Crumbling

In the previous oral argumentation on the controversial “disbursement acceleration program,” the Solicitor-General insisted that the matter is now moot since the program has been discontinued.

There could be no more facile argument. It is like saying that if a serial killer has since stopped his murderous spree, the matter is now academic.

Last Tuesday, in the final face-off on the issue, it was former justice Vicente Mendoza’s turn at the firing line. This time, he questioned the standing of the petitioners against the DAP.

He argued, basically, that none of the petitioners suffered any personal injury from the implementation of the DAP. Therefore, they had no basis to complain. If they had no basis to complain, then there is no justiciable issue for the High Court to resolve.

That line of argument conveniently skirts around all the major issues raised by the petitioners. For that alone, this is a remarkable feat in lawyering. Like a magician, Mendoza wants a humungous concern involving possible misuse of billions in public funds vanish in thin air by sleight of hand and misdirection.

Mendoza, by the way, appears before the Court representing the Congress in the chorus defending the DAP. That itself seems anomalous.

Among the central constitutional concerns relating to the DAP is that this program undermines Congress’ power of the purse by opening a mechanism where the executive branch fabricates “savings” and redeploys the money at whim. This program made a mockery of the Congress’ domain, reducing the assembly of people’s representatives into a gallery of powerless clowns.

Yet Congress chose to deploy its own lawyer to argue in behalf of an executive contraption used to castrate the legislative branch. This has to be the grandest manifestation of the Stockholm Syndrome where the abused falls in love with the abuser.

When Congress decided to send its own lawyer to argue in favor of the DAP, everyone simply assumed that this was just part of the administration’s comprehensive effort to delay proceedings. The first act of the Congress on the case was to ask for more time for their lawyer to study the case. The Court denied that request.

Delaying the proceedings creates more space to put pressure on the High Court. Petitioner Boboy Syjuco claims the administration has deployed a squad of operatives to work on the justices to avoid the damning consequences of the DAP being declared unconstitutional.

Having failed to delay proceedings, the lawyer sent by Congress to defend the very instrument that emasculated this branch of government appears to be trying his very best in the crumbling effort to prevent DAP from being declared unconstitutional. His very best, however, cannot snow under the vital constitutional issues laid down here.

Those vital issues involve the determination of the source of authority to carry out DAP, the limits on the executive branch’s ability to redirect use of public funds and the propriety of some of the uses for which hijacked “savings” were redeployed. We now know, for instance, that P6.5 billion in DAP funds were used to supplement the pork of legislators — and which might be the reason the legislators have fallen in love with DAP.

The Court, last Tuesday, gave the parties to this case 20 days to prepare their respective memoranda. After that, the High Court will render a ruling on the case.

It will be a ruling, we hope, that reinforces rather than undermines the integrity of our constitutional order — notwithstanding the comprehensive package of intimidation and inducement the administration has put together to influence the magistrates.

‘Carmageddon’

The administration is scrambling to build the monuments to itself after years of inaction, promising work on 15 major infrastructure projects in the metropolitan area to commence almost simultaneously.

The simultaneous commencement of these projects promises to bring hell to the city’s already hellish traffic situation. The MMDA, which never distinguished itself for acute foresight and adept planning, promises relief by: a) hiring 100 more traffic enforcers; and b) installing CCTV cameras in the construction areas, presumably so that everyone can vicariously share the agonies of those trapped in traffic jams.

All motorists are advised to take “alternative” routes to avoid the jams. From experience, however, all of Metro Manila’s road warriors know that there are no such things as “alternative” routes. When a major traffic artery is constricted, all possible secondary roads eventually become more gridlocked than the main artery. Everything just grinds to standstill.

To salve our agonies, we are told that all these projects will bring redemption in the end in the form of smoother traffic flow. That redemption might never happen.

Expert studies tell us that in four years or less, the volume of vehicles using the SLEX will exceed the facility’s designed capacity. When that moment happens, SLEX will resemble EDSA.

The point is, because of our short planning horizon, every new additional road facility put in to serve a congested metropolis becomes irrelevant the day it opens. The wild spiral in the number of cars wanting to use roads outstrips the amount of roads we are ready to put in.

In a word, the more likely outcome is that when the 15 new projects are completed, they will be so overwhelmed by vehicles that traffic will still be moving as slowly as they have been. The more urgent response is to raise the capacity of modern mass transport — an area where nothing seems to be moving. The MRT, for instance, now carries twice the number of passengers it was designed to move, with a third less trains to do it.