DAP – the coal of the ChaCha train
All impeachment complaints filed in the Lower House of the Congress have already been voted not sufficient in substance by the chamber’s Justice Committee to which members are majorly composed of the President’s Liberal Party in a televised spectacle. The committee members have actively defended the President against the issues and arguments hurled against him through the impeachment complaints and as what Congressman Neri Colmenares of Bayan Muna accused to his colleagues, “lawyering” in full froth on the President’s stead. The first complaint had its basis for removing the President from office for the implementation of the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) which essential parts have been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.
DAP in quick terms is fiscal dictatorship, it rips from Congress its constitutional mandate of deciding on the national budget, a snatched power that enormously tilts the equal powers of the govenment’s branches towards the Executive. DAP has enabled the President and his alter ego in the Budget Department to usurp the power of the purse from the legislators. Then why must the congressmen fashion a rod to beat its own back and not allow the impeachment to make the President answer for his actions?
The impeachment process had it pursued, could have been a very good way of extracting the truth on the very shady transactions done under DAP. Even Senator Grace Poe, the Chair of the Senate Finance Committee whom Abad vowed under oath to submit all DAP documents is yet to receive any paper from him. DAP transactions as posted on the website of DBM is only but a list of fund recipients, a task which a student budgeting for his studies can easily do.
Amid the DAP controversy; LP stalwarts have floated the idea of ‘term extension’ for the President which can only be attained by changing the term limit provision in the 1987 Constitution. These people historically and obviously does not make any move without their principal pulling the strings. Besides, the president himself had at some point already agreed to the idea of term extension and ChaCha explicitly. Although he has flip-flopped on his statements following public outrage on such dictator-like pronouncements. Even the Commission on Elections already anticipates for the ChaCha as they have included a P7 billion allocation proposal for a Charter Change plebescite.
In the guise of the President’s “righteous path” banner, he claims to be as righteous or saintly as his parents were popularly believed to be, that nobody else can do good for the country but himself. Such lines have already been charted in history to be spoken by a fascist tyrant. The late Marcos has also made use of his then formidable political capital to justify his hunger for power, not withstanding his hunger for wealth thus, the Bagong Lipunan.
A lot of analyses can be formulated from the timing of DAP and the Charter Change but it is important to note that should the rails of the ChaCha train extend and such measure push through, Aquino will also be able to effectively dismiss calls for the accounting of the biggest or most documented illegal use of public funds ever to happen in the country’s history. The immunity of the President against any legal proceeding seeking his removal from office provided by the termination of all the impeachment complaints will only last for a year and ChaCha can provide a better alternative for the President. It has been done under Marcos, Arroyo wanted one, and perhaps history will prove that no pure man exists in such system the Philippines has right now.
With the President taunting the High court for deciding on DAP contrary to his will, for calling all his critics even those former supporters as mere destabilizers or noise-makers, for purportedly hiding the congressmen’s ‘pork barrel’ as reflected on Cong. Tinio’s audio-recording expose, the President is indeed pompous and yet to be done in his hunger for power.
Calls for the resignation of the cabinet secretaries which have amusingly and orchestratingly been dismissed by the President is no longer of any relevance. Their superior – the President himself should be the one to resign. If one day delicadeza falls upon the roofs of Malacanan and decides to vacate his seat, then it would save his face on the judgment of history. But if it does not happen, the Filipinos, his supposed bosses shall pay him a visit and render his termination.
