One day in the mid-1970s, I received a call from the office of the then chairman of the Development Bank of the Philippines board of governors, Dr. Leonides Virata, inviting me to a Tagaytay City dinner marking the inauguration of the Development Academy of the Philippines. I was then the business editor of the leading business newspaper in the Philippines. I gladly accepted the invitation.
Until that time, the only DAP that I knew was the Development Academy of the Philippines. The brainchild of Dr. Virata and then-Minister of Education Dr. Onofre Corpuz, DAP was to be the training institution for the members of a professionalized national civil service. “OD” Corpuz was at the dinner that evening.
Dr. Virata, who had come to the government from the biggest life insurance country in the Philippines, and Dr. Corpuz, political scientist and historian, truly believed in their institutional baby. I know for a fact that they were very proud of DAP and gave it all the support and attention that they could. I had no doubt that as long as those two outstanding Filipinos were alive, DAP would never want for anything.
The first decade of the Tagaytay City-based institution were outstanding years. DAP’s faculty was first-rate, the curriculum was so structured as to represent everything that a member of a topnotch civil service ought to know and the student body was a collection of the most promising staff members of the existing civil service.
Truly, DAP was riding high during its first decade of existence, and to be chosen for study at DAP was a source of pride and prestige for a government employee. Those who rejoined the ranks of their home agencies after a stint at DAP were considered head-and-shoulders above their colleagues.
Then, Dr. Virata and Dr. Corpuz passed away successively. DAP lost its two stalwart supporters. Attention and resources started to wane. The loss of public support for the regime of President Ferdinand Marcos following the Aquino assassination accelerated the decline of an institution that had been established during the martial-law period.
DAP, now relocated to Mandaluyong Cuty, has over the years undergone a restructuring and re-strengthening, but it clearly no longer enjoys the prestige and aura that it once enjoyed. What DAP needs is new patrons in the mold of Leo Virata and “OD” Corpuz, but thus far, there have been no replacements for those two intellectual giants. Replacements should come forward or be found because the DAP concept – having civil servants undergoing training at an institution established for that purpose – is as valid today as it was four decades ago.
I spoke earlier of having been aware of only one DAP. Since then another DAP has come into the national consciousness.
I am referring, of course, to the PNoy Aquino administration’s Disbursement Acceleration Program, which was crafted principally by Secretary of Budget and Management Florencio Abad. The Aquino DAP, which is widely suspected to have been a vehicle for rewarding Senators who voted for former Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona’s conviction, was the product of Secretary Abad’s personal definition of national-budget saving. Seeing the lack of Constitutional authority for the Aquino DAP, the High Court, voting unanimously, struck it down.
It’s a great pity that the infamous Disbursement Acceleration Program has the same initials as the Development Academy of the Philippines. One a noble endeavor, the other an ignoble one. What an insult it is for the beautiful baby of Dr. Virata and Dr. Corpuz to be mistaken for the monster of PNoy Aquino, Florencio Abad and Franklin Drilon.
E-mail: rudyromero777@yahoo.com