Wrong road

P-Noy’s style of doing his job as president is really quite the opposite of what he is telling us. We the people are suppose to be his “Boss” according to him, yet he obstinately refuses to hear our persistent plea to stop using and disbursing lump sum public funds without a legislative authorization embodied in an enabling law known as the General Appropriations Act (GAA) required by our Constitution.

At the start of his term, there were already clamors to abolish the Congressional pork barrel better known as the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) because it has been a source of corruption and political patronage even if it is included in the GAA. Yet instead of heeding our plea, he even increased the PDAF from P9 billion to P25 billion. And not satisfied with a bloated PDAF he and his boys particularly his Secretary and alter ego in the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) clandestinely devised another way of disbursing public funds that is constitutionally questionable.

This new subterfuge would not have been discovered were it not for the exposure of the P10 billion Congressional pork barrel scandal and P-Noy’s attempt to steer clear out of it by putting the blame on his political opponents. As it turned out, one of the Senators implicated in the scandal dropped his own “bombshell” by revealing that lump sum public funds were also allocated to them for their preferred projects as an “incentive” or “reward” for supporting P-Noy’s initiative to impeach the then Supreme Court Chief Justice Corona. In an attempt to deflect the bombshell after its denial proved futile, P-Noy’s DBM Secretary admitted for the first time that there were indeed such disbursements but it was in the form of the alleged Development Acceleration Program (DAP).

As it later turned out, about P1 billion of this DAP were also allocated to the Senators who voted to impeach Corona, over and above their authorized PDAF of P200 million each, ranging from P50 million to P100 million. Then it was also revealed that part of the DAP was also used in “convincing” the legislators to pass the controversial and divisive RH law which no other president has openly and aggressively supported except P-Noy who was apparently pressured by the US and other foreign groups promoting population control through contraception and abortion.

Thus the public outrage against the DAP grew even more especially because it is obviously unconstitutional as expressed by some highly respected experts in constitutional law. In fact eight petitions have already been filed in the SC questioning its constitutionality. It was also the butt of ridicule in social media where it has been described as a form of holDAP with P-Noy being irreverently dubbed as the “Pork Barrel King.”

In an attempt to arrest his rapidly declining acceptance and popularity ratings among all sectors of society, which has reportedly dropped to an all time low of 35%, P-Noy even opted to give a televised special address to the nation where he insisted on the legality of the DAP while at the  time reiterating his oft repeated self-serving claim to being an “honest” president by denying that he is a magnanakaw unlike his political opponents whom he claimed to be behind all this propaganda against him.

Then when his address to the nation turned out to be a dud as most people thought it was useless and unnecessary because it did not stop the continuing decline in his popularity and approval rating and the opposition to the DAP, P-Noy and his rah-rah boys then announced that he is going directly to the people in sorties throughout the country to turn the tide of public opinion in his favor and drum up support for the DAP.

Obviously P-Noy’s moves defending the DAP and all the other disbursements of lump sum public funds which are in the nature of the corrupt-ridden “pork”, are erroneous and ill-advised. They are actions improper and unbecoming of a President in a democratic republic like our country.

First of all, he knows very well that there are now several petitions pending in the SC on the legality of the DAP, PDAF and the entire pork barrel system itself. His public stance on the DAP’s legality and his intended campaign sortie to turn the tide of public opinion in his favor, as well as his continuing use of the pork while cases are pending in SC on the legality of these practices, somehow constitute undue interference in the judicial function. Being the head of another branch of the government, his actions in this regard is clearly in contravention of the principle of separation of powers.

His actions here are also akin to his previous moves affecting legislative functions. During the impeachment of Corona, he was already making public statements pronouncing Corona guilty while the Senator-Judges were still hearing the case to drum up public opinion against the latter. They are also comparable to his active lobbying for the passage of the RH law using the Congressional pork to ensure the support of the legislators. In both instances he had apparently crossed the line separating the functions of Legislative from the Executive.

Secondly, there is also something amiss in P-Noy’s style of using his popularity and resorting to popularity surveys to find out whether or not his actions are correct or legal, or whether his declarations and positions are true or not. He seems to be giving the impression that the objective truth can be determined by the subjective assessment of the greater majority of the people; that as long as he is popular, he is right. Indeed P-Noy seems to be leading us to the wrong road rather than the matuwid na daan.   

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