Written by Tribune Editorial
Saturday, 12 October 2013 00:00
The government itself cannot justify its claim that the discredited Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) has been removed from the budget system. The oral arguments at the Supreme Court (SC) on the pork barrel system proved that the Palace has been lying all along about the state of the lump sum allocation to legislators.
The Palace mouthpieces, particularly Edwin Lacierda, was proven by Solicitor General Francis Jardeleza, on questioning from Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, to have been lying through his teeth in asserting that the PDAF is history based on the order of Noynoy.
Jardeleza belied Lacierda in saying that the PDAF is merely suspended and not abolished while Carpio delivered the follow up blow insinuating the spokesman’s lack of knowledge of the law in saying that only Congress can abolish the PDAF or a Supreme Court ruling declaring it unconstitutional.
What was proven as a result of the exchange between Jardeleza and Carpio was that the Palace tried to deceive everyone, starting from the announcement of Noynoy that he is ordering the abolition of the PDAF in the budget days prior to a mass protest against the pork barrel system directed, not only against the PDAF but also at Noynoy’s discretionary funds, including the Special Purpose Funds of which the PDAF is part.
Jardeleza needed to come up with an argument in support of the government position to defend the constitutionality of the PDAF which is the stance being shared vigorously by the House of Representatives that is packed with the allies of Noynoy and the Palace itself.
Carpio asked Jardeleza a question required by common sense: How can the Palace and the House insist on the validity of PDAF when both claim that this is already abolished?
He said the position and the supposed claim of PDAF abolition was irreconcilable.
The Palace will likely face the same quandary when it is confronted with the suit to have the Disbursement Allocation Program (DAP) fund illegal which is also being scheduled at the High Court.
The DAP was proven to have been used as political leverage in the ouster of former SC Chief Justice Renato Corona based on the revelations of Sen. Jinggoy Estrada during a privilege speech on the P50-million incentive to senator judges who had voted to convict the SC head months after the Senate impeachment trial had concluded.
In defense of the DAP, Budget Secretary Butch Abad said it is not a fund but a pump priming program and legislators were merely tapped to speed up government disbursements for infrastructure.
The function of the funds coming from it, however, was similar to the PDAF in that the legislators were granted full discretion for their use and what is deemed illegal in the PDAF would have to apply on DAP.
The SC justices appeared to have zeroed in on the wide latitude of discretion allowed on the PDAF and other lump sum funds in the budget. The justices shot down for instance the stock argument of both the Palace and House members of the “hundreds of thousands” of indigent students who would lose support for their scholarships if the PDAF is removed, to which the justices said that the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office and the Presidential Social Fund can always be tapped for this function.
It seems that the Palace with the admission of the government’s own lawyer that the PDAF is not dead had shifted into the position that safeguards are in place for the judicious use of the fund without referring again to the system, which engendered corruption, as already abolished.
The Palace aides of Noynoy have been so used to lies that they themselves are deluded into believing these are the incontrovertible truth.#
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