By Batas Mauricio
OKAY, okay, okay, let us all get this very clearly about the Supreme Court decision on the “disbursement acceleration program” or DAP of President Aquino. First, the court recognized that DAP is legal and in accord with the 1987 Constitution. The court even conceded that the President has flexibility in spending government funds to stimulate the economy.
Second, the tribunal also recognized that Aquino’s use of DAP resulted in quantifiable economic benefits to the nation. But, the Court said, Aquino’s having given money belonging to the Office of the President to another branch of government, which is the legislature, violated the 1987 Constitution, because of the prohibition in the Charter against using money allocated to one branch for the benefit of another branch.
Then, the Court also ruled that some of the money used by Aquino for his DAP were illegally collated, because they did not come from “savings” of agencies under the executive department. In layman’s language, the tribunal noted that Aquino’s classification of the money taken from the different offices of the executive department as “savings” was not legally correct, because they were not savings at all.
As a consequence, the Court in reality invited the filing of criminal, civil, and administrative charges against Aquino, Budget Secretary Florencio Abad, and the lawmakers who gave, albeit illegally and unconstitutionally, Aquino the power to transfer money of the executive department to senators who voted to impeach Renato Corona througthe General Appropriations Acts (GAAs) of 2011 and 2012.
The tribunal said in the concluding paragraphs of its Decision on the DAP that the “doctrine of operative facts”—which simply means that the effects of an illegal act can no longer be undone—does not absolve or exempt from criminal liability the “authors, proponents and implementors” of the DAP, unless, in the cases that will (or must) be filed against them, they can show “good faith.”
Now, with the foregoing, it is not difficult to see that “good faith” can never be a defense available to Aquino, Abad, and the lawmakers who obviously conspired with them to give birth to DAP. Why? Simply because Aquino, Abad, and these lawmakers knew, when they plotted to put up the DAP to allow Aquino to collate money from the executive department to be given to senators and lawmakers in the Corona impeachment, that what they were doing was illegal.
Why am I saying that all of them knew, from the start of their plans to create the DAP, that what they were doing was illegal? Well, the crafting and enactment of the GAAs of 2011 and 2012 gave them away. The fact is that, these two budgetary laws confirmed that our officials knew that it was against the Constitution for Aquino to be using executive funds for the legislative.
They knew that under the prohibition in the Constitution which Aquino’s mother, Cory, passed in 1987, they cannot give executive funds to the lawmakers involved in the Corona impeachment. So, they came up with two sections in the GAAs of 2011 and 2012 precisely to authorize Aquino to use executive funds for the legislative. The Supreme Court struck down these two sections in the GAAs as unconstitutional.
Clearly, therefore, there can be no good faith by Aquino and his cohorts here. They knew they were not allowed to transfer funds from the Office of the President to the House of Representatives and the Senate because the Constitution disallows that practice. Yet, not only did they proceed with that transfer; they likewise tried to cover their tracks and protect their backs by inserting equally illegal sections in the GAAs.
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I suggest that anyone wanting to hold all of those who had a hand in conceptualizing, proposing, and implementing the “disbursement acceleration program” or DAP of President Aquino should also include, in any criminal case about the DAP, all the congressmen and senators who approved the General Appropriations Acts (GAAs) of 2011 and 2012.
This is because, in the Decision declaring as unconstitutional President Aquino’s use of DAP to transfer funds from the Office of the President to senators and congressmen who voted to oust Renato Corona, it clearly appears that all of these congressmen and senators acted in concert to allow Aquino to effect this transfer of funds through the insertion of two important sections in the GAAs of 2011 and 2012.
These two sections, which were never included in any GAA prior to Aquino’s presidency starting 2010, were evidently inserted in the GAAs of 2011 and 2012 precisely to enable Aquino to circumvent the 1987 Constitution which disallows transfer of funds (called “cross-border transfers”) from the Office of the President to the legislature (House and Senate). These transfers of funds were already declared illegal by the Supreme Court last week.
The insertion of these two new sections in the GAAs of 2011 and 2012 clearly showed the existence of a conspiracy between Aquino, Budget Secretary Florencio Abad, and the leadership and membership of the House and the Senate during those years, because such insertion showed that all of them were fully aware of the illegality of such fund transfers.
That they inserted those two provisions in the GAAs of 2011 and 2012 showed that they agreed to circumvent the Constitutional prohibition against cross-border transfer of funds, to give Aquino a legal cover for his intended cross-border transfer of funds. There was here a unity of purpose and design, over which all of them should be held accountable for.
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I am one of those who are now wishing that Fr. Romeo Obach of the Holy Redeemer Provincial Center in Cebu City should not have apologized for his supposedly “rude attitude” before baptizing the child of an unwed mother on July 08, 2014.
While Internet users and other Filipinos may say that what he did––scolding the mother for allowing her to be impregnated even before marriage––was “uncalled for,” I believe that what Obach did was right, and was meant to wake us all up towards righteousness as true believers of the Christian faith.
With due respect, I believe the time has come to jolt every believer into the realities of having a true and sincere faith in God, a faith that not only is glorified by words, but a faith that is fully observed in what a believer thinks, says, and does. Too long, Filipinos have been blinded about what kind of faith that is really pleasing to God, making them believers only in words, but never in thought and in action.
But both Jesus Christ, our God and Savior, and the prophet Isaiah, strongly condemned this “faith only in lips”, by saying “these people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me…” (Isaiah 29:13, Matthew 15:8-9, and Mark 7:6-7), warning them of His impending grave punishment against them.