Diokno refutes claim of DAP-like provisions in 2017 budget

Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno on Monday refuted a youth solon’s claim that there are provisions in the proposed 2017 budget that bring back the mechanism of the outlawed Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP).

During the Development Budget Coordinating Committee meeting on Monday at the House of Representatives, Kabataan Rep. Sarah Jane Elago cited Section 59 of the proposed General Appropriations Act for 2017 which stated that savings can be modified instead of realigned.

Under the 2017 budget, savings are defined as a “portion or balance of any released appropriations … which have not been obligated” due to completion or discontinuance of the project.

Elago said the realignment of savings allowed in the 2016 budget has been redefined as modification in the 2017 budget, which smacks of the mechanism similar to the DAP, the savings impounding mechanism under the previous Aquino administration.

The Supreme Court ruled as unconstitutional the cross-border transfer practice of realigning savings under the DAP, which critics slammed as the presidential pork barrel.

READ: SC affirms ruling vs DAP

“Section 59 replaced the term realignment in the previous budget with modification … It is worrying for us to allow agencies to modify the allotment under exceptional circumstances. This is very much like DAP,” Elago said.

Diokno said the exceptional circumstances that allow the modification of allotment from savings only pertain to personal services, but even this expense item is not allowed to be transferred to other expense item which would be a violation of the Supreme Court decision.

“I know I have changed the definition of savings in this budget, different from the definition of savings in the last post-DAP budget. If you see any provision that is consistent with the Supreme Court decision, call my attention,” Diokno told the lawmaker.

“Ang position ko kasi, realignment is not in the language of the Constitution. We have to generate savings to augment an item in the budget… You are allowed modification only with respect to the personal services (PS). That’s it. But you will not be allowed to transfer it from PS to another expense class,” Diokno said.

Diokno assured the lawmaker that he would not allow the DAP mechanism, concocted by his predecessor Aquino’s budget secretary Florencio Abad, to be back in the budget, having been a petitioner before the Supreme Court against the DAP.

“I’m telling you, I’m one of those petitioners of DAP. I will not dare violate the Supreme Court decision,” Diokno said.

Elago said “legal loopholes” such as this should also be looked at to prevent the “opening of floodgates akin to the issue of DAP.”

“If the administration is sincere in its drive and corruption, patronage politics and pork must be excised in whatever form,” Elago said. JE