Abad’s bad DAP

We value our reputations while Secretary Butch Abad does not care one whit. Take the DAP scandal. Mr. Abad included me as the recipient of P47 million. I protested. He clarified the matter in a letter to me a year ago dated 30 September 2013, the pertinent portion which reads:

“While we wholly agree with you that the funds were not sourced from your Priority Development Assistance Funds allocations - which you never availed of – we would like to clarify that the P47-million release was not sourced from amendments to the 2013 GAA, but was instead charged against the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP). This is because the 2013 GAA amendments you proposed were not approved by the Congress during the budget deliberations. You may check the GAA 2012 if you wish to validate this clarification.”

Abad’s letter says 1) that I never avail of PDAF, 2) that the P47 million I proposed during the budget deliberations was not approved by Congress, 3) that it was charged instead against DAP by the DBM.

Yes, I never avail of PDAF. Yes, I proposed to Congress that P30 million be allotted for the construction of 3 school buildings in 3 high schools and P17 million for indigent patients to be entrusted to the PGH, Lung Center, Kidney Center, Heart Center and the Bicol General Hospital, my advocacy in my 21 years in the House and thereafter, the Senate. This was disapproved by my colleagues. I accepted their refusal in good grace as the judgment of my peers, in light of my being an independent.

Thus, I have never ever asked nor received from Sec. Abad or DBM P47M from DAP.

In his letter, Sec. Abad justified his initiative to allocate P47 million of DAP to me because “they were in line with the Aquino administration’s development agenda, particularly with respect to providing quality education and health care services to disadvantaged Filipinos.”

Abad was being disingenuous. Congress disapproved my proposal for P47 million funding. The Budget Secretary in effect overruled the judgment of Congress, and appropriated P47 million to me from DAP.

The Budget Secretary, by his lonesome self and at his level, does not have the authority to allocate at his discretion funds for certain projects and assign its disbursements to legislators, LGUs, and other agencies. This is the core issue of DAP.

Was Mr. Abad’s initiative borne out of altruism? No, its evil geniusness. I voted to acquit C.J. Corona in the impeachment trial. To show that the administration is impartial, Mr. Abad bestowed upon me, for appearances, P47 million of DAP funds to squander even if it did not even pass thru me.

We are talking of an estimated P150 billion of DAP. Nobody knows the exact figure because DBM has not been forthcoming.

DAP is the anti-thesis of daang matuwid, the President’s battle cry. The President cannot keep on waving that banner when Mr. Abad keeps on dragging it down.

The Supreme Court perhaps would do well to take judicial notice into the humungous amounts involved to see how the Budget Secretary distributed amounts with complete abandon.