MANILA, Philippines - The planned countrywide information drive on the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) targeting the grassroots will be no different from the usual touching base and interaction with the masses regularly done by President Aquino, Malacañang clarified yesterday.
“We have no schedule yet. And we have no particular itinerary or place where we will go because these events normally happen in the flow and form of presidential events (in the provinces),†Sonny Coloma, chief of the Presidential Communications Operations Office, said.
“If you will recall over the past three and a half years, it has been normal and regular for the President to go out of the National Capital Region and listen to what are the sentiments of the people on the ground,†he pointed out.
“There has been no change in that kind of orientation. And we don’t have to separate the DAP issue from other equally important issues that concern the country,†he said.
“It is not as if there is a special menu, or special schedule for that (dialogue),†he added.
Earlier, Coloma announced the President was going to the grassroots from Metro Manila to the farthest regions in the country to drum up support for DAP.
The United Nationalist Alliance (UNA), for its part, said Malacañang should suspend DAP out of “judicial courtesy.†“Malacañang should not ram DAP like mad while there are still pending petitions awaiting to be heard by the Supreme Court,†UNA secretary-general Toby Tiangco said.
He also said the planned nationwide information drive on DAP is an insult to the high court. — With Paolo Romero, Jose Rodel Clapano