Another impeachment rap filed vs Aquino

MANILA, Philippines —  Another impeachment complaint was filed against President Aquino on Monday over the controversial Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP).

Calling the DAP as "one man's pork barrel," the 26 complainants led by Bagong Alyansang Makabayan secretary-general Renato Reyes Jr. and Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption chairman Dante Jimenez filed the 78-page impeachment complaint before the House of Representatives and the Office of the Ombudsman.

The signatories claimed that Aquino transferred DAP funds from project to project "on his mere whim."

"The DAP is not only fiscally and economically unsound but also evil. It not only destroys accountability but worse, spends public funds according to the discretion of just one man, the President," the document states.

The complaint is the second filed against Aquino over the DAP controversy following the Supreme Court's decision to declare the mechanism reallocating supposed savings as "unconstitutional."

Read: Impeachment complaint filed vs Aquino

The signatories said that the action follows the high court's advise to seek accountability for the illegal acts and practices under the DAP.

It argued that the DAP is similar to the scrapped Priority Development Assistance Funds or congressional pork barrel, which was the source of the scam that allegedly involved Senators Juan Ponce Enrile, Jinggoy Estrada and Bong Revilla.

"That DAP is pork can be seen so clearly in the lump-sum discretionary spending that allowed P17.3 billion in extra pork for lawmakers, P6.5 billion in extra pork for LGU’s, or the P2 billion roadworks for the President’s home province of Tarlac," the complaint says.

The Aquino administration's defense of DAP as created and implemented "in good faith" was called a bad precedent for any public official deemed to violate the Constitution.