Play acting

This is what is going on now under this administration starring no less than P-Noy himself. This is really very sad and disappointing especially to those who supported and voted for him in 2010 as the next leader of our country. When he assumed office, he projected an appearance which is supposed to be exactly the opposite of the out-going President whose nine-year reign was apparently tainted with so much “lying cheating and stealing.”

At that time, most Filipinos believed that he is really “honest” to the core as projected by his drumbeaters. He gave hope to most of us that with his matuwid na daan, graft and corruption in government will eventually be licked. We believed in his very inspiring and catchy slogan that “Kung walang corrupt, walang mahirap.”

But as it is now turning out he appears to be just pretending to have that moral virtue which he really does not possess at all. This is indeed a big disappointment to the Filipino people who looked forward to a brighter future for our country under his administration, especially in the alleviation of our perennial poverty problem that is undeniably due to too much graft and corruption in government.

One of the most credible steps he should have taken to show his honesty was to put an end to well known sources of corruption, most especially the pork barrel allocated to members of Congress, better known as the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF). He could have done this by simply removing it from the government budget prepared by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM). Instead however, he even increased it three times and used it to seduce Congressmen and Senators to do what he wants them to do particularly in the impeachment of a Chief Justice, and the passage of the controversial and constitutionally flawed RH bill to cater to the request of US President Obama, a known abortion advocate.

But the biggest disappointment of the Filipinos in this connection is that he even created his own Presidential pork for his own use amounting to almost P1 trillion allegedly to provide stimulus to the country’s economic growth. Dubbed as the “Disbursement Acceleration Program” (DAP), it has been in existence since 2011 but the people have not been duly informed about it. It was only discovered because one of the opposition Senators implicated in the P10 billion Congressional pork barrel scam, exposed it in a counter political move against PNoy and his cohorts apparently to show that they are all “in pari delicto” (equally guilty), for misusing public funds.

However, as claimed by P-Noy and his officials, the DAP is not the same as the PDAF since it is for purposes of stimulating the economic growth of the country. This may be a valid claim but it has also to be proven. And the best way to prove it is to have the projects implemented under the DAP, properly and specially audited by the Commission on Audit (COA). PNoy could have initiated such move immediately after it was exposed. But up to now he has not done so.

More intriguing here is that when a group known as the “abolishpork movement” asked the COA for an audit of the projects under the DAP, COA Chairperson Grace Pulido-Tan, an appointee of P-Noy, peremptorily turned them down. The group is asking for an audit of the projects because:

“While DAP claims to be an economic stimulus program, several of the projects included in the DBM submissions could hardly be considered as having a positive impact on economic growth. Too many items appear to be in line with presidential pork spending and as such are very vulnerable to corrupt practices like those that attended the congressional pork or PDAF”

In refusing the special audit, Tan said that funds released through the DAP are already being regularly audited even before the request was made and their findings have been so far reported out. So, she said there is “no need for a special audit similar to what is being done with the PDAF of senators and congressmen from 2007 to 2009.”

If the findings have really been reported out, the public would really been interested to know about them particularly on the following questionable projects amounting to about P60 billion listed down by the abolishpork movement headed by Sister Mary John Mananzan: (1) P5.432 billion compensation balance given to the owners of Hacienda Luisita who are relatives of the President; (2) P1.819 billion disbursed to the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP); (3) P5.5 billion for various infrastructure projects; (4) P 6.5 billion support fund under DILG; (5) P8.592 billion for the ARMM transition and support plan; (6) P250 million Performance Challenge Fund; (7) P6.5 billion to augment existing PDAF; (8) P2 billion national road projects for Tarlac; (9) P1.8 billion Tulay ng Pangako sa Kaunlaran Program (10) P5 billion Tourism road infrastructure project; (11) P8.295 billion priority local projects nationwide; and (12) P1.6 billion for the capability requirements of the Philippine Coast Guard in the West Philippine Sea.

Stonewalling on this particular matter involving the use of lump sum public funds under the highly questionable DAP puts in doubt COA’s integrity and independence as a Constitutional body charged with the duty of ensuring the proper expenditure of the tax payers money.

The worst part here is the growing public perception that there is something fishy in the creation of the DAP and the use of the funds through it because, if everything is above board, PNoy would have even requested for that special audit so the public will know the real score. In fact he would not have stopped using it and asked the Supreme Court to dismiss the case questioning its constitutionality on the ground that it is already moot and academic. And so the play acting continues.

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