Apologists of the now-criminalised Malacanang slush fund, the notorious Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) are regrouping and striking back. The arguments they present are two-phased:
(1) Proposing that the Supreme Court may have been “wrong” in their ruling the DAP unconstitutional; and,
(2) Citing a certain Chapter 5, Section 49 of the Administrative Code of 1987 that provides for justification to “Use Savings [in appropriations made under the General Appropriations Act for a given fiscal year] for Certain Purposes”.
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Section of the Administrative Code stipulates that authority to execute said use of savings described in Item 2 above are entirely within the power of the President and the Budget Secretary if they are able to justify that these will be used for (a) “activities that will promote the economic well-being of the nation, including food production, agrarian reform, energy development, disaster relief, and rehabilitation,” and (b) “repair, improvement and renovation of government buildings and infrastructure and other capital assets damaged by natural calamities”.
Were DAP funds channeled to where they were really needed?
This angle in defense of the legality of the DAP was first proposed by journalist Raissa Robles in the blog post President Aquino’s dead mom, President Cory, may yet save her son from jail over DAP published the 8th July 2014 and was echoed by Philippine Star columnist Yoly Ong in her article So the public may know…and decide published on Rappler.
It is interesting to note that Ong is the chairperson of the advertising agency Campaigns & Grey which was responsible for the disastrous 2010 “Pilipinas Kay Ganda” ad campaign of the Department of Tourism which critics slammed as having plagiarised a logo used by the tourism promotion campaign of Poland.
Rappler ‘thought leader’
Yoly Ong
Those interesting bits of trivia aside, Ong adds nothing to the “debate” over what happens now that the DAP has been criminalised. But to be fair to the other, Robles merely cites in her blog post that the Law actually does provide the Executive branch “vast powers for fund juggling and for other things as well,” and that it may be high time that Congress “look at the Code and review the awesome powers it gives the President.”
If there is anyone guilty of journalistic omission here, it is Yoly Ong who turns Robles’s research on the details of the Supreme Court ruling (and omissions in this ruling) on the DAP into bald apologism in favour of President Benigno Simeon ‘BS’ Aquino III and his henchman Secretary Butch Abad. Rather than propose a sound argument on the matter, Ong, instead, profiles the “usual suspects” and “the most rabid attackers” of the Aquino government, naming not only various left-leaning groups who, she says, are hopping mad because their senatorial bets lost in 2010 but also…
[…] the unhappy politicians as represented by the devilishly striking spokesperson, who changed allegiance early on; the supporters of the 3 senators and the former president currently in jail for the non-bailable crime of plunder; the former budget secretary and national treasurer who tirelessly speak out on TV to point out the flaws of this government. (One was accused of involvement in a multimillion textbook scam; the other was said to be after an elusive post.)
There are the disgruntled elements in the Supreme Court who got bypassed, the mordant joker who actually authored the Administrative Code of 1987, and finally the “jukebox media” who play up whatever angle was paid for.
Hardly surprising that Rappler would give air time to such drivel.
While Robles says that the clause (Section 49 of Chapter 5 of the Administrative Code) missed in the SC rulings may potentially be used to save the hides of Aquino and Abad, she does point out reason to be skeptical about whether, indeed, good faith was applied in the way it was invoked by the Aquino administration in this instance…
How did Butch Abad and PNoy know about Section 49?
PNoy’s mom enacted the Code. Abad was once her Agrarian Reform secretary. My guess is, his department had benefited from the pooling of such savings since agrarian reform is one of the authorized activities to use such savings.
If PNoy can convince the court that his mom’s Administrative Code is what makes DAP legal and constitutional, then he can thank his mom for saving him from jail and the people’s wrath.
In short, the kernel of the argument remains the same: good faith. Was the DAP executed in its spirit or not? Part of the answer to that lies in regarding the question of why Philippine Senators needed to be in the loop in the decision-making process of where to spend it considering that, as Robles points out, the power is entirely within the jurisdiction of Malacanang to decide so.
benign0 is the Webmaster of GetRealPhilippines.com.
wrong use of the world criminalized. declaring an act of the President/Congress unconstitutional did not make the act criminal. you have to pass a law defining the act as criminal and you have to provide penalty thereof. SC does not pass a law, only Congress can. The pronouncement of the that a certain act is invalid according to the terms of the constitution is prospective in character, that henceforth the act could no longer be made.
Ha ha! Whatever you say, attorney. 😀
non fluent aphasic
Thomas Jefferson did not believe that the Supreme Court has the exclusive right to interpret the constitution.
Congress and the Executive departments can interpret the constitution too. In some European governments, it is their parliaments that interpret the constitution.
During Jefferson’s time, he saw the Supreme Court perverted the constitution. Just like the way many Filipinos saw how the Supreme Court perverted the constitution during Marcos to favor Marcos (Javellana ratification cases) and during GMA’s tenure ( that Corona can be appointed Chief Justice) or Justice George Malcom bent the Jones Law of 1916, (Jones Law serves as the organic law of RP during the colonial days) to favor Gov. General Leonard Wood over Manuel Luis Quezon.
Here is Jefferson:
“The judiciary of the United States is the subtle corps of sappers and miners constantly working underground to undermine the foundations of our confederated fabric.”
“In denying the right they usurp of exclusively explaining the constitution, I go further than you, if I understand right your quotation from the Federalist, of an opinion that the “judiciary is the last resort in relation to the other departments of the government, but not in relation to the rights of the parties to the compact under which the judiciary is derived.” If this opinion be sound, then indeed our constitution a complete felo de se. ( literal translation: the constitution is committing suicide) For intending to establish three departments, coordinate and independent, that they might check one another, it has given, according to this opinion, to one of them alone, the right to prescribe rules for the government of the others, and that one too, which is unelected by and independent of the nation. x x x The constitution, on this hypothesis, is mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they please. It should be remembered, as an axiom of eternal truth in politics, that whatever power in any government is independent, is absolute also” (Letter to Judge Spencer Roane, 1819).
So screw the ruling of the SC which says that the DAP is unconstitutional!
Oh look! The attorney with a small “a” who cheated the bar exams only to work with that profession for money but has actual zilch knowledge about laws is back. How’s your clients’ trial “attorney”?
Excuse me, but what does Thomas Jefferson’s opinion have to do with a legal decision in a republic independent of the United States (with its own independent legislature and judiciary), two hundred years after his death? Whichever side you take in the debate on the constitutionality of PDAF/DAP, your constant references to legal precedents OUTSIDE the Philippines are irrelevant and out if context.
OH NO YOU DON’T….do not try to pass of what Jefferson said.
The USA constitution says nothing about who interprets the USA constitution….NOTHING. it is not in the document.
The job was originally handled by The U.S. Senate and then was hijacked to the U.S. Supreme court by SC Chief Justice John Marshall in 1812. Marshall’s move was bordering on illegal, but no one prosecuted him! and it has stayed the way he rigged it ever since.
and BTW, the job of the judiciary(in the USA) is not to ‘interpret’ the Constitution,NO! The judiciaries job is to implement the law through its rulings in cases. All based on the existing laws passed by the legislature and signed into law by the Executive.
Ya Fuckin clown.
The provision: “If they are able to justify the use…” Did they justify to the people the use of that DAP Fund? Are there visible improvements on the country, arising from the use of the DAP Fund? Is there a systematic accounting and auditing system to “justify the use” of that fund? Where did the money went? To their foreign bank accounts?
I see the Philippines the same…there are no improvements in Agrarian Reform. We are still impoting rice from Vietnam…The NAIA Airport still stinks, to high heaven. The same way that Aquino administration stinks to high heaven.
Legal Technicalities or no legal technicalities. It is legalized stealing done by Aquino and Abad. Stealing is a crime…whatever way you sanitize it…they are Thieves and Criminals…
“The power of the government is not independent and absolute…” Governments are accountable to the people…unless it is a dictatorial government…maybe Aquino wants to become a dictator. He is already a thief…
This is the reason goverments must be transparent…to earn the trust and confidence of the people…
nonoy the turd, the lameduck abnoy, is/was already a dictator 25 years ago
http://rebus21.blogspot.com/2014/07/dictator-who.html
so what happened to my other comment Benign0? Did you delete it?
Because all you post here are absolute bs since you know nothing about laws attorney with a small “a”.
sorry, benign0, I thought you deleted it.. mea culpa.
Your “comments” may have been included in the DAP funds remitted to foreign bank accounts by Aquino, Abad, the Senators, the Congressmen, etc…sorry na lang…
Before you know it, you’ll be pretending that we banned you….hehe.
Welcome back, JCC. We missed you. Mwah! 😉
So the apologists of the yellow Tyrant Rex are now trying hard to correct the damage and the fallout. The Supreme Court made the decision to declare the DAP unconstitutional. Are the followers of the yellow Tyrant Rex trying to say that they know better than the Supreme Court? There will be more black/grey propaganda in the coming days intended to deceive the sovereign people.
Fallout from the manila standard…
http://www.manilastandardtoday.com/2014/07/13/fake-resignation/
Fallout from the Daily Tribune…
http://www.tribune.net.ph/headlines/abad-i-had-no-choice-but-to-stay
More fallout from the Daily Tribune…
http://www.tribune.net.ph/commentary/editorial/indispensable-rasputin
yes, what can we expect from a regime that is loaded with farce and filling up Philippine society full of sham and garbage?
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/618795/aquino-rejects-butch-abad-resignation
abnoy apologists = sc bashers
@jcc et. al.
Food for thought attorney…
“The principle of despotic government is subject to a continued corruption, because it is even in its nature corrupt.”
-Baron de Montesquieu
The separation of powers comprises the very framework of our democratic, republican form of government. How dare you say that the checks and balances of the Supreme Court as the final arbiter of the law that should an act of the executive or the legislature be declared unconstitutional there is no criminal liability? If this were so, then every abuse in illegal and unconstitutional acts committed by them will be an inutile act by the very branch of government that is there to uphold the law and the Constitution. Your context on Thomas Jefferson against the Supreme Court is not accurate nor does it apply in our scenario. Despotism occurs in government when evil men decide to abuse the law and the Constitution. Hence criminal prosecution applies in our present laws.
@jcc et.al.
Criminal laws that can apply:
1. Plunder
2. Anti-graft and Corrupt Practices Act.
3. Malversation
Name others jcc… if you can. LoL!
On the other hand jcc do not bother to reply… I have an entire listing of applicable criminal laws that can apply against the PDAF and DAP crowd in malacanang including their allies in the legislature.
Isnt it wrong for an individual to attack the ruling of the SC when it made an appeal to reconsideration? No pun intended I”m not familiar with the law. Or is pnoy exempted because he is the president for 2 more years?
Forgive me everyone for my ignorance, even if DAP was declared constitutional would it be criminal if it can not be accounted for? More so found squandered on the whims of the powers that be?