IF MALACANANG is going to insist that its implementation of the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) is well intentioned, then it may as well remember what the road to hell is paved with, said Senator JV Ejercito during the Senate finance committee hearing on the DAP controversy.
After grilling Budget Secretary Florencio Abad on the details of the DAP that he instituted in 2011, Ejercito said Abad was just trying to justify “technical malversation.”
Ejercito said Malacanang should have just respected both the Supreme Court and Congress by endorsing to the legislature the appropriate measure that would have funded the programs now being funded by DAP.
“You are just justifying technical malversation,” Ejercito said.
Abad and several cabinet members appeared before the Senate finance committee Thursday morning for a hearing on the DAP, parts of which had been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.
Abad rattled off what he called the benefits of the DAP, saying this mechanism allowed the government to access more funds for public spending programs for infrastructure and social services. With DAP, Abad said, there was more money for the priority programs of the government without having to raise additional taxes.
“We have made unprecedented progress in key priorities,” Abad said.
To this, Ejercito reminded Abad that a declaration of good intentions is not enough. “One cannot juggle funds no matter how good the intention is,” Ejercito said.
For his part, Senator Antonio Trillanes IV seemed more sympathetic to Abad, asking him whether the Supreme Court had accused anyone in the administration of pocketing public funds.
“Sinabi ba ng Supreme Court na meron kayong ninakaw?” Trillanes asked Abad. Abad said no.
Trillanes said it was clear that the Aquino administration must come up with a better communications plan to fight “the better communications plan of the other side.”
At the same time Abad said that many DAP projects are now in limbo since the Supreme Court only found some parts of the project as unconstitutional.
Senator Francis Escudero asked Abad if the Department of Budget and Management would release funds for an ongoing DAP project if the contractor demands payment.
Abad said they would have to ask advise from their legal counsels on the matter.
He said the instruction of the President on the issue was this: “Kung hindi kayo sigurado, huwag ninyong galawin ang proyekto.”
FROM ANGOLA to Angeles, from Malta to Malolos, from the Bahamas to Binondo, Filipinos from all over the world pitched in their support for the passage of the Freedom of Information (FOI) bill by signing an online petition urging the President and Congress to pass the bill into law.
The petition not only crosses international boundaries, but also breaks through social structures and layers. Petitioners include representatives from the academic community, artists groups, show business, the business community, civil society, and of course, media.
The online petition was started several weeks ago by the Right to Know, Right Now! Coalition through the online platform Change.org.
As of 2 pm, July 24, the group already has a combined total of 38,000 signatures collected both online, through the Change.org website, and offline through actual signature collection points all over the country.
The collected signatures will be turned over to Presidential Spokesman Edwin Lacierda on Friday, July 25, three days before President Benigno S. Aquino III gives his State of the Nation Address before Congress.
Advocates for the FOI have been prodding Malacanang to certify the FOI bill as urgent so that it can glide through the congressional wringer. Advocates are also asking Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. to speed up the congressional process by ensuring quicker action by the committee on public information. Previous attempts to pass an FOI law have been met with consistent disappointments as legislators have been sitting on the measure since it was first filed in 1987.
Launched at the start of July, the online petition, as of 2 p.m. has already gathered 16,235 signatures. In addition, at least 21,965 Filipinos have also signed the petition from the various onsite/offline signing booths across the country organized by R2RKN members.
Even Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) and fellow advocates from as far as Angola, Malta, Bahamas, Papua New Guinea, Kazakhstan and the Middle East have registered their support for the FOI bill.
The FOI bill—when enacted—will give Filipinos the right to access public information on demand, cutting through the culture of secrecy that has smothered public access to information for decades. As PCIJ Executive Director Malou Mangahas said during the 1st FOI Youth Congress at the University of the Philippines, access to public information is not the exclusive concern of journalists but is grounded on a more basic human right guaranteed by the United Nations.
The PCIJ is a co-convenor of the Right to Know, Right Now! Coalition. R2KRN! is a network of 160 media, civil society, and lawyers groups.
The roster of supporters who have signed the online petition is a veritable transect of Philippine society.
If teachers are meant to be followed, the FOI bill should have been passed by Congress long ago, if one goes by the support given to the online petition by the academe.
The roster of supporters from the academe include: Roberto Vitangcol of the National Institute of Physics of the University of the Philippines-Diliman (UP); Nina Carandang of UP-Manila College of Medicine; Ace Bryan Cabal of the National Research and Development of UP Manila; Paz Eulalia Saplala of the Agricultural Development Communications of UP-Los Baños; Dr. Amelia Punzalan of the National Institute for Science and Mathematics Education Development of UP-Diliman; Dr. Benito Teehankee, board of trustees of University of San Carlos and College of Business at De La Salle University; and Dean Raul Pangalangan of UP-Diliman’s College of Law.
Nicole Curato, a 2013 The Outstanding Young Men (TOYM) Awardee in the field of Sociology and assistant professor at the College of Social Sciences and Philosophy of UP-Diliman, has signified her support, as well.
Pulse Asia Board of Trustees President Ronnie Holmes—who is also the executive director of the De La Salle University System—also signed the online petition.
Academics from the various regions have also weighed in. Prof. Hannah Mariveles, chairperson of the Communication Department of the University of St. La Salle in Bacolod City signed up. From Mindanao, the signatories include Zayda Macarambon, Director of the Cultural Development Office at Mindanao State University-Iligan Institute of Technology (MSU-IIT); Pat Ray Dagapioso of the Department of Social Sciences and Humanities at MSU-Naawan in Misamis Oriental; and Aguam Macarambon of the Communication and Media Studies Department of MSU-Marawi.
Former Secretary of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) Fulgencio Factoran and former Presidential Assistant for Mindanao-now Philippine Press Institute Chairman Jesus Dureza also signed the online petition.
From the business community, Makati Business Club chairman Ramon del Rosario Jr. and board member Edgar Chua signed the online petition. Also, ANZ Bank of Jakarta President and Commissioner Enrique Bernardo signed the petition.
There were personalities from the movie, film, and television industry who also threw in their support for the FOI. Among the signatories to the online petition for the FOI were acclaimed director Peque Gallaga, and screen personalities Jaime Fabregas, Susan Tagle, Dante Ornedo, Malou Dagondon, Sher Bautista and 1976 Miss Maja Pilipinas Cynthia Nakpil.
Also showing their support for the petition are award winning writers Lualhati Bautista, Isagani Cruz; expressionist painter Paul Hilario; Sculpture Henri Cainglet; singer-songwriter Noel Cabangon; and RockEd Philippines founder Gang Badoy.
The signatories to the petition gave different reasons for their support for the FOI bill, but almost all the reasons revolved around the concepts of transparency and accountability from government, and how these would help in combating corruption in government.
A Wordle created by PCIJ’s Julius Mariveles shows the reasons given by petitioners for their support for the FOI, sized in proportion to the popularity of the reason
“A very good mechanism against corruption,” Fr. Eliseo Mercado Jr, OMI, PhD of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate commented in the online petition. Fr. Mercado served as President of Notre Dame University in Cotabato, Mindanao from 1992 to 2002. He is the permanent representative of the OMI to the United Nations as an Accredited NGO at the UN Department of Public Information and at the ECOSOC (Economic and Social Council), both in New York and Geneva.
Danilo Baquilod of Tacloban City who is now based in Angola commented: “This is a very good tool for democracy and fighting chance for ordinary Filipino to fight corruption and expose the parasites in the government. This is my right as a Filipino citizen.”
For his part, John Paul Escrin, an OFW working in Australia, said: “Pilipino po ako, karapatan kung malaman kung saan napunta at paano ginagamit ang buwis na binabayad ko.”
A LITTLE MORE than two years ago, Palace officials gave birth to what they would later claim to be a new economic stimulus plan to boost economic growth. As is often the case in government, this plan was given a technical- and complex-sounding name for it to have a semblance of bureaucratic gravitas that would lend it the appearance of political neutrality.
Two years and two months later, the controversial Disbursement Acceleration Program or DAP is not just dead in the water; it continues to call attention to itself much like the proverbial albatross around Malacanang’s neck, except that this is one bird that won’t stop flapping just yet.
When the Supreme Court on July 1 declared parts of the DAP program unconstitutional, calls went out for the President’s resignation or impeachment. This, even as Malacanang lashed back at the Supreme Court by claiming that no public funds were lost, pocketed or wasted through DAP. On other words. Malacanang is using the “good faith” defense, an argument that effectively precludes all forms of punishment so long as one is able to declare the absence of malice.
But if there is one thing that many Cabinet members are learning over the past few weeks, one lesson stands out: “Good intentions are not enough.”
In the first of a three-part series by PCIJ Executive Director Malou Mangahas, the PCIJ looks into the beginnings of the DAP program, what was right or wrong about it, how Executive officials see it, and what projects and activities had been implemented, for good or bad results, in its name.
The second part of the report deals with how, for all the avowed good intentions to have DAP funds stimulate the economy, the dates, places, quality, and implementation of DAP projects do not seem to match these intentions.
The second part was written by PCIJ Executive Director Malou Mangahas, with Karol Ilagan and Rowena Caronan.
THE WORLD is already eating way beyond its means, yet those who produce the food barely have enough to eat.
This dual layer of ironies was highlighted during the Responsible Business Forum on Food and Agriculture in Manila this week, as experts from around the world emphasized how growing consumer food demands are far and fast outpacing the ability of the world’s natural resources to provide this need.
The challenge, says World Wildlife Fund-Philippines president Lory Tan, is to find ways to produce more food while using up even less resources such as land and water.
Tan cited the country as an example in showing the pressure that people are placing on the natural resources of the world that would be compounded by problems brought about by climate change and water scarcity. In the face of the need for food, participants discussed the need to improve agricultural productivity while improving rural livelihood and reducing its impact on the environment.
“We are eating ourselves up; (the Philippines) sits 117 percent beyond our natural capital,” Tan said as he opened the two-day forum that gathered representatives from various agricultural sectors and business leaders throughout Asia.
Resources persons underscored the need to rethink food production. Jason Clay, senior vice-president, Markets and Food of the World Wildlife Foundation-USA cited as an example the growing of cattle for beef, which takes up 60 percent of land yet only provides for 1.3 percent of the total needed calories.
Tan and Clay said the answer to this problem is not to use more resources such as land for food production, but rather to find more efficient ways to produce the food that more people really need. In addition, both cited the need for people to be more efficient in their consumption of food, as a significant percentage of the food produced is really just wasted because of the nature of a consumer-driven society.
At the same time, experts noted how this growing food consumption is not reflected in the plight of those who have a direct hand in food production – the farmers.
Sec. Francis Pangilinan, presidential assistant on food and agricultural modernization, pointed out that Philippine farmers remain among the poorest of the poor.
Coconut farmers, for example, earn only an average of P23,000 a year, or not even P2,000 a month.
This, even as food prices have risen by 7.4 percent, or well above the inflation rate of 4.4 percent, Pangilinan said.
Even as the Gross Domestic Product of the Philippines rose last year, the second fastest-growing in Asia next to China, 20 out of 100 Filipinos remain hungry while four million households or at least 20 million Filipinos cannot feel the growth and do not have enough food, he added.
“We should treat our farmers like our parents,” Pangilinan quoted his own young daughter as saying. Pangilinan said people should place more importance on farmers, perhaps even more than lawyers and engineers, since people rely on the output of farmers three times a day, compared to the few times that people need lawyers in their lifetime.
Among the agricultural commodities addressed during the open and working group discussions were rice, poultry, fisheries and aquaculture, palm oil, coffee and cocoa, and sugar.
Juan Farinati, vice-president for Asia of Monsanto Corporation, said that there should also be a focus on “innovation and partnerships” that would lead to producing more food with less resources.
He cited the case of Vietnam where farmers have shifted to corn from other crops and were able to export it only a year using Monsanto bio-engineered seeds that increased the income of farmers to more than US$400 per hectare.
Aside from the shift to other crops, Matthew Morell, deputy director general for research of the International Rice Research Institute, said there is also a need to improve production systems like moving to mechanized farming to boost yield.
He added genetics would play a “strong role” in improving rice strains that would have higher yields.
Guy Hogge, head of sustainability of Louis Dreyfus Commodities, on the other hand, said farmers in rural areas might not have access to markets as he raised the need for government intervention in agriculture.
Sugar, on the other hand, once the biggest export commodity of the Philippines, was described by Sugar Regulatory Administration Gina Martin-Bautista as a “game changer” because it can be used to branch out to other industries like bio-water and bio-plastics because it is a “green commodity” or environment-friendly.
Bautista, however, pointed out that Thailand, which learned sugar production from the Philippines, has outstripped the country in terms of production.
Second only to Brazil in terms of sugar production, Thailand now has more than one million hectares planted to the crop compared to the Philippines’ 420,000 hectares.
Yet while Thailand only has double the hectarage devoted to sugar compared to the Philippines, it is producing more than four times the sugar output, or 11 million metric tons for Thailand compared to the Philippines’ 2.5 million metric tons.
Amid the problems posed by climate change and limited resources, Pangilinan said, using the words of his then nine-year-old child, that “we must treat farmers like our parents” because “we need them on a daily basis” for us to eat.
He also said that if the country’s framework for sustainable agriculture must put farmers, fisherfolk, and agricultural first, integrated environmental care and preservation and must show “new way of doing things” while going back to basics.
PRESIDENT BENIGNO S. AQUINO III lashed out at the Supreme Court Monday night by questioning the High Tribunal’s ruling on his Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP), saying that if DAP is illegal, then the Court itself had been guilty of the same practices.
In a 23-minute nationwide television address to the Filipino people Monday evening, the President stood by the DAP, an economic stimulus program created by the President in October 2011 using realigned savings to fund what the Palace considers to be high-impact projects. The Supreme Court on July 1 ruled significant portions of the DAP program unconstitutional, including the allotment of funds for programs that are not listed in the General Appropriations Act.
The President said the Supreme Court had not considered the arguments presented by government lawyers to justify the existence of the DAP. In particular, the President cited the Administrative Code of 1987, which he said gives the President the authority to transfer savings to other projects.
The President also twitted the Court, saying that if DAP could be considered illegal, then the Tribunal could be considered guilty of the same offense.
“Mahirap pong maintindihan ang desisyon ninyo,” the President said. “Mayroon din kasi kayong ginawa dati, na sinubukan ninyong gawin ulit, at may nagsasabi pang mas matindi ito base sa desisyong inilabas ninyo kamakailan lang.”
(It is very hard to understand your decision. This is because you also did something similar before, which you tried to do again, and there are those who say that your actions are even worse if we are to base it on your recent decision.)
The President appears to be referring to the Judiciary Development Fund or JDF, a mechanism created during the time of President Ferdinand Marcos whereby legal fees collected by the courts are used to augment allowances of court officials and personnel and fund the acquisition and repair of court facilities. The fund is controlled and fully administered by the Supreme Court. Former Supreme Court Chief Justice Hilario Davide faced an impeachment complaint with the House of Representatives in 2003 for alleged misuse of the JDF. More recently, legislators have been moving to scrutinize the JDF’s disbursements by the Supreme Court.
“Nagtiwala kami na tama ang ginawa ninyo, alinsunod sa konsepto o prinsipyo ng presumption of regularity, lalo pa’t kayo ang dapat na mas madunong sa batas,” the President chided the court. “Ngayong kami naman ang may ipinapatupad – na kayo na rin ang nagsabing nakabuti sa mamamayan – bakit mali na ngayon ang aming ginawa?”
“We trusted that what you were doing is correct, based on the concept or principle of presumption of regularity, especially since you are said to be more knowledgeable in the law. Now that we are the ones implementing this scheme, which you said had also benefited the public, why are you saying what we did was wrong?)
The President stressed that while the Executive will respect the ruling of the Supreme Court, his administration will file a motion for reconsideration to overturn the 13-0 decision of the Tribunal. The President said he was doing this even though he had been advised that there was a very slim chance of overturning a ruling that is practically unanimous, with only one Justice abstaining from the vote.
But in the same breath, the President openly scolded the Supreme Court, with a pointed message to the Justices that he does not want a collision between two branches of government.
“Ang mensahe ko po sa Korte Suprema: Ayaw nating umabot pa sa puntong magbabanggaan ang dalawang magkapantay na sangay ng gobyerno, kung saan kailangan pang mamagitan ng ikatlong sangay ng gobyerno,” the President said. (This is my message to the Supreme Court: We do not want it to reach a point that there will be a collision between two co-equal branches of government, where the third branch would need to step in.)
The President also said he had been hearing talk that this was becoming a personal fight between him and the High Court, and that he was being challenged to deal with the issue in this manner. To this, the President said he intends to approach the issue within the right processes.
“May mga naririnig din akong bulung-bulungan na baka pinapersonal lang daw ako sa isyung ito, na para bang hinahamon akong personalin din sila,” the President said. “Ang sabi ko na lang po, bilang Pangulo at ama ng bayan, kailangan kong maging mahinahon, at isulong ang tamang proseso.”
(I have heard talk that perhaps they have a personal grudge against me, and that perhaps they are challenging me to take it personally too. I just tell them that as President and father of the nation, I need to be calm and follow the correct processes.)
The President began his speech by citing the anomalies his administration discovered in 2010, and how these anomalies contributed in slowing down the implementation of projects at the start of his term. In particular, the President said that some departments fell behind schedule in their expenditures because they have had to put in place reform measures to fight the anomalous practices that they discovered.
In 2011, the President said he decided to create the DAP as a means to rechannel savings from departments that are having difficulty implementing their programmed projects to other agencies that would need these funds. The President said government lawyers justified this policy by citing the Administrative Code of 1987, which he quoted as follows:
“…Except as otherwise provided in the General Appropriations Act, any savings in the regular appropriations authorized in the General Appropriations Act for programs and projects of any department, office or agency, may, with the approval of the President, be used to cover a deficit in any other item of the regular appropriations.”
“Nakita naman ninyo na ayon sa batas na ito, hayagang binibigyan ng kapangyarihan ang Pangulo na maglipat ng savings sa ibang proyekto,” the President said. “Walang nakasaad na limitado sa isang departamento o sangay ng gobyerno ang paglilipat ng savings. Sa simpleng salita po, hindi tayo lumabag sa batas nang ipatupad natin ang DAP.”
(You can see that in this law, the President is given authority to transfer savings to other projects. Nowhere does it say that a department is limited in transferring savings. In simpler terms, we did not violate the law when we implemented the DAP.)
The President said the Tribunal did not consider the arguments of government lawyers, even though the Administrative Code is still in force.
“Nagulat nga po kami nang makita naming hindi naisaalang-alang sa desisyon ng Korte Supreme ang ginamit naming batayan ng DAP,” he said. “Paano kaya nila nasabing unconstitutional ang aming paraan ng paggastos gayong hindi man lang nila tinalakay ang aming pinagbatayan? Hanggang sa sandaling ito, umiiral pa rin ang Section 39 ng Adminsitrative Code, at ang marami pang ibang bahagi nito.”
(We were surprised to see that the Supreme Court’s decision did not even consider our basis for the DAP. How can they say this is unconstitutional when they did not even discuss our basis for it? Until now, Section 39 of the Administrative Code is still in effect.)
The President also justified the implementation of the DAP, saying the program was needed to deliver basic and high-impact projects to the Filipinos, whom he repeatedly referred to in his speech as his Bosses.
“Muli kong ididiin: Mabuti ang DAP. Tama ang intensyon. Tama ang pamamaraan. Tama ang resulta. Mga boss, ipinapangako ko sa inyo: Hindi ko hahayaang pahabain pa ang pagdurusa ninyo, kung ngayon pa lang, ay kaya na nating ibsan ito,” the President said.
(I repeat: DAP is good. The intentions are correct. The process is correct. The results are correct. My bosses, I promise you: I will not allow your suffering to continue, if we can prevent it.)
