Escudero shuns critics over Senate's 'biased' DAP probe

MANILA, Philippines - Senate Finance Committee Chair Senator Francis Escudero shunned criticisms on Friday over the apparent bias shown by administration allies for Budget Secratary Butch Abad on the Disbursement Acceleration (DAP) issue at the Senate on Thursday.

"We cannot dictate to our colleagues  on what they can and cannot ask during the hearing or if they will side (with the resource persons) or if they will shout at them," Escudero said in an interview.

"We cannot limit and control that. What is important is that they were given a chance to answer and the public were able to listen to their explanation," the senator said.

With the recent developments, Escudero reiterated that Abad and the other Cabinet secretaries will still need to explain further their request for budget approval once Congress starts to deliberate the 2015 proposed national budget.

As this developed, Senators Nancy Binay and Grace Poe said that somebody should be held accountable for DAP.

Binay also wants Abad to account for the P 90-billion in government savings, which were not part of the DAP allocations. 

“Dapat mayroong managot. Remember that this is the people’s money that we are talking about and there is still P90 billion missing in the government’s ‘savings’. Secretary Abad owes the Filipino people an explanation on where these funds went,” Binay said.

Poe shared Binay's call that the use of savings- apart from DAP- should be made public by the administration.

“Nakikita natin na marami tayong savings—m arami tayong naipon, ang problema lang natin ay yung pinagkagastusan ng naipon natin, di lahat ay napunta sa tamamg paraan. Dapat itong liwanagin,” Poe said.

It was Binay who pointed out in last Thursday's hearing that some appropriations did not fall under the Department of Budget and Management’s list of projects funded by the controversial program. The DBM listed 116 projects funded by the DAP.

Based on records, DBM gave the Commission on Elections (Comelec) an additional funding worth P4.1 billion intended to be used to purchase precinct count optical scan machines for the 2013 midterm polls. The request for additional funding was made after its proposed P17 billion budget was cut down to P7 billion.

It can be recalled that Commission on Audit (COA) chief Grace Pulido-Tan admitted that the commission received P5 million budget for purchase of vehicle supposedly taken from the P143 million funding for the agency’s IT infrastructure program and hiring of litigation experts. 

Tan made the admission when she was confronted by Sen. Jinggoy Estrada during the budget deliberations of the agency last year.

During the hearing, Binay then asked Abad why COA’s vehicle request did not reflect in the DAP list.

Binay said she was surprised to learn from Abad that the P4.1 billion given to Comelec did not come from DAP and it appeared that aside from the list of projects whose funds came from the DAP, there is another savings mechanism where funds for other government projects are sourced.

“The funding released to Comelec and COA were not listed under the 116 projects funded by DAP. It appears that there is another list of projects— mga proyekto po na binibigyan ng DBM ng pondo galing sa regular savings,” Binay noted.

“Secretary Abad failed to answer where these funds were sourced. Kung hindi po ito kinuha sa DAP, saan ho ito nanggaling?," Binay added.

"Hindi pa ho tapos ang ating pag-uusisa sa kung saan nailagak ang tinatawag na savings ng ating bayan. Lahat po ng ito ay dapat ma-account ni Secretary Abad at ng DBM— saan ito napunta at sino ang nakinabang,” Binay said.