Aquino’s barangay in Tarlac City gets P3.5 million in DAP

Published October 2, 2014 9:02pm

(Updated 3:15 p.m., Oct. 3) The barangay where President Benigno Aquino III's votes in Tarlac City was one of three barangays that were fortunate enough to receive allocations from the multibillion-peso Disbursement Acceleration Program before the Supreme Court deemed it partially unconstitutional, GMA News' "24 Oras" reported on Thursday.

According to data from the Department of Budget and Management culled by GMA News Research, 287 elected officials received allocations from the DAP. These include 22 senators, 173 House members, 51 governors, two vice governors, 2 board members, 32 mayors, two vice mayors and three barangay captains.

Aside from Barangay Captain Edgardo Aguas of Aquino's Barangay Central, which received P3.5 million in DAP funds in 2012, the other barangays captains that received DAP allocations were Marcelo Narag of Barangay San Gabriel and Rizalino Luyun of Barangay Leonarda, both in Tuguegarao City, Cagayan—the bailiwick of then Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile.

Enrile has since been charged with plunder and several counts of graft, placed under hospital arrest and suspended from the Senate in connection with his alleged involvement in the multibillion-peso pork barrel scam. He has denied any wrongdoing in connection with his pork barrel fund allocations.

Aguas said that the President once attended a barangay assembly in 2010 and saw that the ceiling of the hall was about to collapse. Hence, the officials requested for funds to fix the barangay hall.

According to the report, P3.5 million was released from DAP in August 2012 to renovate the barangay building. The project was supervised by the Department of Public Works and Highways-District Engineering Office of Tarlac.

Now, it has five rooms including two offices, a waiting area, a conference room, and a kitchen and dining area. The furniture, air conditioning, and computers of the barangay hall were also acquired through the DAP.

Aguas said that the DAP funds were not a form of special treatment.

"Nagkataon lang talaga na dito bumuboto si Presidente," he explained.

DAP’s backstory

The discretionary fund came from the "unobligated allotments of all agencies with low level of obligations as of June 30, 2012 both for continuing and current allotment" that President Benigno Aquino III ordered withdrawn on June 27, 2012.

However, the SC voted 13-0-1 in July to strike down the following specific acts and practices of the DAP as unconstitutional:

- the withdrawal of unobligated allotments from the implementing agencies, and the declaration of the withdrawn unobligated allotments and unreleased appropriations as savings prior to the end of the fiscal year and without complying with the statutory definition of savings contained in the General Appropriations Act;

- the cross-border transfers of the savings of the executive to augment the appropriations of other offices outside the executive; and

- the funding of projects, activities and programs that were not covered by any appropriation in the GAA.

SC spokesman Theodore Te explained that these violated Section 25 (5) Article VI of the 1987 Constitution and the doctrines of separation of powers.

A few days after the announcement was made, Aquino said the decision of the SC was difficult to understand.

"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. Mahirap pong maintindihan ang desisyon ninyo," he said.

The President justified that Book VI, Chapter 5, Section 39 of the 1987 Administrative Code gave him the authority to transfer savings of a project from one department to another.

It said, "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."

But, the nine petitioners that contested the legality of DAP pointed out that the funds could not be deemed as "savings" since there couldn't be savings in the middle of a fiscal year, especially if the projects have not been completed, discontinued, or abandoned.

Malacañang stressed that DAP was undertaken in good faith to boost the economy of the country. —Trisha Macas/NB/KG, GMA News

Tags: disbursementaccelerationprogram, tarlaccity