In his column in The Manila Times, Rigoberto
Tiglao said not just 274 but 1,997 cases of malversation of public funds should
have been filed by Presidential Anti-Corruption Commission commissioner Greco
Belgica against former President Noynoy Aquino, his then Budget Sec. Florencio Abad, and several other
Liberal Party stalwarts for the unconstitutional Disbursement Acceleration
Program (DAP).
This is the link: https://www.manilatimes.net/not-274-but-1-997-counts-of-malversation-vs-aquino-and-his-gang/454005/
As many people as possible should know this so let me share with you the main points
in Tiglao’s column:
That’s the number (1,997) of SAROs, or
Special Allotment Release Orders, that the Aquino administration released to
undertake the DAP, which amounted to a STAGGERING P147 BILION (emphasis mine). These SAROs are the instructions by the budget
secretary or his representatives for the National Treasury to release funds for
specific programs and projects.
While each of the DAP’s 1,997 SAROs were
signed by Abad or his then deputy, Mario Relampagos, they were all authorized
by Aquino himself through four memorandums he signed. Under Article 220 of the Revised Penal Code:
“Any public officer who shall apply any
public fund or property under his administration to any public use other than
for which such fund or property were appropriated by law… shall suffer the
penalty of prision correccional in its minimum period or a fine ranging from
one half to the total of the sum misapplied…” Prision correccional in its
minimum period means a jail term of six months to two years.
The Yellow Regime had managed to keep the DAP
secret until Sen. Jinggoy Estrada exposed it in 2013, claiming that DAP funds
were used to bribe senators to vote Chief Justice Corona guilty in his impeachment
trial. According to Estrada, to bribe them, senators were given P100 million
for their “projects,” which, he would only be told later, came from the DAP.
After that, and to the credit of our media that did not let up on the issue,
Aquino’s budget department was forced to disclose the details of the DAP.
The Supreme Court in 2014 ruled—and affirmed
in 2015—that the DAP was patently unconstitutional, that it clearly violated
Article IV, Section 29 of the Constitution: “No money shall be paid out of the
Treasury except in pursuance of an appropriation made by law.” The projects the
SAROs Aquino had ordered to be financed from the budget were not in any of the
budget laws from 2010 to 2013.
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