received and used those funds. Why was it OK then, and not OK now [after] he [has left the] government? When was he telling the truth?” Abad said.

IRA released

As for the IRA that Binay claimed was withheld, Abad said his department released the 2013 IRA on Jan. 10 that year. For this year, the IRA was released on Jan. 8.

“Since 2012, we have been releasing the IRAs comprehensively … meaning 100 percent. The [Local Government Code] requires [quarterly release] but in our case, it is 100 percent and we release it automatically, which means there are no conditions. We don’t require the [local governments] to do anything as a condition for the release,” Abad said.