SC sets Jan. 28 date for oral arguments on Disbursement Acceleration Program case

By MARK MERUEÑAS, GMA News

Published January 21, 2014 10:31pm

Oral arguments at the Supreme Court on the controversial Disbursement Acceleration Program funds will push through on Tuesday next week January 28.

This was after the high court did not grant a request from the Office of the Solicitor General to reset the oral debates to March 25.

The high tribunal, however, allowed Congress to not yet to participate in the January 28 debates, setting a later date and time - February 18 at 2 p.m. - for Congress to present its arguments on the issue.

"The Court... did not allow the oral arguments to be reset to March 25, 2014, directing instead the OSG, as principal counsel, to continue with the oral arguments for all respondents other than the Congress," the SC said in a statement.

Despite denying the request to reset the debates, the high court still granted the OSG's request for a longer time to submit documents being required of it in relation to the DAP.

However, instead of its original March 18 deadline request, the OSG was only given a "non-extendible period of fifteen (15) days from today to submit the required documents" or until February 5.

The DAP fund is a discretionary fund that hit the headlines after Sen. Jinggoy Estrada bared in a privilege speech last year that several senators received P50 million to P100 million following the conviction of then-Chief Justice Renato Corona by the Senate impeachment court in May 2012.

On Jan. 16, the OSG asked that the scheduled oral arguments on January 28 be deferred to March 25, further asking that the deadline for submission of the list of sources of DAP funds, and their itemized disbursement be extended until March 18.

The OSG argued that the new counsel selected by Congress, former Justice Vicente Mendoza who only took over the case last December, needed more time to study the case and that the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) was pre-occupied with the 2014 budget and rehabilitation plans for areas stricken by calamities last year.

Oral debates were supposed to resume last December, in which it would have been the government's turn, through the Office of the Solicitor General, to present their arguments in support of the DAP.

The debates, however, had to be rescheduled after Congress filed a motion asking that it be allowed to get its own set of lawyers and "not rely on the Office of the Solicitor General."

It was also the OSG which represented Congress in a seperate case contesting the legislature's Priority Development Assistance Fund. Congress lost in that case as the high court declared the PDAF, commonly referred to as "pork barrel fund," as unconsritutional.

The first day of oral debates was held last November 19, in which six lawyers representing the nine petitioners took turns in convincing the SC magistrates that the discretionary funds were illegal.

Nine petitions have already been filed with the high court contesting the legality of the DAP, including the petition by Syjuco. — ELR, GMA News

Tags: supremecourt, supremecourtoralarguments