Volume XVII NO. 38 (July 12-18, 2014)
SC: criminal raps maybe filed vs. DAP creators
LIFE’S INSPIRATIONS: “…`This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth’…” (Jesus Christ, our God and Savior, in Matthew 13:49-50, the Holy Bible).
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CLARIFYING PERCEPTIONS ON SC DECISION ON DAP: Okay, okay, okay, let us all get this very clearly about the Supreme Court decision on the “disbursement acceleration program” or DAP of President Aquino. First, the court recognized that DAP is legal and in accord with the 1987 Constitution. The court even conceded that the President has flexibility in spending government funds to stimulate the economy.
Second, the tribunal also recognized that Aquino’s use of DAP resulted in quantifiable economic benefits to the nation. But, the Court said, Aquino’s having given money belonging to the Office of the President to another branch of government, which is the legislature, violated the 1987 Constitution, because of the prohibition in the Charter against using money allocated to one branch for the benefit of another branch.
Then, the Court also ruled that some of the money used by Aquino for his DAP were illegally collated, because they did not come from “savings” of agencies under the executive department. In layman’s language, the tribunal noted that Aquino’s classification of the money taken from the different offices of the executive department as “savings” was not legally correct, because they were not savings at all.
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SC OPENS FILING OF CRIMINAL RAPS VS. DAP AUTHORS: As a consequence, the Court in reality invited the filing of criminal, civil, and administrative charges against Aquino, Budget Secretary Florencio Abad, and the lawmakers who gave, albeit illegally and unconstitutionally, Aquino the power to transfer money of the executive department to senators who voted to impeach Renato Corona througthe General Appropriations Acts (GAAs) of 2011 and 2012.
The tribunal said in the concluding paragraphs of its Decision on the DAP that the “doctrine of operative facts”—which simply means that the effects of an illegal act can no longer be undone—does not absolve or exempt from criminal liability the “authors, proponents and implementors” of the DAP, unless, in the cases that will (or must) be filed against them, they can show “good faith”.
Now, with the foregoing, it is not difficult to see that “good faith” can never be a defense available to Aquino, Abad, and the lawmakers who obviously conspired with them to give birth to DAP. Why? Simply because Aquino, Abad, and these lawmakers knew, when they plotted to put up the DAP to allow Aquino to collate money from the executive department to be given to senators and lawmakers in the Corona impeachment, that what they were doing was illegal.
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PNOY, ABAD, KNEW OF ILLEGALITY OF DAP FOR LAWMAKERS: Why am I saying that all of them knew, from the start of their plans to create the DAP, that what they were doing was illegal? Well, the crafting and enactment of the GAAs of 2011 and 2012 gave them away. The fact is that, these two budgetary laws confirmed that our officials knew that it was against the Constitution for Aquino to be using executive funds for the legislative.
They knew that under the prohibition in the Constitution which Aquino’s mother, Cory, passed in 1987, they cannot give executive funds to the lawmakers involved in the Corona impeachment. So, they came up with two sections in the GAAs of 2011 and 2012 precisely to authorize Aquino to use executive funds for the legislative. The Supreme Court struck down these two sections in the GAAs as unconstitutional.
Clearly, therefore, there can be no good faith by Aquino and his cohorts here. They knew they were not allowed to transfer funds from the Office of the President to the House of Representatives and the Senate because the Constitution disallows that practice. Yet, not only did they proceed with that transfer; they likewise tried to cover their tracks and protect their backs by inserting equally illegal sections in the GAAs.
