MANILA, Philippines — President Benigno Aquino III and Budget Secretary Florencio Abad should now be held accountable for inventing and "abusing" the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) after the Supreme Court (SC) declared parts of it unconstitutional, a lawmaker said on Tuesday.
Kabataan Partylist Representative Terry Ridon, one of the petitioners in the high court against the DAP, said they will now be preparing all necessary charges against officials involved in the implementation of the controversial stimulus fund.
"But more important is that this constitutes the impeachable offense of culpable violation of the constitution and betrayal of public trust,” Ridon said moments after the release of the SC decision.
Ridon said that the SC decision on the DAP is a "solid ground" for culpable violation of the Constitution and betrayal of public trust, both of which are impeachable offenses.
"It will greatly bolster the case against President Aquino," Ridon said.
"It is a daunting task (Aquino's impeachment), but we are prepared to fight," he added, noting the dominance of Aquino's allies in both houses of Congress.
As for Abad, Ridon said the Cabinet official can be charged with malversation of public funds at "the bare minimum."
"Abad clearly committed malversation in crafting and implementing the multibillion peso DAP. We will file the appropriate charges against him at the soonest," the neophyte lawmaker said.
DAP junked! Charges to follow vs all involved, inc. impeach offense of culpable violation of the constitution and betrayal of public trust.
— Terry Ridon (@terryridon) July 1, 2014 The Aquino administration introduced the DAP in 2011 to supposedly boost the economy.
The fund scheme, which realigns government savings from stalled projects to speed up other programs, went underfire last year for being allegedly unconstitutional and for being deemed as the pork barrel of Aquino.
It received criticisms after Senator Jinggoy Estrada revealed in a privilege speech that officials who voted for the conviction of former SC Chief Justice Renato Corona were given additional funds with the DAP as the source.
This prompted Aquino to make a rare appearance on primetime television to defend his administration's DAP.
He insisted that the fund scheme was legal and denied that he used this to pocket public funds.
"The DAP is not theft. Theft is illegal. Spending through DAP is clearly allowed by the Constitution and by other laws. DAP is only a name for a process in which government can spend both savings and new and additional revenues," Aquino said in a speech in October 2013.
Aquino further claimed that government programs and agencies reaped benefits from the DAP, such as the Project NOAH of the Department of Science and Technology.
The President also claimed that according to the World Bank, the DAP contributed 1.3 percentage points to the gross domestic product growth of the country in the fourth quarter of 2011.
Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago, even if she opposes the DAP, has said that an impeachment complaint against Aquino over the controversial DAP will fail.
The Senator said Aquino should be proven first that he intended to misappropriate the funds released under the DAP.
"Even theoretically, I don't think that he would qualify for impeachment. And besides, in reality it's not going to work. It will not play out because he is in control of the House of Representatives and the Senate," Santiago said in a television interview last year. -Louis Bacani