They’re pressuring SC to restore pork barrels

What has government done with the proposal of giant San Miguel Corp. to put up a new $10-billion Manila International Airport? The last the public heard about it was the transportation secretary saying, “I will study it.” That was days after Malacañang last May endorsed to him the plan that SMC top executives had presented.

Hailed in business circles, the SMC is to build a modern facility just 20 minutes from the congested Ninoy Aquino International Airport. Site is an 800-hectare reclamation along the Manila-Cavite coastal road, with four runways — double the size of the one-runway NAIA. It is to be as build-operate-transfer, same as the NAIA Terminal-3. Just that, the latter was so fraught with sleaze that, though unfinished, it was run-down in just a decade. A B-O-T unsolicited proposal is subject to open competitive bidding by way of Swiss challenge. Having learned painful lessons from the NAIA-3, the Dept. of Transport and Communication should apply the original proponent’s terms of reference, unlike in the NAIA-3 when it awarded the project to a non-compliant dummy-challenger.

The DOTC “study” is taking so long. Hopefully it has not been shelved until everyone forgets. The NAIA will hit overcapacity in three years, according to independent studies.

This is not the first time the DOTC is foot-dragging on an original proposal. Two years ago it heard a plan by Metro Pacific Group to buy out the government loans of the Metro Rail Transit Corp. and take over Metro Manila’s MRT-3. No wonder the DOTC “forgot” all about it. Its brass had another idea — to pocket the $1.15-million monthly maintenance budget through a fledgling, undercapitalized front company.

Before that R-II Builders had proposed to extend Manila’s Light Rail Transit Line 2 into Cavite. After sitting on the plan for years, the DOTC copied the terms of reference for use in a public bidding that predictably failed.

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If the Judiciary Development Fund (JDF) truly is the “pork barrel” of the Supreme Court, then abolishing it is but proper. No branch of government has the right to spend the people’s money at will. The Legislature, with the power of the purse, funds projects but may not invent their own, for member’s personal promotion or profit. The Executive, with the power to use the funds, may use good judgment to schedule but never juggle the releases. The Judiciary, with the power to review the legality of their acts, may declare them in excess but not overrule their powers to guard over the funds. On that solid demarcation of turfs stands the tripod of democracy.

Created by Marcos decree, the JDF is a pool of court fees and bonds collected from litigants. Administration of the fund is left to the SC, under the Constitutional guarantee of fiscal independence. Use of the billions of pesos a year supposedly is for improvement of the justice system, including equipping and computerizing of courthouses. But the SC distributes a good slice to its members, lower justices and judges, and personnel as additional allowances. Good governance advocates find this questionable, arguing that if the Judiciary needs extra perks, then the SC must ask Congress so, and not overstep the budgeting process. Twice has the House of Representatives strived to impeach two Chief Justices for it — the second successfully, although it did not bring up the issue during the Senate trial, in favor of the easier-to-prove offense of unexplained wealth. So the JDF’s integrity remains in question.

Yet something about the abolition of this SC “pork” leaves a bad taste in the mouth: its motive. The Legislative and the Executive are doing it out of personal spite, not out of principle. Because the SC last Nov. illegalized the congressional pork barrel (Priority Development Assistance Fund, PDAF) and the other week the presidential version (Disbursement Acceleration Program, DAP), then they would deprive the SC too of its JDF.

Proof of the combined ill motive in going after the JDF comes from President Noynoy Aquino no less. Threateningly said he last Monday in closing his TV-simulcast defense of his illegalized DAP: “My message to the Supreme Court: We do not want two equal branches of government to go head to head, needing a third branch to step in to intervene. We find it difficult to understand your decision. You had done something similar in the past, and you tried to do it again; there are even those of the opinion that what you attempted to commit was graver, if we were to base it on your decision. Abiding by the principle of ‘presumption of regularity,’ we assumed that you did the right thing; after all, you are the ones who should ostensibly have a better understanding of the law. And now, when we use the same mechanism — which, you yourselves have admitted, benefit our countrymen — why is it then that we are wrong?”

That was the signal to attack. On cue the next day P-Noy’s congressional allies filed a resolution to scrutinize the JDF, and a bill to limit the SC’s power over it. P-Noy came out with more scathing words against the SC. The Commission on Audit leaked out an old finding against the use of the JDF as stipends. This is the same “independent” agency that had partaken of the DAP (P145 million for “poverty alleviating” new limousines and computers) in a “cross-border” disbursement that the SC found particularly objectionable. This is the same agency that to this day has not audited the P136-billion (or is it P142 billion, or P150 billion, or P157 billion?) DAP since 2011-2012.

Particularly worrisome about this ill motivation against the JDF is the intended outcome: for the SC to flip-flop and restore the PDAF and DAP. Meaning, a return to the political elite’s free spending of the people’s money. Meaning too, no more need to disband political dynasties, and to free up the electoral system in a sweep of political reforms.

Will the SC relent? The answer will come shortly, in its ruling on P-Noy’s forthcoming motion to reverse the DAP illegalization, and in plots to impeach the SC justices.

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