MANILA, (PNA) — To finally put to rest the issue of Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP), Leyte Rep. Martin Romualdez and ABAKADA party list Rep. Jonathan dela Cruz on Tuesday filed a resolution seeking for a congressional investigation into the “origin, use and distribution” of the said fund.
House Resolution 358 penned by Romualdez and dela Cruz aimed to seek for clarity and transparency in the use of DAP released by Budget Sec. Butch Abad several months after former Chief Justice Renato Corona was found guilty in the Impeachment Trial.
“This is the only way to clear the air what DAP is all about and remove speculations that this has been used to bribe or give bonus to lawmakers who participated in the prosecution of CJ Corona,” dela Cruz said.
Then Senator Joker Arroyo who voted to acquit Corona was among the recipient of DAP while administration ally then Senator Ping Lacson who voted to convict Corona was not given DAP funds.
Aside from the two solons of the independent bloc the rest of the group signed as co-authors of the bill.
With this congressional inquiry, Romualdez believes that Abad who is a former colleague can explain the P10 million and P15 million in DAP that was given to each representative last year so it will not be perceived as an alleged “reward or incentive” for impeaching Corona.
“Whereas, reports indicate that billions of pesos of public funds have been consolidated and used by DBM in a so-called DAP as some sort of a ‘economic stimulus fund’ in the years 2010, 2011 and 2012,” the resolution stressed.
“Whereas, the same reports indicate that in FY 2010 and 2011, the DAP funds were released through various implementing agencies such as the DPWH, DA and DAR among others; whereas, in FY 2012 a substantial portion of the DAP funds amounting to P1.1 Billion and counting were allocated to members of the legislature instead of the implementing agencies presumably in consideration of their requests for such funds,” it stressed.
“Whereas, some legislators who were allocated various amounts as confirmed by the DBM have denied they ever requested for such funds; others have confirmed they received varying amounts over a certain period from October 2012 to March 2013. Whereas, these conflicting reports have triggered anger and apprehension over the provenance of and apparent misuse of these public monies which have only further enraged a public which has been on its wit’s end over earlier allegations of irregularity on the use of the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF),” the resolution ended.