Gardeners read the tell-tale signs of possible regime change knowing fully well that no situation is exactly like another.
Drilon
Franklin Drilon, second-time President of the Senate, knows the classic Marcosian tactic of buying time. The hope is always that time can diffuse any and all issues. Don’t be rushed to a decision. Always take your time.
In time, – so the belief goes – before you know it, people will have been distracted from the original issue of controversy. Worse issues would have come on top of the first one, which would then be relegated to the background, if not to oblivion. The object of the exercise is to get the people to lose focus and render a people-powered revolt extremely difficult to carry out.
Thus when the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee decided to subpoena Ms Janet Napoles ad testificandum, which at that time would have meant a malodorous pile hitting the fan, Drilon said, “No, wait! I want to know the opinion of the Ombudsman before I can put my signature to this subpoena.”
One day followed another, and because the Ombudsman did not think it a great idea to permit Napoles to testify at a Senate hearing, and on the other hand with the Blue Ribbon Committee Chairman insisting on the independent authority of the Senate to conduct such hearings in aid of legislation, Drilon was caught in a bind.
This time he said, and he was surely getting the delay he needed, that he would first consult the whole Senate on this subpoena question. He set the time for the Senate caucus a full two weeks after his announcement – a mere caucus, mind you, which they often do in two minutes’ or two hours’ or two days’ notice at most, but certainly not in two weeks’ prolonged waiting time, the same being so unheard of that most of the senators got the drift.
Two weeks came and almost all of the senators were absent. But it was okay, said Drilon. He had already signed the subpoena anyway, without waiting for his own much-ballyhooed prior consultation alibi. He probably was now happy enough to have had ample time to consult with his protégé, former Secretary Rene Villa, who it turned out was the legal counsel, well-compensated, of Janet Napoles, and even probably an informal liaison for executive-legislative relations. Drilon, after all, hugs all important fields; he needs someone like Villa to assist him in many things. Daily some evidence would surface showing that investigators and investigated were a cozy lot, closely related socially, politically and economically – strengthening ordinary people’s feelings once again of “them” and “us,” the elite politicians and the people.
More significantly, Drilon gained all the time in the world, to consult and coordinate with just about everyone in the Senate regarding self-discipline in the forthcoming Napoles investigation; he could have even reminded his colleagues that threatening Napoles with contempt-of-Senate and consequent imprisonment would not do because she was already a prisoner under guard by the Department of Justice, not to mention that she had more up her sleeves against many of them than they could ever suspect.
The Senate had fast deteriorated as a club. The spectre of Napoles should now unite them all again, somehow – as in a farcical sort of unity, amid the dust and din of debate – or else face the real possibility of abolition by a revolution-prone nation.
Meanwhile the original pork issue had given birth to many other issues much bigger than itself.
Two former Chief Justices – Panganiban and Puno just could not be shunted aside in the current drama. Three others did remain silent: one, Corona who had been impeached earlier: an older one, Narvasa who was on the verge of death [the latter actually passed on as I was writing this blog], and the President’s friend Davide. Corona’s impeachment could yet be voided as a far-fetched possibility but a possibility nonetheless consequent to the alleged bribery of the legislature by the executive to rid the judiciary of the immediate past administration’s appointee.
While Panganiban writes a column, Puno has begun to marshal the resources and support of large civil society organizations to launch a campaign for a people’s initiative that would abolish pork barrel as it has led to the “failure of democratic institutions and to a large degree destroyed our democracy, principle of separation of powers, and doctrine of checks and balances.”
Puno, the country’s 22nd Chief Justice, said that a new law had to be put in place through a people’s initiative as Congress “cannot legislate against its own selfish interest” and present-day “legislators have lost the moral authority to be the guardians of the people’s money.”
“Under our 1987 Constitution, the power to enact laws is no longer exclusively vested in Congress but can now be directly exercised by the people in recognition of the doctrine that the people are the real sovereign and not their elected legislators,” Puno said.
But are there any rules to follow in the exercise of constitutional direct democracy? To get a law passed through a people’s initiative, the proposed law should be endorsed by 10 per cent of registered voters—equivalent to about 6 million—and at least 3 per cent of the registered voters of every legislative district, according to the retired Chief Justice.
Then, said Puno, after these numbers are secured, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) must publish the proposed law for public discussions. After only a month and a half, the Comelec will hold a referendum where voters will be asked to vote either “yes” or “no” to the proposed law. A simple majority of the votes cast will ratify the proposal as law of the land.
Simple? Yes. Easy? Not quite when you regard the 3% of every legislative district conditionality. For how many districts are easily controlled by well-nigh dynastic and anti-democratic families that can easily deny you the 3% you badly need. The ten per cent of registered voters clause is ironically much easier to achieve.
Of course, said Puno, “You need to organize. Your opposition are the traditional politicians, the vested interests, everyone who wants to preserve the stinking status quo; those are all your enemies.” Drilon, his Liberal Party and the Administration did not like this kind of talk at all. He said it was beneath Puno’s dignity as former Chief Justice to be “politicking” the way he was after retirement. And Puno is no angel either, said the friends of Drilon – and so on and so forth away from the issue at hand.
Ret. Chief Justice Artemio V. Panganiban, for his part, took the professorial chair to deliver lectures on Pork Barrel 101. With utmost clarity and simplicity, Panganiban stated the basic doctrine: “Under the doctrine of separation of powers, Congress shall enact laws, the president shall execute them, and the Supreme Court shall interpret them. This delineation of authority is exclusive and absolute and the three great branches of government cannot intrude into each other’s exclusive domain.”
Congress cannot interpret with finality the meaning of the laws it passes. Neither can legislators implement them, nor participate in their implementation. “Unconstitutional would be a law that empowers members of Congress (1) to specify what projects should be undertaken, and/or (2) to determine what offices or organizations should be given government funds from an appropriated lump sum to implement these projects.”
But may not legislators at least recommend while not pretending to determine…? Panganiban, the former Chief Justice, said of course, yes: “In 1994, the Supreme Court held that the pork barrel system was constitutional since the legislators were not empowered by the then prevailing law to determine the projects to be implemented. They merely recommended the projects to the executive offices, which retained the absolute discretion to accept or reject these recommendations.
“In the case now pending in the Supreme Court, the contentious point is whether the present law requires the executive agencies to implement the projects that the legislators chose through the nongovernment organization (NGO) they select. Otherwise stated, is the ‘recommendation’ of the legislators binding? If so, then the law would be unconstitutional because it authorizes the lawmakers to participate in the law’s implementation.”
To reiterate with passionate emphasis, Panganiban said: “What is prohibited is a law appropriating a lump sum and at the same time empowering the legislators individually to dictate the specific projects to be funded from the lump sum. This is what may make the present pork barrel law invalid: Legislators are given the power to interfere by choosing (1) what specific projects would be funded from the lump sum, and (2) which executive agency or NGO would undertake the projects.” And one may add, “which contractor will undertake the project if it is not completely a ghost project.”
At first, the issue of controversy was merely the billions of pesos that went to ghost projects or humungous commissions for legislators who control the appropriation of public funds with the necessary help of course from the executive that releases those funds and the audit commission that is more interested in commissions than in audits.
The “accidental whistling” by an inside operator which was originally meant merely to embarrass the top political foes of the administration led to an uncontrollable process that showed the people not just billions in “PDAF Pork” but almost a trillion pesos in “DAP Beef” that perplexed (his favourite word) a President no end. But more on this later…
Lacson from ofwnow.com
A retired senator, Panfilo Lacson, during his 12-year stint in the Senate, refrained from using his P200-million-a-year pork entitlement under the P25-billion Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) in the budget. He said (believe it or not) that he simply disdained its reputation as a source of kickbacks for unscrupulous lawmakers.
Some lawmakers are smarter than others, according to Lacson, and those who are can get as much as, or more than, P1 billion in additional pork barrel during congressional budget deliberations.
“If you ask me how much, all I can tell you is that the monies are carefully parked in the budgets of some departments and agencies whose heads are willing co-conspirators in the schemes or scams. The amounts realigned or inserted range from a few hundred million to even over a billion pesos for the smart,” he said.
Lacson said the PDAF of P200 million per senator and P70 million per Congressman are their minimum amounts of pork. “I said minimum because every year, just before the period of amendments of both chambers, small and big group caucuses decide how much each member would get as additional pork, usually at least P100 million more for senators,” he said.
One big source for the additional amounts of course is the so-called Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) funds whose expose has irked the President no end. Analysts see the DAP funds as pork barrel (“beef” because much bigger) due to the discretion given legislators to identify projects that will be funded from alleged savings of the executive branch which legislators are given access to, ostensibly to help in accelerating spending.
In a recent speech, Lacson said that the DAP, which was so-baptized by twin circulars of the Department of Budget and Management in 2012 to pool all unspent allotments from different agencies, amounted to a “fiscal dictatorship” by the DBM.
“An ordinary citizen’s valid question is ‘Why do we keep on borrowing when we keep on saving?’ I would venture a guess: So those in government can have funds to play around with,” Lacson said in that speech before the Philippine Constitution Association (Philconsa) late October.
What amounts are we talking about in the so-called DAP? Apart from the P216.1 billion in “unused appropriations” from 2012, the other potential sources of “savings” may be “budget items identified as earmarked revenues amounting to P71.4 billion; continuing appropriations, P163.6 billion; overall savings of P65.6 billion, and Unprogrammed Funds of P152.8 billion.
“Therefore, just in the 2012 [budget] alone, we could end up with a whopping P669 billion which could be generated for the DAP,” Lacson said.
The Philconsa has petitioned the Supreme Court to rule on the constitutionality of the DAP after it was revealed that it was a source of additional pork for legislators who were allowed or favoured to propose projects to be funded from it to the tune of P50 million to P100 million for each senator.
Incredibly, one LP stalwart, former Congressman Felicito “Tong” Payumo hit the nail on the head when he wrote in a letter to the editor: “The people cannot reconcile the objective of accelerating disbursements with the need to course them through the senators. If the projects were immediately executable, then why not simply have the concerned departments/agencies do them immediately? Why, of all people, use the senators who don’t even have specific constituencies to know their needs? … Simply put, it is a cause for delay and a temptation for corruption. … He who controls the funds ‘owns’ the project. Biddings get rigged to favor a favourite contractor or supplier.”
In one year concerned, the government declared savings in October (rather than end-December), gave out the financial power to the legislators who had them implemented more than a year later. So much for disbursement acceleration.
Thus, people’s anger has deepened and expanded as they see more and more facts coming into the light. “The protests today are not just about pork barrel but the abuse of every ‘lump sum’ placed at the disposal of public officials: PDAF, DAP, Malampaya and if we are to be consistent, the Judiciary Development Fund,” as well, said one editorial lately.
So, why is the President, popularly perceived to be so honest and so straight, also so very angry with the people’s anger? Or what really irks our popular leader?
Within a seven-day period lately he talked twice to the Filipino people. On October 23 at the Manila Hotel before the FOCAP or Foreign Correspondents of the Philippines, the PNoy said in effect that if, like the rest of the world, you like how the economy is doing, why are you criticizing the DAP?
“The stimulus program that heralded our country’s economic boom was named the Disbursement Acceleration Program. You may have heard of it. After all, at this point, who has not?…”
It was the turn of gardeners to be perplexed. They could not agree more with the remarks of one commentator. The President claimed that “the DAP helped in stimulating the economy. According to the World Bank, the DAP contributed 1.3 per cent to the GDP during the last quarter of 2011.” (Words of the President)
How could it, said the opposition writer, “when the DAP was set up only October 22, 2011, and most of funds hijacked through it were released only in 2012 and 2013? Our GDP in 2011 was in fact a disappointing 3.9 per cent” when the Aquino government suspended infrastructure contracts approved in the previous administration, on grounds that these were riddled with corruption.
“Economic growth in the past three years was due certainly not to the DAP but mainly to the multiplier effects of increasing overseas workers’ remittances, to a healthy macroeconomic base created by past President Arroyo’s reforms, and to the global business community’s confidence over the economy when it weathered the global financial crisis of 2008 to 2009.
“What also contributed to the 6.3 per cent growth in 2012 was the increase in government spending for infrastructure. This was after sanity returned [sic]to the Aquino government to realize that its suspension of such projects due to suspicion that these were tainted with corruption was unwarranted and obviously counterproductive. The Aquino government simply restored the level of public spending on infrastructure of the past decade, but which was recklessly and foolishly reduced in 2011.”[1]
Back to the President: “I do not need to remind you of the true issue that has seemingly been drowned out by all the background noise. And so I ask you: Let’s keep our eye on the ball. The public was outraged by the audacity with which public officials allegedly stole from the national coffers through PDAF. This is an outrage we share, and this is precisely why we abolished PDAF, and followed the evidence so that we may hold all those who committed wrongdoing accountable. [N.B. To date pork has not yet been abolished.]
“I submit that at no other time in living memory have we been so close to achieving permanent change. In the coming months and years, we can expect those wedded to the old ways to stop at nothing to prevent this change. I am confident, however, that the sober reporter—the responsible journalist—will see just how far we have gone, and how much the old crooks have their backs to the wall.”
“The old ways” – “their backs to the wall.” That was October 23. A week later, October 30, a full week before the Napoles circus is to start at the Senate (Nov.7) President Aquino asked the networks for prime time coverage.
“With the cacophony of discordant voices coming from many different sides, perhaps the subject of the Pork Barrel and DAP has begun to leave you confused. I am asking you for a few minutes of your time in order to bring clarity to these issues. You are all witnesses to the conflict taking place,” said PNoy to the Filipino people.
“Might I remind those who have forgotten: The real issue here is stealing. This is the topic they have constantly tried to avoid ever since their wrongdoing was exposed. I can’t help but shake my head, since the first thing I expected was for them to at least deny the accusations. After all, is that not the natural reaction of anyone who is accused of anything? And yet, in the midst of all their extended counter-accusations hurled against me, not once have I heard them say: ‘I did not steal.’…[“You just were not listening at all,” said accused Senator Revilla.]
“And since it is exceedingly difficult to explain, it seems they have taken the advice of an old politician from their camp: If you can’t explain it, muddle it; if you can’t deodorize it, make everyone else stink; if you can’t look good, make everyone look bad. You have heard what they are saying: that we are all the same. [Is JPE asking why PNoy is focused on him after he helped him get rid of Corona?]
“My response, “ said the President: “We are not the same. I have never stolen. I am not a thief. I am the one who goes after thieves. We appointed people of unquestionable integrity who are fulfilling their sworn duties…[Question marks galore…Who sent Ben Hur Luy and Atty. Balicod on a mission? Inn whose interest? To what purpose?]
“I repeat: The issue here is theft. I did not steal. Those who have been accused of stealing are those who are sowing confusion; they want to dismantle all that we have worked so hard to achieve on the straight path. We were stolen from, we were deceived—and now we are the ones being asked to explain? I have pursued truth and justice, and have been dismantling the systems that breed the abuse of power—and yet I am the one now being called the “Pork Barrel King”?
This gardener is sure that not only he but so many others with some sense of history must have had goose bumps on hearing that “I am not a thief” line. Many of us were so familiar with the Nixon line decades ago. Nixon was globally popular in those years and won every state of America except one (Massachusetts). Yet, his panic over-reaction to Watergate did him in. A “small thing” became so big that its incredible effect in so short a time was for him to leave the White House.
Sunday, November 18, 1973 – Carroll Kilpatrick, Washington Post Staff Writer
Orlando, Fla, Nov. 17 — Declaring that “I am not a crook,” President Nixon vigorously defended his record in the Watergate case tonight and said he had never profited from his public service.
“I have earned every cent. And in all of my years of public life I have never obstructed justice,” Mr. Nixon said. People have got to know whether or not their President is a crook. Well, I’m not a crook. I’ve earned everything I’ve got.”
Amando Doronila said it well: “The President distorted the issue by claiming that the critics of the DAP were accusing him of stealing public funds, virtually putting words in their mouths.”
Be that as it may, the question is still valid: why the hurried, patently ill-prepared speech? What does the President know that most of us don’t? Obviously many things. What does he suspect that we don’t? What does he plan to do? If he really believes he has active foes in Enrile et al, does he connect the stands of the retired generals and the PMA Alumni and the newly organized ROU (Reform Officers Union) with some Enrile “defence forces”? Must we not always be aware that an Enrile and an Aquino will never be bashful about crossing the conventional line to revolutionary options – for whose sake, and for what purposes? Does PNoy believe that the people now think he is a thief? That is hard to believe.
When he addressed the nation last Wednesday night, he maintained that the DAP is constitutional and has been used effectively as a mechanism to stimulate economic growth. As Doronila pointed out, PNoy claimed that there had been no irregularities in the implementation of DAP projects, unlike the PDAF, which he falsely claimed his administration had abolished.
Despite the contrary views of reputable legal scholars, the President insists that the DAP is not pork barrel. “Spending through DAP is clearly allowed by the Constitution, and by other laws. DAP is only the name of a process in which the government can spend both savings and new and additional revenues,” he said.
If the Supreme Court says otherwise, or is perceived soon to be ready to say otherwise, will this Aquino be ready or, firstly, tempted to declare a revolutionary government and rule by fiat for a longer period than his mother, in imitation of economically progressive countries around us? Or might not his foes beat him to it? FINIS