Anti-‘pork’ group targets lump sums in 2015 budget

MANILA, Philippines - A group opposing the controversial discretionary funds of both the executive and legislative branches yesterday assailed the lump sum allocations in the 2015 budget that Malacañang had submitted to the House of Representatives last week.

The Reform PH Movement led by former Manila councilor Greco Belgica, one of the petitioners in both Supreme Court (SC) decisions striking down the controversial Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) and Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF), vowed to pursue legal action should Congress pass the proposed budget for next year.

“The lump sums in the proposed 2015 budget are worse. Criminal charges can be filed against officials who will utilize lump sum and discretionary funds, except for calamity and contingency funds we did not assail in the pork barrel system case,” Belgica told The STAR yesterday.

He explained that the high court, in its decision on PDAF last year, clearly declared all lump sums and discretionary appropriations – except for the calamity and contingency – as unconstitutional.

“The government cannot use tradition to justify lump sums in the 2015 budget, including the almost doubled special purpose funds, which is a presidential pork, from P285 billion to P501 billion without breaking the law,” he argued.

Belgica said their group would not hesitate to again question before SC the proposed 2015 budget if passed by Congress later this year.

“Congress must not allow pork barrel to re-emerge in the budget, as lump sums and discretionary funds castrate Congress of their power over the purse and prejudice not just Congress but the entire nation by assigning unbridled power to one man and the executive department,” he appealed.

Belgica also urged the government to create an independent body of experts, lawyers and accountants to investigate DAP disbursements to determine possible liabilities of officials.

He said probers should include those who did not receive DAP and should not be senators and congressmen who have benefited from the funds.

“We suggest that recipients of DAP inhibit themselves from participating in the independent investigation while attending to provide quorum if they don’t want to resign their duly elected post. We need to be sober and reflective of our next steps,” he suggested.

Belgica earlier accused the Palace of “protecting the accused, perpetrators, implementers and creators of the DAP from investigation and possible criminal prosecution” after President Aquino rejected the resignation of Budget Secretary Florencio Abad, the architect of DAP.  

In a 92-page decision last month penned by Associate Justice Lucas Bersamin, the high court held that the acts and practices under the DAP violated the constitutional doctrine of separation of powers and the provision prohibiting inter-branch transfer of appropriations.

Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio and Associate Justice Arturo Brion cited possible liabilities of the President and Abad in their separate opinions in the ruling declaring DAP unconstitutional even as they stressed that ruling on these issues is beyond the power of the high court.

In his 27-page concurring opinion, Carpio said it is no less than President Aquino who violated the constitutional doctrine of separation of powers of the three equal branches of government in approving the DAP releases that amounted to over P149 billion from October 2011 to September 2013.

The magistrate cited the admission of Abad before the high court that the DAP, National Budget Circular No. 541 and related executive issuances were approved by the President.

Carpio said what was more puzzling is that a “majority in the Senate and in the House of Representatives support the DAP and NBC 541 when these executive acts actually castrate the power of the purse of Congress.”

Brion, for his part, detailed the possible culpabilities Abad.

Brion believes that Abad cannot invoke good faith in justifying the DAP that he created.