By Cielito M. Reganit
MANILA, July 8 (PNA) — A member of the House of Representatives stressed on Tuesday that there is neither factual nor legal basis to impeach President Benigno S. Aquino III due to the establishment and implementation of the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) some parts of which were declared last week by the Supreme Court (SC) as unconstitutional.
In a press briefing, Cavite Rep. Elpidio Barzaga told members of media that the President had not committed any impeachable act with regards to the DAP and that the country had, in fact, benefitted from its implementation.
He pointed out that even the SC, in its decision, had taken special note of this fact.
According to the lawmaker, in page 35 of the ruling, the High Tribunal said that “when he assumed office in the middle of 2010, President Aquino made efficiency and transparency in government spending a significant focus of his Administration.”
“Yet, although such focus resulted in an improved fiscal deficit of 0.5 percent in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) from January to July 2011, it also unfortunately decelerated government project implementation and payment schedules,” the SC noted.
“The World Bank observed that the Philippines’ economic growth could be reduced and potential growth could be weakened should the Government continue with its underspending and fail to address the large deficiencies in infrastructure.”
“The economic situation prevailing in the middle of 2011 thus paved the way for the development and implementation of DAP as a stimulus package intended to fast-track public spending and to push economic growth by investing on high impact budgetary PAPs (programs, activities or projects) to be funded from the savings generated during the year as well as from unprogrammed funds.”
“In that respect, the DAP was the product of a plain executive policy-making to stimulate the economy by way of accelerated spending,” the SC ruled.
Barzaga said that on this basis, the SC plainly stated that there was economic necessity on the part of the President to engage in public spending and for the purpose of using DAP.
“Even the SC provided the answer on how successful DAP was in improving the Philippine economy,” he also pointed out.
In the same decision, the SC noted that disbursements under the DAP contributed 1.3 percentage points to the GDP growth by the 4th quarter of 2011.
“The continued implementation of the DAP strengthened the growth by 11.8 percent year-on-year while infrastructure spending rebounded from a 29 percent contraction to a 34 percent growth as of September 2013,” the decision read.
Barzaga, who is also a lawyer, stressed that the SC decision is very clear that DAP was an economic necessity on the part of the executive and it produced beneficial results for the country.
“Under the said circumstances, I do not think that there is a factual nor legal basis to hold the President liable for impeachment,” he said.
Furthermore, he said that when it comes to the grounds for impeachment, “it must be a violation of the Constitution of such enormous gravity that will strike to the very heart, to the very life and to the very soul of the nation.”
“Personally I do not think that the President committed such grounds,” Barzaga said.
Lastly, as to accusations that President Aquino was, at the very least, guilty of technical malversation, the Cavite lawmaker said there are legal provisions before and even up to the present relied upon by the President in so far as programming of the said funds is concerned.
“We have provisions under the Constitution on the power of the President to augment any item of appropriation under his department; and of course there is the Administrative Code and the General Appropriations Act,” he said.
“His critics would of course maintain that technical malversation took place but malversation is not an impeachable act,” Barzaga said. (PNA)