SC defers anew TRO on DAP

MANILA, Philippines - For the second time, the Supreme Court (SC) has deferred ruling on pleas to temporarily stop the distribution of President Aquino’s Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) funds.

In a special session yesterday, SC justices instead decided to first hear the urgent motion filed by former Iloilo congressman and former Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) chief Augusto Syjuco Jr., seeking a temporary restraining order (TRO)  on the release of DAP funds by Malacañang for calamity response purposes.

This means there remains no legal impediment for Malacañang to tap the DAP funds to augment relief and rehabilitation operations in Central Visayan provinces devastated by a 7.2-magnitude earthquake last week.

SC spokesman Theodore Te said an oral argument on the case has been set on Nov. 11 at 10 a.m.

“The court deferred the issuance of a TRO against the DAP and National Budget Circular No. 541 dated July 18, 2002 as prayed for by petitioner Syjuco,” he said in a press briefing.

The high court tackled on Oct. 8 the prayer for TRO on DAP in the six petitions filed by Syjuco, lawyers Jose Malvar Villegas Jr. and Manuelito Luna, Philippine Constitution Association (Philconsa), Integrated Bar of the Philippines and the Bayan Muna, Kabataan and Gabriela party-list groups.

The SC then had also deferred ruling on the plea and opted to first require the Palace and the Senate to answer the petitions. It also set an oral argument on Oct. 22, which was moved to Nov. 19.

The high tribunal granted the plea of the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG), which represents the Palace in this case, in its opposition and manifestation seeking more time to file its comment. The OSG asked to be heard first before the high court decides on whether to issue the TRO or not.

Asked if the Nov. 19 schedule was cancelled, Te said he has no such information.

“We will just know what will happen on Nov. 11,” he said.

In his motion filed last Monday, Syjuco asked the high court to issue a TRO enjoining the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) from touching the DAP, specifically for purposes of aiding victims of the earthquake.

He filed the motion after Budget Secretary Florencio Abad announced that the government intends to use the DAP funds in helping victims of the earthquake supposedly because the calamity and contingency funds are almost depleted.

Syjuco said the DBM website reveals a remaining P6.95 billion in calamity funds, rebutting Abad’s claim.

In the same pleading, the former lawmaker reiterated that the DAP is illegal due to lack of law duly passed by Congress authorizing its appropriation and release.

Petitioners have argued that the Constitution prohibits transfer of funds between branches of government without an enabling law.

They cited Article XXV Section 24 and Article VI Section 25 of the Constitution in questioning the legality of the DAP.

The first provision gives Congress exclusive “power of the purse” while the second requires a law in transferring appropriations from one government branch to another.

Petitioners also argued that the Constitution restricts augmentation of budgets of the offices of the President, the president of the Senate, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the chief justice of the Supreme Court, and the heads of constitutional commissions by their respective savings.  

A seventh petition was filed yesterday questioning the legality of the DAP by losing senatorial candidate Greco Belgica, who earlier also filed a similar petition against the controversial Priority Development Assistance Fund or congressional pork barrel.  

‘End DAP’

Meanwhile, former senator Panfilo Lacson called on President Aquino to put an end to the controversial DAP before the Supreme Court declares it as unconstitutional.

In a speech before the Philconsa, Lacson said the DAP itself was neither bad nor illegal, but the way it was carried out by the DBM was flawed.

He said that the act of augmenting non-existing items in the General Appropriations Act (GAA) and realigning savings in the budget of the executive branch to the legislature are unconstitutional.

Lacson challenged the argument of the administration that the DAP-related funds were used to augment existing items in the GAA such as the roads and bridges items in the budget of the Department of Public Works and Highways.

“If the programs and projects were actual budgetary items in the GAA, why was there a need for the endorsement of legislators?” Lacson said.

“If the projects did not appear in the GAA and therefore still to be identified by the legislator recipients of additional PDAF under DAP, clearly, there were no items in the 2011 and 2012 GAAs to be augmented. Worse, the realignment crossed over from the executive branch to the legislative,” he added.

Lacson said he was surprised by the existence of the DAP, which the administration supposedly came up with in 2011 to address its problem of underspending, just like every other legislator in the Senate and the House of Representatives because none of them knew about it.

It was revealed by the DBM that P50 million to P100 million in additional pork barrel allocations were given to most senators in 2012, after the conviction of former chief justice Renato Corona in his impeachment trial at the Senate.

The funds were reportedly sourced from savings in the 2011 GAA, which Lacson said consisted of unused appropriations and unobligated allotments totaling P238.8 billion.

“The DBM said that only nine percent of the total P142.23 billion was allocated to the legislators in 2011 and 2012. That is correct, nine percent or P12.8 billion and the P12.8 billion was 51 percent of the entire P24.8 billion in pork barrel funds allocated to legislators every year,” Lacson said.

He said that the executive branch has a substantial amount of “savings” at its disposal.

For the period of 2012, Lacson noted that the government had P216.1 billion in unused appropriations, P71.4 billion in earmarked revenues, P163.3 billion in continuing appropriations, overall savings of P65.6 billion and unprogrammed funds of P152.8 billion.

“Therefore, just in the 2012 GAA alone, we could end up with a whopping P669 billion, which can be generated for the DAP,” Lacson said.

“As a former colleague in the Senate who can personally attest to the honesty and incorruptibilty of President Aquino, I want to help him succeed in his well-intentioned ‘daang matuwid (straight path)’ vision for this benighted land, but he must initiate the move to correct the mistake of a constitutionally infirm act of augmenting non-existing items in the GAA, and worse, realigning savings in the budget of the executive branch to the legislature in obvious violation of Article VI Section 25 of the 1987 Constitution,” Lacson said. -With Marvin Sy