TWO lawmakers and a group on Saturday asked the Ombudsman to include President Aquino in its ongoing investigation on the controversial Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP).
Party-list Reps. Carlos Zarate of Bayan Muna, Terry Ridon of Kabataan and Bayan Secretary-General Renato Reyes Jr. said that the President remains principally liable for the implementation of DAP.
Last week the Ombudsman said Budget Secretary Florencio B. Abad and Undersecretary Mario L. Relampagos are now facing preliminary investigation for technical malversation and administrative charges in connection with DAP funds.
However, Abad later said that all disbursements under DAP were personnally approved by President Aquino. Abad did not say if Mr. Aquino should also be investigated.
“We believe Abad when he says that President Aquino had the final say regarding the DAP. That is why [Mr.] Aquino cannot be spared from any investigation. That would be untenable. The President remains principally liable for DAP because he signed and approved the release of billions of pesos from 2011 to 2013. At least seven memoranda were signed by President Aquino,” Reyes said.
Zarate, on the other hand, said that, while President Aquino is immune from prosecution, he should be included in the investigation being conducted by the Ombudsman.
Zarate said Abad and others who are responsible for the DAP mess should be prosecuted.
“If Abad and company should be prosecuted for the highly anomalous, illegal and unconstitutional DAP, then President Aquino, all the more, should be investigated because his signatures are all over the DAP documents,” Zarate added.
Ridon, who led the filing of malversation charges against Abad back in July 2014, said that it is not enough to investigate the two budget officials, as the “buck stops at Malacañang” when it comes to the creation and execution of DAP.
“However, we emphasize that the DAP paper trail leads to [President] Aquino, who signed all the papers that led to the illegal and unconstitutional disbursement of funds under DAP. He should not be exempted from the Ombudsman’s investigation,” Ridon added.
Ridon said Mr. Aquino was not included in the Ombudsman complaint against Abad, as the proper forum to charge the President at that time was in the House of Representatives, through an impeachment complaint.
He said that the case against Abad is strong, especially in light of the Supreme Court (SC) decision against DAP.
“Ombudsman [Conchita Carpio] Morales should take the cue from the DAP decision of the SC, as it clearly challenges the public to hold Abad, and even [Mr.] Aquino, accountable for creating DAP,” Ridon said, referring to the 27-page final decision on DAP promulgated by the SC in February this year.
In the said ruling, the SC upheld the unconstitutionality of several acts under DAP, particularly the “withdrawal of unobligated allotments from the implementing agencies, and the declaration of the withdrawn unobligated allotments and unreleased appropriations as savings,” and the “cross-border transfer of savings.”
The SC also emphasized that “only DAP projects found in the appropriate GAA [General Appropriations Act] may be the subject of augmentation by legally accumulated savings. “Whether the 116 DAP-funded projects had appropriation cover and were validly augmented require factual determination that is not within the scope of the present consolidated petitions.”
“This is precisely what the Ombudsman needs to investigate—whether a crime was committed by channeling funds to these DAP projects. Any keen observer who’s followed the DAP fiasco would agree that enough evidence is present to indict [President] Aquino and Abad,” Ridon said.
The DAP, which was declared unconstitutional by the SC, came under fire in 2013 after detained Sen. Jinggoy Estrada revealed that the said funds were used as “incentives” for legislators who supported the impeachment of Chief Justice Renato Corona in 2012.