DAP: Let Abad resign

 My friends are divided over the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP).

Some science nerds from the University of the Philippines told me the other day, “Project Noah is funded from the DAP.  This time around we did not need to beg. They asked us what would be good for the country and we proposed this, and the money came quickly.”

UP Professors are beset with their particular forms of angst. The complaints are often specific to the academic discipline. The people from the hard sciences would like nothing more than funding that will allow them to develop the kind of technology suited to our country’s conditions and needs. Project Noah, the life-saving early warning system that helps communities that are vulnerable to natural disasters  is an example of this kind of technology.

It matters as well to the people at an NGO that I work with that some of the DAP money was spent honestly and wisely. DAP funds did not go to President Aquino’s personal bank account. Those who seem to have stolen DAP funds are, notably, the very same plunderers of the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) – Senators Revilla, Enrile and Estrada.

Unholy alliance

My NGO friends have been reading the political scene for decades. They note that the loudest voices demanding President Aquino’s impeachment after the Supreme Court ruled the DAP unconstitutional, are the extreme left and the most corrupt politicians. Particularly those politicians associated with Enrile, Estrada and Revilla.  An unholy alliance.

The big 3 plunderers would like nothing more than to muddle the issue. We have heard this line of defense from the actors Revilla and Estrada from the very beginning. They claim that these charges are a political vendetta. They claim that everyone else is guilty so they should not be singled out.

In truth, the charges and trial of these big 3 plunderers are a historic precedent in our people’s long-term aspiration for honesty in the handling of government money. Of course we know there is so much corruption in government. Yet there is something wrong in the moral reasoning that says we can’t punish these 3 who are guilty because others need to be punished also. There is something twisted in the idea that their trial, conviction and punishment would not be an important step in dealing with this problem. Let us not lose sight of what is important here. The system is showing signs of healing itself. And this is not a small step. It is an important one to take on the road to national well being. If there is a focus we cannot lose at this point, it is that these three and all their cohorts now charged, must be brought to justice.

Of course we know that the system is rotten to the core. Regardless of my disagreements with the left extremists, they are correct in saying that “bureaucrat capitalism” (in non-Maoist speak, corruption) is one of the basic problems of Philippine society.

Unlike the extreme left, I do not believe that the endemic corruption in government is an argument for the violent overthrow of the state. Nonetheless this has been their unchanging reasoning. To them, the current head of a corrupt government is de facto a lackey of the ruling classes, de facto the main bureaucrat capitalist.  Their glee at the Supreme Court decision that DAP is unconstitutional, is immediately tied up to a call for impeachment. They have no hope for reform from within. They are quite ready to help the cause of the big 3 plunderers to go for the biggest fish of all, President Aquino.

Let us not be naïve about this. The drumbeat of media about impeachment is a drumbeat that comes not only from people who genuinely care, but also from those in media on the payroll of the big 3 plunderers and their political allies. The Supreme Court decision does not necessarily mean that what was done was criminal. There is here a deliberate attempt to read into that decision something beyond what is stated.

Abad should resign

I understand that in this complicated national situation we are in, not everyone in the Aquino administration is innocent. I refer particularly to Budget Secretary Butch Abad. An expert on the budgeting process and himself a lawyer, he should have known better. Whether he saw his crafting of the DAP as a gamble worth taking or he incompetently but sincerely believed it to be constitutional, he has brought shame to the current administration. He has become a political liability. He has become the poster boy for the charge that the historic reform process started by the filing of charges against the big 3 plunderers is nothing more but political vendetta.

I will reiterate my point that there should be no distraction from the focus on the conviction of Revilla, Estrada and Enrile. If Abad is sincere in his advocacy of President Aquino’s call against corruption, he should resign. The other aspect of corruption in this country is that we do not have a political culture of personal accountability or delicadeza. Such a political culture demands that politicians like Abad should resign. Instead Abad, like Revilla, Enrile and Estrada, and an army of politicians in all previous administrations, hang on until the legal system makes him accountable.

It is good that both forms of pork barrel, DAP and PDAF, have been declared unconstitutional. Clearly they were a source of corruption. They were a main tool in the patronage politics that allowed miscreant administrations like the Arroyo regime to flourish. In a well functioning justice system, all those liable for the stealing of their PDAF and DAP allocations should be brought to justice. But then, in a well functioning system the horrifying theft of pork barrel funds could not have occurred.

But institutional reform and strengthening is a long process. And it is institutional reform that we need if we are to have clean government. As the successive regimes after our People Power Revolution show, we cannot rely on one person, even if that person is the President. The first step towards institutionalizing reform is to follow through on this important opportunity presented to us. Revilla, Enrile, Estrada and all those charged with them must be tried with all haste and convicted. There is also a practical aspect to this because our justice system must harness its resources properly.

Let Abad resign. Let the investigation of all DAP and PDAF resources continue, including the investigation of alleged DAP plunderers Bongbong Marcos and Vicente Sotto III.

But let’s get on with the trial of Enrile, Revilla and Estrada. If this administration manages to put the big 3 plunderers in jail for the rest of their lives, it will have my gratitude. – Rappler.com

Sylvia Estrada-Claudio is a doctor of medicine who also holds a PhD in Psychology. She is Professor of the Department of Women and Development Studies, College of Social Work and Community Development, University of the Philippines. She is also co-founder and Chair of the Board of Likhaan Center for Women’s Health.