‘Someone must be sacrificed for DAP’

MANILA, Philippines - Sen. Cynthia Villar said yesterday that the clamor for accountability on the issue of the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) of the administration would not end until someone is actually axed, be it Budget Secretary Florencio Abad or somebody else.

Villar said that she would not go as far as asking someone to resign but she was certain that public outcry would not subside until someone is held accountable.

“This will not end until someone is sacrificed. So it’s still a matter of determining who will be sacrificed in order to put an end to this,” Villar said.

Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago previously called on Abad to resign in order to spare the President from further embarrassment over the DAP, parts of which were recently declared as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

The SC last week declared the DAP unconstitutional after savings pooled under the program were allocated to programs, activities, and projects not covered by the General Appropriations Act.

Senator Francis Escudero said that any claims about the President or Abad being involved in any wrongdoing regarding DAP must be supported by evidence.

As far as Escudero is concerned, the most important thing that Abad could do right now is to come out and explain to the public all the details about the DAP.

The DAP only came out after Senator Jinggoy Estrada revealed that senators received additional funds after the impeachment trial of former chief justice Renato Corona, which many took as something akin to a reward for the conviction of Corona.

At the time Estrada delivered his speech, he and other senators had no idea about the existence of DAP.

It was only when Malacañang tried to explain the allocation mentioned by Estrada that the DAP came out for the first time.

Almost all of the senators received P50 million except for three who received more.

Senate President Franklin Drilon, chairman of the Committee on Finance at the time, received P100 million in DAP funds.

Minority Leader Juan Ponce Enrile, who was Senate president in 2012, received P92 million while Escudero was allocated P99 million.

Senator Antonio Trillanes IV acknowledged that he received P50 million from the DAP although as far as his office was concerned, it was part of his PDAF for that year.

“Just to clarify, this P50 million is not in the form of cash, but rather fund allocations for projects identified by legislators,” Trillanes said.

He provided the Senate media a copy of his letter to Enrile and Drilon for their endorsement to the Department of Budget and Management for the release of the P50 million of his PDAF for various projects.

Trillanes also provided a list of projects where the P50 million was used.