FORMER President Benigno Aquino III should also be charged for the controversial P72-billion Disbursement Acceleration Program, which was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.
Bayan Muna pary-list Rep. Carlos Isagani Zarate said he would file a motion for reconsideration to appeal the exclusion of Aquino from his former Budget secretary, Florencio Abad, who was indicted for usurpation of legislative powers before the Office of the Ombudsman.
“We will file a motion for reconsideration before the Ombudsman [to hold Aquino liable for using government savings on priority projects without congressional approval],” Zarate said.
Aquino and other Palace officials earlier claimed that the DAP stimulated the economy in 2011, with DAP contributing to 1.3-percentage points to gross domestic product (GDP) growth in the last quarter of 2011.
But a World Bank report said the 1.3-percentage point gain referred to the total government consumption and public construction, and was not the result of DAP alone.
The think tank IBON Foundation, on the other hand, estimated that the real contribution of DAP-related spending to economic growth was “likely just one-fourth of a percentage point at most in the fourth quarter of 2011 and less than a tenth of a percentage point for 2011 as a whole.”
Ombudsman Conchita Morales cleared Aquino and former Budget undersecretary Mario Relampagos over the DAP issue, citing lack of jurisdiction.
Zarate said Aquino was the “architect” of the DAP since he chose the projects to be funded as documents have shown.
Anakpawis party-list Rep. Ariel Casilao shared Zarate”s view as he expressed discontent over the decision of the Ombudsman to clear Aquino.
“We are used to hearing about the exoneration of the powerful and influential from liability,” he said.
Casilao said that the issue of DAP is not limited to a legal issue, but a political one, as it mainly concerns corruption in the government.
“We should recall that the massive anti-DAP and pork barrel protests since 2014 compelled the high court to decide on its unconstitutionality, logically, holding those guilty responsible would require similar if not more heightened mass actions,” Casilao said.
Casilao said that there is no legislative and legal indication for graft and corruption can be cut when the DAP architects and beneficiaries are being cleared by the Office of the Ombudsman.