Aquino slams ally: Akbayan’s Bello has ‘so many complaints’

Natashya Gutierrez

This is AI generated summarization, which may have errors. For context, always refer to the full article.

The President advises the party-list congressman – who earlier criticized his DAP and some controversial Cabinet members – to run for president in 2016 if he has so many views on how to run the country

STILL ALLIES? President Benigno Aquino III slams Akbayan Rep Walden Bello (pictured). File photo from Rappler

MANILA, Philippines – It seems President Benigno Aquino III has had enough with Akbayan Representative Walden Bello.

On Monday, November 3, Aquino said the party-list congressman has “so many complaints on a wide range of issues.”

In an article in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Bello hit the administration for giving “the lion’s share” of development funds from the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) to its allies. He also insisted Aquino should drop some of his Cabinet members, including Vice President Jejomar Binay, to keep his reform agenda intact.

In response, the President said Bello can run for the top post in 2016 rather than keep complaining.

He has so many complaints. My only advice to him is that, if he thinks only his views are right, in 2016, there are elections, he might want to run. And when he’s president, he can run things according to his vision,” Aquino said. “For now, I think I’m doing what I think is right.”

Aquino also focused on Bello’s criticism of Budget Secretary Florencio Abad granting his wife, Batanes Representative Henedina Abad, the 6th largest allocation from DAP despite the province having the smallest population and number of registered voters.

The President said Bello’s logic is senseless, since it implies that funds should only be given to provinces with a high number of voters.

Now my question is, if you are the president, what will happen to the most depressed and poorest provinces if that’s the basis?,” he said. “[Allocation] should not be based on the number of votes it will give the politician but on the degree of need.”

Long time coming?

Aquino’s statements regarding Bello may have been a long time coming.

In August, Bello had written Aquino calling for the resignation of Abad for his role in DAP, which has since been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

According to sources in the Palace, Bello raised his concerns regarding DAP with Akbayan, in a move to get his party to take a stand against the stimulus package. He was outvoted, however, leading to his own decision to write the President.

Aquino, in response to the letter, called for a meeting with leaders of Akbayan, which included Bello, former Akbayan president and now Aquino’s political adviser Ronald Llamas, and Risa Hontiveros, who ran a failed bid for senator under the President’s slate in 2013.

Despite Bello’s specific explanation that it was his personal concern, sources said Aquino expressed his disappointment about Bello’s position on the DAP and asked that Akbayan inform him if they decide to take any particular stand on any controversial manner. 

Bello has also asked the President to dismiss embattled Philippine National Police Chief Alan Purisima, as well as Agrarian Reform Secretary Virgilio de los Reyes over his failure to implement the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program Extension with Reforms Law.

Bello has also recommended that Aquino relieve Binay, who faces plunder charges before the Office of the Ombudsman, as well as Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala for alleged incompetence and corruption.

Akbayan, a political party, coalesced with the Liberal Party in the 2010 presidential race to support Aquino’s candidacy. 

Below is the letter in full sent by Bello to Aquino in August:

August 9, 2014
 
Dear Mr. President:

Greetings.

As a member of Congress representing Akbayan, it has been my good fortune to work with your administration as part of the reform coalition.  Through thick and thin over the last four years, our party has been at your side, firm in its support of the reform program. 

We have been one of your strongest backers in the drive to prosecute former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo for plundering the national wealth.

We defended the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) program and played our part in getting it through the House.  We have backed you fully in your stand against China’s aggressive moves against our territories and our 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zone in the West Philippine Sea. If you remember, it was Akbayan that sponsored the bill changing the name South China Sea to West Philippine Sea.

We were part of the core partnership that pushed through the Reproductive Health Bill even as some members of your own party caved in to the threat of electoral reprisal from the Catholic bishops.

We have had our differences, of course, but these were differences between partners that shared the same goal of comprehensive reform.  For instance, we did not agree on theEnhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) with Washington.  But we listened to each other, respected each other’s stand, and subordinated our differences to the goals of the reform coalition.

I write to you today because I am very concerned about the future of the reform program, which I desperately want to succeed.  However, I do not write you in my capacity as a representative of Akbayan since I have not obtained the party’s authorization to write you on its behalf.Indeed, some party leaders and members would disagree with some or all of what I have to say here.I write to you as an ordinary citizen sharing the goals of his president’s program of reform.

You must be aware, Mr. President, that I have defended you against the efforts of a tiny minority in the House to impeach you on the matter of the Development Acceleration Program (DAP).  I cannot, however, defend the continued presence of Mr. Florencio Abad in your cabinet as Secretary of the Budget. I have studied the matter carefully and find myself in agreement with the Supreme Court’s 13-0 decision that a number of practices under DAP were unconstitutional, specifically, considering unspent amounts as savings in mid-year, using funds for projects for which monies were not appropriated by Congress, and transmitting funds across institutional or “regional” borders. 

I disagree with the contention of some critics of the administration that there was ill intent and malice on the part of Secretary Abad in creating and managing DAP.  I believe, however, that he committed a severe error of judgment in his liberal deployment and redeployment of funds appropriated for specific purposes by Congress.  The congressional power of the purse is one of the key checks on the Executive, and Secretary Abad should have had a sense that his fast and loose manipulation of funds, with no sense of limits, might have involved a violation of the principle of the separation of powers.  At the very least, his acts smacked of recklessness.
The concealment of the DAP’s existence from Congress and the public for three years was an added sign that Mr. Abad felt he was skating on thin ice with his establishment and management of the program. Moreover, Mr. Abad should have had qualms about allocating 9 per cent, or P12.8 billion of the P143 billion in DAP funds to 20 senators and some members of Congress.  Let me be clear on this: I do not think the DAP allocation given to senators months after his conviction was intended as a bribe or reward for the conviction of former Chief Justice Renato Corona.  But I find it hard to believe that Mr. Abad was unaware of the tremendous power the Executive was acquiring over members of the Senate with the amounts ranging from P30 million to P100 million being given to each senator, in addition to the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) or pork barrel that was still in existence then. This is precisely the kind of presidential patronage subversive of the separation of powers the Constitution wanted to avert by specifying that the power of the purse belonged to Congress and that the use of appropriated funds by the Executive was to be strictly controlled by Congress.

Mr. President, to say, as some have, that DAP was no big deal because previous administrations engaged in the same fast and loose manipulation of appropriated fundsis no excuse, since past wrongs do not make a right.  Equally important, as a reform administration one of whose priorities is the transparent, honest, and ethically sound use of taxpayers’ money, your administration is held to a much higher standard than previous administrations.

Owing to Mr. Abad’s bad judgment, your administration has been severely wounded by the DAP issue.  Your popularity may not suffer but the credibility of the reform programwith the citizenry will be thoroughly eroded with the continued presence of Mr. Abad as secretary of the budget.  I think he has become a hindrance to the fulfillment of the program and I feel strongly that he must go for the matuwid na daan to regain its credibility. 

Mr. President, there is no perfect cabinet, and cabinet positions seldom remain filled by the same individuals from beginning to end.  Replacement of non-functioning, erring, inept, or corrupt cabinet ministers is necessary for an administration’s effective pursuit of its goals in any democracy.  Moreover, changing personnel is an opportunity for reinvigoration and can work wonders for a flagging program.Mutual loyalty between a leader and his subordinates is important, but a cabinet is not a UP fraternity.  Far more important than loyalty as a measure for retaining someone in the cabinet is effectiveness in achieving the administration’s proclaimed goals. 
So there is no misinterpretation, let me repeat: I will concede that Mr. Abad probably had good intentions in conceiving and managing DAP as a “stimulus” program.  But as the saying goes, the road to hell is filled with good intentions, and DAP eventually transmogrified into a patronage program.  Owing to a major error of judgment, SecretaryAbad has brought caused great embarrassment to your administration, promoted cynicism about the reform program, and is now an obstacle to the achievement of your reform agenda.

Concern about the success of the reform agenda is the same reason I am requesting that you also immediately replace another cabinet member, Secretary Virgilio de los Reyes of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR). 

Mr. President, Akbayan was the principal author of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program Extension with Reforms Law (CARPER) that became law in August 2009.  We were confident then that with P150 billion in financial support over five years, the process of land reform would be completed by the end of June 2014, as provided by the law. 

CARPER was not a perfect agrarian reform law. Yet it was a law that even some left-wing skeptics acknowledged as having tough provisions.  To cite just a few:
 
CARPER outlawed the “voluntary land transfer” scheme, which had been used by landlords to retain control of land via the “Stock Distribution Option,” as a method of land redistribution; created a P150 billion budget for land acquisition and for support services over five years; established the indefeasibility or non-revocation of Certificates of Land Ownership Awards (CLOAs) and Emancipation Patents (EPs); provided for the immunity of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) from temporary restraining orders or injunctions in the implementation of the agrarian reform program;  and made irrigated and irrigable lands non-negotiable for any land conversion.
 
CARPER also institutionalized a land acquisition and distribution schedule that put the priority on distributing bigger landholdings; enshrined the right of rural women to own and control land, invoking the substantive equality between men and women as qualified beneficiaries; provided for access to socialized credit for all agrarian reform beneficiaries; and specified penal provisions, including the filing of criminal cases against landowners for delaying agrarian reform implementation, against DAR for delay in land acquisition and distribution, and against landlords for undue delay in attesting to the qualification of tenants and regular farm workers as beneficiaries.
 
In short, CARPER was a powerful instrument.
 
The tragedy of CARPER was that it was a potent mechanism in the hands of an irresolute and timid agency head.  The measure of DAR’s failure is that, as admitted by Secretary de los Reyes, by the time of the CARPER-mandated deadline for land acquisition and distribution of June 30, 2014, over 550,000 hectares of “carpable” landremained undistributed.
 
De los Reyes has claimed that the failure to meet the deadline stems from “technical problems,” like the “lack of a central date base,” inaccurate land surveys, or unclear land titles.  This is nonsense—nonsense that was unfortunately inserted into your speech by your speechwriter.  The reality is that the problem is landlord resistance and the DAR’s lack of political will or courage to face it down.  Given a powerful law like CARPER, a bolder and more innovative agency head could have made a difference—a big difference.
 
The land reform struggle is now entering a very precarious period.
 
First, asMr. de los Reyes admitted during the budget hearings last year, the bulk of the undistributed land—some 450,000—is private land, in fact, the best lands in the country.   These lands are in the heart of landlord country, in the Western Visayas and Mindanao, and the ability of the DAR to distribute them, as de los Reyes admitted, will be the acid test of agrarian reform.
 
Second, landlords have mounted a judicial counteroffensive to delay the land distribution process. In many parts of the country, more and more cases of revocation of Certificates of Land Transfer (CLOAs) are occurring. This legal counterattack is likely to intensify as land reform finally focuses on the most productive private lands throughout the country.  
 
Third, while they will exploit every legal loophole, many recalcitrant landlords will, as a last resort, have recourse to violence.  The recent assassinations of several peasant leaders serve as a jarring reminder of this reality of the class struggle in the countryside.
 
These circumstances demand a determined, resolute, and courageous secretary of agrarian reform, one who is not a timid technocrat but a bold political leader who will not be afraid to do battle with the landlords.   Otherwise, we will be confronted with yet another request for an extension of the program in a few years’ time.
 
Mr. President, as an author of CARPER, I feel personally betrayed by Mr. de los Reyes’ performance.  But that is less important than the certainty that keeping him in his position will prove to be yet another betrayal of the hopes of our long-suffering farmers.
 
I have come to the end of this long missive.   I will not tax your patience any longer.  I rest my case for the resignation or dismissal of Secretary Abad and Secretary de los Reyes.
 
Whatever the outcome of this exchange, I promise you my continued support of the reform program, though at times this may be expressed in a manner that you or my party Akbayan may not necessarily approve of. 
 
Sincerely yours,
 
Walden Bello
Representative
Akbayan

 Rappler.com

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Natashya Gutierrez

Natashya is President of Rappler. Among the pioneers of Rappler, she is an award-winning multimedia journalist and was also former editor-in-chief of Vice News Asia-Pacific. Gutierrez was named one of the World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leaders for 2023.