Philippine President Benigno Simeon C.

Aquino delivered his fifth State of the Nation Address

on Monday, July 28, 2014 at the Batasan Pambansa in front of joint session of the Upper and
Lower House of countrys Legislative Branch of Government. Some students will surely give
their reaction paper with the Pres. SONA as part of their assignment.
See Also: Did the President Mentioned 6.5 Billion Trabaho?

The State of the Nation Address of President PNoy started at around 4:03 PM (PST) and
concluded after one hour and 30 minutes. The SONA 2014 is one of the highly anticipated date
of the administration, as the head of state reports his accomplishments and plans for the country.
During the entire SONA, the President received a total of 85 rounds of applause.
Heres How to Write Your SONA 2014 Reaction Paper and Essay Guidelines: (Note: This is
just a sample Reaction Paper)
President Aquino started his Fifth SONA recounting how the Philippines, once called as the
sick of man of Asia and transformed into one of the most promising economy in Asia. He
narrated how the government endured the corruption and hardships before his terms started. The
President then expressed his sentiments how the national government transformed.
Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP):
Pres. PNoy explained the importance of the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) as he
defended his stance, despite the controversy surrounding its implementation. He showed all the
projects funded by DAP that came from the savings of the national government. The Pres. noted
that because of DAP, it was able to help TESDA scholars achieved their goals even showcasing
a testimonials from benificiaries of the program.
Through DAP, the government was able to financed the Conditional Cash Transfer Program
which was branded by the government as 4Ps or the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program.
Pres. Aquino also lobbied the DAPs contribution to the Philippine economy as the
administration was able to manage the countrys budget as well as its debt effectively. He also
noted the investment grades status given to the Philippines and even mentioned the International
Civil Aviation Administrations ban lifting.
Business, Finance, Economy, Public Works & Transportation:
Pres. PNoy shared how the Philippines became one of the leading countries in Asia for its
growth in GDP and GNP. He also noted that the employment rate of the country had increased
and reflects how his administration handled the labor policies.
According to the President, the Infrastructure projects have doubled even without doubling to
raise taxes. President PNoy noted that there is P28 billion savings at the Department of Public
Works and Highways because of the corruption in the agency have been cut.
The President also boasted that from the start of his term, a total of 2,184 kilometers of national
roads were completed, seven Public Private Partnership (PPP) projects worth P62.6 billion were
approved. He noted that the TPLEX will reach Rosario, La Union soon, aside from mentioning
several projects underway, such as the Laguna Lakeshore Expressway Dike to help reduce
flooding, ease traffic.
Peace & Order, Disaster Management:
Pres. Aquino mentioned the latest development after the controversial Zamboanga siege. He
noted that P3.5 billion allotted for infrastructure projects, and housings in Zamboanga City. He
also noted the recent developments in the rehabilitation efforts in the earthquake-hit Bohol, the
typhoon Yolanda affected provinces. The President also thanked the international community for
their help in the recovery effort and on their help for Yolanda aid.
The President also mentioned some numbers in relation to labor with a total of 221,987 jobs
created during the rehabilitation period of those who were affected by calamities. He also
discussed the governments modernization of the AFP by purchasing aircrafts, helicopters,
assault rifles, naval vessels and radar systems under the AFP modernization program.
The success of the governments effort on reinforcing the police and army forces was also noted
as an achievement as the government achieved the 1:1 pistol ratio. Pres. PNoy also cited the
PNPs Opland: Lambat and Oplan: Katok in fighting crimes in Metro Manila, noting that the
security situations has greatly improved.
The reforms is also under way in the governments most controversial agency, the Bureau of
Customs which according to the President he had reset the entire agency. He also cited the
ongoing agreeement with the Bangsamoro, pushing for the Bangsamoro Basic Law before year-
end.
Energy, Power, Utility and Agriculture:
President PNoy admits the delay of the new power plants, but he noted that it needs to be
addressed soon so power and energy resources can be managed well for future shortage. The
Philippines is also looking forward for its plans to import more rice to bring down the rice prices
in the domestic market. He also warned those rice traders hoarding stocks of rice to be careful
with their illegal activities because the government will surely go after them.
Budget and Finance:
Pres. PNoy expressed his proposition for he passage of the Supplemental Budget for the year
2014 in the Philippine Congress. He also told the viewing public about the critics of his
administrations, saying that the loudest ones dont want reforms in the government, Pres. Aquino
even underscored that his critics are against he whole nation or the Filipino people.
Moving Forward:
Pres. Aquino also made an advised for choosing the countrys next leader in the upcoming 2016
Presidential Election. He was quoted as saying Sino ang walang dudang magpapatuloy sa
transformasyong ating isinakatuparan? The President also noted that The Filipino is worth
living for, the Filipino is definitely worth fighting for.
The Philippine President ended his speech with To my Bosses: You are behind the
transformation we are enjoying. You are the key to continuing all the positive changes we have
achieved. I fully believe that, whether I am here or not, the Filipino is headed towards the
rightful destination. nd so, I will leave it here. Good afternoon to all of you. Thank you very
much. he said.
In time for the President's July 14 national address, the Official Gazette posted a brief history of the DAP.
We are posting the text below:

"The Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) is a stimulus package under the Aquino administration
designed to fast-track public spending and push economic growth. This covers high-impact budgetary
programs and projects which will be augmented out of the savings generated during the year and
additional revenue sources. The DAP was approved by the President on October 12, 2011, upon the
recommendation of the Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC) and the Cabinet Clusters.

The DAP was conceptualized in September 2011 and introduced in October 2011, in the context of the
prevailing underspending in government disbursements for the first eight months of 2011 that
dampened the countrys economic growth. Such government intervention was needed because key
programs and projects, most notably public infrastructure, were moving slowly. The need to accelerate
public spending was also brought about by the global economic situation as well as the financial toll of
calamities in that year. While the economy has generally improved in 2012 and 2013, the use of DAP
was continued to sustain the pace of public spending as well as economic expansion."
DAP was used in good faith and for the good of the people. PDAF was used to enrich the corrupt
politicians and further their selfish political interest. There is no comparison.
Bishop on legalizing DAP: People will get
mad
Filed under: Headlines |
MANILA, August 11, 2014A top church official fears the Filipino peoples ire if the Aquino
administration insists on legalizing the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) by recasting
it as savings.
While Manila Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo, who chairs the Catholic Bishops Conference
of the Philippines-Episcopal Commission on Public Affairs (CBCP-ECPA), agrees that Congress
has the power to declare as lawful something that is patently wrong, he considers it gravely
abusive of Malacaang and its allies to consider having it done.

Students take part in a anti-pork demonstration last year when the PDAF scandal first broke out.
(File photo)
It is within their powers, really, because theyre the ones who make and pass laws. The only
problem, I fear, is that they might incur the wrath of the people if they attempt at making legal
what is immoral, explained Pabillo over Church-run Radyo Veritas.
The prelate pointed out, it will be immoral to legalize parts of what the highest court of the land
had previously dismissed as having no constitutional basis.
Pabillo believes PNoy and his allies will benefit greatly once they succeed at redefining
savings in DAPs favor.
Who will stand to benefit in the end? Its Congress and the President. Who else? he said.
According to former Budget secretary Benjamin Diokno and former National Treasurer Leonor
Briones, the Aquino administration wants DAP recast in order to absolve them from any possible
charges and to allow them to use billions of pesos in taxpayers money without the need for
accounting. (Raymond A. Sebastin)
DAP

Turning now to the legality of the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP), it is clear that the
weight of legal opinion is on the side of unconstitutionality. Sen Miriam Santiago, for example,
has asserted that the Constitution allows fund transfers, only if there are savings, meaning that
the project was completed, and yet the appropriation was not exhausted; but there are no savings
if a project was merely deferred.

She observed that it appeared that DAP funds were taken from alleged slow-moving projects. If
so, no savings were generated, and therefore DAP is illegal. She was seconded by former Sen
Joker Arroyo who said that the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) was neither
provided for under the General Appropriations Act nor in any of the countrys laws.

Professor Benjamin Diokno, a globally recognized budget expert and himself a former budget
secretary, has spoken very strongly against the DAP. In a television interview reported on by
Rappler, he observed that the realignment of savings to non-existing budget items in the General
Appropriations Act resulted in the creation of a budget within a budget without Congressional
action.

Rappler reported Diokno as saying, "Ito bastusan eh... Ang ginawa ng executive is that they
sliced and diced the budget and repackaged it and came out with a new budget which is P72-
billion worth." (What the government did was rude. The executive branch sliced and diced the
budget and repackaged it and came out with a new budget which is P72-billion worth.)

In the same interview on ANC, Fr Joaquin Bernas agreed with Diokno that savings should only
be spent to augment existing line items in the budget. Bernas also identified the enabling
conditions for realigning savings. "One, you have to have savings. Two, if these savings are to be
transferred, they have to be transferred in the same department."

On the other side of the issue, Bernas colleague in the Ateneo Law School, Atty Mel Sta. Maria
has a different take on the matter, saying that it is nothing else but the disbursement of funds
sourced from savings of a particular item to fund a deficit in another item for the purpose of
immediately accomplishing a priority activity.

According to Sta. Maria, this makes the DAP legal and constitutional, in his words: The only
transfer that cannot be made in this process is a transfer of saved-funds from one great
government department to another. Hence, the President cannot transfer executive funds to the
judiciary, the judiciary to the executive, the judiciary to the legislature, the legislature to the
executive, the executive to the legislature. To do so would be unconstitutional. But within the
executive branch, which is composed of so many departments, the President may do so pursuant
to the Constitution and the Administrative Code. In fact, the Constitution also explicitly grants
the Chief Justice, the Senate President, the Speaker of the House, the head of Constitutional
bodies the same powers within their departments.

My take

I have been asked by many where I stand on this issue, whether I will go with the more senior
and famous constitutional minds such as Bernas, Santiago and Arroyo, or with Sta. Marias
interpretation.

On the case of DAP disbursement decisions made purely by the executive branch, there is a color
of legality precisely because the President has the power to realign savings. However, with
respect to those DAP disbursements made upon recommendation by senators and other
legislators, I will draw the line and conclude that these were illegal.

This is consistent with what happened to funds allocated to legislators through the PDAF and
explains why again corruption rears its ugly head in such DAP disbursements. This is again
because of the inherent fault of the legislators being allowed to cross the line with respect to
implementation.

In the case of the PDAF that this was part of the approved budget and the link between
legislator and funds was clear this was understandable even if wrong. But in the case of the
DAP, there is no rationale at all for allowing the legislators to identify projects. What happened
here? Why did the executive department allow this to happen?

In this sense, I have come to the conclusion that the DAP overall can be legally defended but
what cannot be justified legally, and I think ethically, given the context of the Corona conviction,
is allowing the senators to identify even more projects than they already did with their PDAF.
That reeks of quid pro quo. I do not think it is criminal bribery but it does not look or smell right.

Broken system

That we even find ourselves in this debate is symptomatic of how broken our system of
government is. It indicates a complete breakdown of controls, which puts into question our very
system of government. The virulence of corruption has seriously tainted vital government
institutions among others, Congress, executive departments, agencies, government and
controlled corporations and local government units.

It also puts into question the existing auditing, budgeting processes, procedures and control
mechanisms. With cases now being filed, our justice system will also be put to the test. The
Pandoras Box has been fully opened. And if the P10-billion Napoles pork barrel and the
Malampaya funds scandals are just a tip of the iceberg, chances are, more gargantuan scams
involving public funds are waiting to be uncovered.

For all the moral anguish and outrage that Filipinos are going through, I see a silver lining here.
The pain could have a cathartic effect. Had these scandals not been unearthed, the corrupt would
continue with their merry ways, wrecking more serious havoc along the way. But now, the guilty
must be quaking in their feet. The fuse ignited by Benhur Luy and the other whistleblowers will
definitely result in an explosion that will rack the country to its very foundations. But in the end,
it will give us an opportunity to rectify our broken system of governance; and, if we learn from
all of this, it is a precious opportunity to correct past mistakes to allow for a better society to
emerge.
Or we could go off the cliff and never have a chance like this again.

Can the DAP be saved? (Eagle Eyes, October 22, 2013)

This afternoon, the Supreme Court once again hears a controversial case, this time on the
constitutionality and legality of the Disbursement Acceleration Program of the Aquino
government. A formidable group of petitioners and their counsels will argue the case against the
DAP. These includes, among others, the Philippine Constitutional Association, distinguished
public finance experts like former Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno and former National
Treasurer Leonor Briones, and individuals and groups from the progressive political coalition
Makabayan. The Solicitor General and his team of excellent lawyers will of course take the
cudgels for the administration.

The stakes are higher for the Aquino administration and the country in this case, much higher, I
suspect, than the PDAF case argued a couple of weeks ago. In that case, what was at stake was
simply the funding of projects of legislators. In that case too, there was a clear legal basis in the
General Appropriations Act in the PDAF disbursements.

In the DAP, we are talking of much larger expenditures and for projects of much higher priority
than the pet projects of the legislators. In addition, the DAP is not in the GAA or any law, not
even in an executive or other presidential order, and its sole justification is the constitutional
provision that allows the president to augment from savings other appropriated items.

Turning now to its legality, as I have observed before, the weight of legal opinion seems to be for
its unconstitutionality. Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago has pointed out that the Constitution
allows fund transfers, only if there are savings, meaning that the project was completed, and yet
the appropriation was not exhausted; but there are no savings if a project was merely deferred.
She observed that it appeared that DAP funds were taken from alleged slow-moving projects. If
so, no savings were generated, and therefore DAP is illegal.

Disagreeing with Santiago, Ateneo Law Professor Mel Sta. Maria, in an opinion piece for the
TV5 website, argues that the DAP is nothing else but the disbursement of funds sourced from
savings of a particular item to fund a deficit in another item for the purpose of immediately
accomplishing a priority activity. This makes the DAP legal and constitutional. In his words:
The only transfer that cannot be made in this process is a transfer of saved-funds from one great
government department to another. Hence, the President cannot transfer executive funds to the
judiciary, the judiciary to the executive, the judiciary to the legislature, the legislature to the
executive, the executive to the legislature. To do so would be unconstitutional. But within the
executive branch, which is composed of so many departments, the President may do so pursuant
to the Constitution and the Administrative Code. In fact, the Constitution also explicitly grants
the Chief Justice, the Senate President, the Speaker of the House, the head of Constitutional
bodies the same powers within their departments.

Fr. Joaquin Bernas SJ, in an interview with ANC, seems to agree with Santiago asserting that
savings should only be spent to augment existing line items in the budget. Bernas also identified
the enabling conditions for realigning savings. One, you have to have savings. Two, if these
savings are to be transferred, they have to be transferred in the same department. Later, in his
column in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Fr. Bernas observed that the outcome of the
controversy on the DAP will depend on the answer to factual questions: Did he transfer
savings and where did he put them?

I think Fr. Bernas asks the right questions that must be answered in the affirmative if the DAP is
to survive constitutional scrutiny. More concretely, I would ask: Are funds transferred in the
middle of the year savings because of slow-moving projects constitute savings? And, were the
projects augmented funded by and already identifies the GAA?

As for me, in the case of DAP disbursement decisions made purely by the executive branch,
there is a color of legality precisely because the President has the power to realign savings. I
think however that it would have been more prudent if the President issued an executive order or
other presidential issuance that established the DAP. Without that, the administration has been
able to communicate its message clearly and effectively, leaving even its supporters confused
about the DAP. In fact if the administration intends to continue with this approach in
disbursement, particularly in response to the recent disaster in Zamboanga and Bohol, then they
should issue such an executive order. However, I would counsel that it completely abandon the
term DAP as it has become so tainted and controversial that it cannot be rehabilitated. All
political analysts and communicators know that the best way to end a controversy is to change
the conversation.

As to DAP disbursements that were made upon recommendation by senators and other
legislators, I believe that these were illegal and in the case of the senators clearly improper.

In the case of the PDAF, there is a presumption of constitutionality because of the GAA and the
prior Supreme Court decisions. But in the case of the DAP, there is no legal basis at all for
allowing the legislators to identify projects. Corruption also tainted DAP disbursements because,
as in the case of the PDAF, the legislators were allowed to cross the line with respect to
implementation.

As for the Senators, from an ethical point of view, given the context of the Corona conviction,
allowing the senators to identify even more projects than they already did with their PDAF reeks
of quid pro quo. It may not be criminal or impeachable bribery but it definitely does not look or
smell right.

Can the DAP be saved? The better question I think is should it be?

Understanding the DAP Decision (Eagle Eyes, July 5, 2014)

The Supreme Court decision declaring certain acts under the Disbursement Acceleration
Program (DAP) unconstitutional is potentially revolutionary. Combined with the decision last
year on the Priority Development Assistance Fund, where the Court declared most forms of pork
barrel illegal, this latest decision could permanently change the way the government makes
decisions about budgeting and spending public funds in this country. Because the national budget
is the backbone of governance, the implications from the DAP decision are expected to be
profound.

Because of its significance, I will be writing a series of columns on the DAP decision. This first
column describes the DAP and the constitutional context of its creation. Next Tuesday, I will
write about the unanimous decision of the Court, how it came about and what are its
implications. This will be followed by a third column on accountability, including whether
impeachment or criminal charges are in the horizon. I will end the series contrasting two
approaches to the DAP casethat of the most senior justice of the Court, Justice Antonio
Carpio, and the views of its youngest member, Justice Marvic Leonen. Both Justices give
important, valid insights on the challenges of governance and convinced me that the country is in
good hands with respect to the highest court of the land.

At the vortex of the DAP controversy is Section 29(1) of Article VI of the 1987 Constitution that
firmly ordains that [n]o money shall be paid out of the Treasury except in pursuance of an
appropriation made by law. In assailing the DAP, the petitioners argue that the DAP
contravened this provision by allowing the Executive to allocate public money pooled from
programmed and unprogrammed funds of its various agencies in the guise of the President
exercising his constitutional authority under Section 25(5) of the 1987 Constitution to transfer
funds out of savings to augment the appropriations of offices within the Executive Branch of the
Government. It was alleged further that transfer of funds were made to agencies or offices
outside of the Executive.

The DAP is described by the Department of Budget and Management as a stimulus package
under the Aquino administration designed to fast-track public spending and push economic
growth. This covers high-impact budgetary programs and projects which will be augmented out
of the savings generated during the year and additional revenue sources.

According to Budget Secretary Butch Abad, the DAP is not just about the use of savings and
unprogrammed funds; it is a package of reformed interventions to de-clog processes, improve the
absorptive capacities of agencies and mobilize funds for priority social and economic services.

In a 2013 speech, President Aquino mentioned that the stimulus package was successful in
ensuring that programs delivered the greatest impact in the most efficient manner. He said that
the stimulus packages contribution of 1.3% percentage points to gross domestic product.
The DAP was brought to light when Senator Jose Jinggoy Estrada delivered a privilege speech
in the Senate of the Philippines revealing that some members of the Senate had been allotted an
additional P50 million each as incentive for voting in favor of the impeachment of Chief
Justice Renato C. Corona. Responding to the expose, Secretary Abad explained that the funds
released to the senators had been part of the DAP and clarified that the funds had been released
to the Senators based on their letters of request for funding; and that it was not the first time that
releases from the DAP had been made because the DAP had already been instituted in 2011 to
ramp up spending after sluggish disbursements had caused the growth of the gross domestic
product (GDP) to slow down.

Secretary Abad disclosed that the funds were taken from (1) unreleased appropriations under
Personnel Services;2 (2) unprogrammed funds; (3) carry-over appropriations unreleased from the
previous year; and (4) budgets for slow-moving items or projects that had been realigned to
support faster-disbursing projects. The DBM justified the funds release from the DAP by citing
the following legal bases, namely: (1) Section 25(5), Article VI of the 1987 Constitution, which
granted to the President the authority to augment an item for his office in the general
appropriations law; (2) Section 49 (Authority to Use Savings for Certain Purposes) and Section
38 (Suspension of Expenditure Appropriations), Chapter 5, Book VI of Executive Order (EO)
No. 292 (Administrative Code of 1987); and (3) the General Appropriations Acts (GAAs) of
2011, 2012 and 2013, particularly their provisions on the (a) use of savings; (b) meanings of
savings and augmentation; and (c) priority in the use of savings.

These disclosures precipitated the filing of nine (9) petitions assailing the constitutionality of the
DAP.

DAP, not impoundment of budget (Eagle Eyes, July 8, 2013)

This is the second of a series of columns on the Disbursement Acceleration Program. Today, I
focus on the reasoning of a unanimous Supreme Court that declared some acts implementing the
DAP constitutional.
Take note that the DAP itself was not declared unconstitutional. As a development policy and
with the objectives it sought to achieve, DAP could not be and was not nullified. What the Court
did was to identify those acts implementing the program that contravened the Constitution.

And why is DAP declared unconstitutional only in a partial way? I suppose the Court assumed
that there were occasions when DAP was implemented in a way consistent with the Constitution:
savings were properly identified and they were used to augment existing appropriations within
the executive branch. The truth is we will only see the full picture after the Commission of Audit
does and complete a comprehensive audit of DAP funds.

As a threshold question, did the President through the DAP exercise the power of impoundment
of the budget? On this, the Court emphatically said no. Based on the definition in Philippine
Constitution Association v. Enriquez which refers to impoundment to mean the refusal by the
President, for whatever reason, to spend funds made available by Congress and how it is defined
in the General Appropriations Act (GAA) as the retention or deduction of appropriations, the
Court categorically stated that the withdrawal of unobligated allotments under the DAP cannot
be characterized as impoundment because it entailed only the transfer of funds, not the retention
or deduction of appropriations.

The Supreme Court actually agreed with the Solicitor General that no law was necessary for the
creation of DAP as it is neither a fund nor an appropriation, but a program or an administrative
system of prioritizing spending. The Court also acknowledged that DAP was in pursuance of the
authority of the President as the Chief Executive to ensure that laws were faithfully executed.
However, the Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional certain aspects of its
implementation, specifically four types of acts.
First, the Court declared unconstitutional the withdrawal of unobligated allotments from the
implementing agencies, and the declaration of the withdrawn unobligated allotments and
unreleased appropriations as savings prior to the end of the fiscal year and without complying
with the statutory definition of savings contained in the General Appropriations Acts (GAAs).
For the Court, these were not, legally speaking, savings and therefore contravened Section 25(5),
Article VI of the 1987 Constitution.

Defining savings, in a way that will have enormous legal and practical consequences for the
future, the Court declared that savings could be generated only upon the purpose of the
appropriation being fulfilled, or upon the need for the appropriation being no longer
existent. Not following this definition would seriously undercut the congressional power of the
purse, prompting Justice Antonio Carpio to characterize Congress acquiescence DAP as
equivalent to self-castration and suicide by the legislature.

Second, the Court said that the Constitution prohibited cross-border transfers of the savings of
the Executive to augment the appropriations of other offices outside the Executive. Applying a
plain language approach, the Court said such transfers, whether as augmentation, or as aid, was
explicitly prohibited under Section 25 (5) of the Constitution. Transfers to Congress, the
Judiciary, and the independent constitutional commissions are included in this prohibition.

Following the same approach, the third type of acts the Court found constitutionally infirm in the
implementation of the DAP was in the funding of Projects, Activities and Programs (PAPS) that
were not covered by any appropriation in the General Appropriations Act was also declared
unconstitutional.

Incidentally, funds that went to the senators, allegedly to sweeten their votes in the Corona
impeachment, would have been prohibited by the cross-border prohibition if they went to the
Senate directly or by the rule against funding PAPs for which there were no appropriation. In
that sense, PDAF was better than DAP as PDAF was congressionally appropriated and at that
time presumed to be constitutionally valid.
Finally, the Court also declared as void the use of unprogrammed funds despite the absence of a
certification by the National Treasurer that the revenue collections exceeded the revenue targets
for non-compliance with the conditions provided in the relevant General Appropriations Acts.

Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago says DAPs unconstitutionality is a no-brainer. If so, why did
this glaring error of judgment happen?

If I may offer my opinion, the DAP came about because many of these unconstitutional practices
were already being done by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) and by
Malacaang even before President Aquino was elected. The reenacted budgets of the Arroyo
years gave openings to the executive branch to do these with impunity and what the Aquino
government did was to consolidate these practices and package it as a program without proper
legal review. I can imagine meetings within the DBM where the experienced officials would
have said we have already been doing these practices anyway. Additionally, the administration
introduced the concept of pooling funds that Justice Leonen points out made things more
complicated from an accountability point of view.

In my view also, the Aquino administration might have been blinded by their conviction that
they were doing the right thing for the economy and the people, and because of that belief,
disregarded the legal technicalities. Even now, one discerns this flawed thinking in the stubborn
defense of DAP even after the Supreme Court decision, an attitude that could bode bad for other
serious decisions with complex legal issues (the Bangsamoro Basic Law comes to mind) in the
remaining years of this administration.

I respectfully urge a little humility to acknowledge mistakes when they happen, as it always does
in governance, so corrections could be made. In fact, with the right legal staff work, DAP, which
is conceptually an innovation that might have potential to solve the perennial problem of under
spending by the departments, could have been crafted in a constitutional way and the same
policy objectives could have been achieved without being tainted with illegality. But that,
unfortunately, is water under the bridge.

The DAP decision: Lessons on politics,
governance (with Christian jorge Laluna,
Rappler, July 10, 2014, edited)

With the decision in the consolidated case ofAraullo v. Aquino III, the Supreme Court had found
certain acts and practices under the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) of the
administration of President Benigno S. Aquino unconstitutional. The DAP itself is not
constitutional as a program to accelerate spending for development.

In its wake, as seen in the news, critics have gladly seized on DAPs partial unconstitutionality to
raise scenarios of impeachment against the President, or raised calls for the resignation of Budget
Secretary Florencio Butch Abad.

These criticisms ride on the popular anger against pork barrel freely-disbursed lump sum
allocations such as the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) declared unconstitutional
in Belgica v. Executive Secretary this time aimed at Malacaang rather than Congress.
We will not join the bandwagon. We do not support the impeachment of the president and we
leave it up to Secretary Abad, an exemplary public official by any standard, to discern whether
his resignation will benefit the country. We trust he will make the right decision.
In this article, we think beyond this politics of outrage, which could just be a moment or are
warnings of major upheavals ahead, and reflect on the longer term political and governance
implications of the DAP decision.

A judicial challenge to an act of the executive (or the legislative, for that matter), is ultimately an
act that seeks to limit an instance of the exercise of that governmental power when done right,
in an effort to curb abuse and protect what is right. In parsing DAP, in declaring some of
Aquinos actions constitutional, and some unconstitutional, the Supreme Court had essentially
left the Presidents prerogative to augment proper budget expenditures from proper budget
savings intact, but clearly defined what augmentation is not.

What augmentation is, according to the ponencia, and defined in Art. VI, Sec. 25 (5) of the 1987
Constitution, and authorized within each years General Appropriations Act (GAA), is the use of
clearly-identified savings in the expenditures of government departments and offices to augment
clearly-identified, actual deficiencies within those respective government departments and
offices. What augmentation is not, however, is to allocate what was notauthorized as an
expenditure in the GAA. It is not a transfer of executive department savings to legislative lump
sum allocations (cross-border augmentation) by virtue of the latters unconstitutionality, or at
the very least, because such itself violates Art. VI Sec. 25 (5).

Savings

There, too, was a problem in addressing the definition of actual savings that is the source of
augmentations. To quote from the ponencia, actual savings, strictly speaking, is the money left
over from GAA-authorized items which are authorized was completed, finally discontinued, or
abandoned; or because the policy targets were reached at lower cost due to increased
efficiencies; or because of vacant government positions or leaves-of-absence without
pay. Araullo held that it did not contemplate the use of money that had yet to be used: the
controversial unobligated allotments of slow-moving government projects; or the
unprogrammed funds, which are standby appropriations authorized in the GAA, which are
available only under specific circumstances and conditions. One of DAPs errors, but a critical
one, was that it considered funds otherwise not considered by law as actual savings, as actual
savings, making them available for disbursement by the President.

As with Belgica, Araullo exposes the underbelly of Philippine money politics: the roles and
powers over the budget-crossing borders. With PDAF, it was the legislature getting an all-but-
assured slice of the pie for legislators to spend on their own programs as they see fit; a usurpation
of executive roles. With the unconstitutional portions of DAP, it was the Chief Executive
allocating savings and unprogrammed funds to projects or programs independent of authorized
GAA allocations (including DAP handovers to legislators); a usurpation of legislative functions.
It would be crude but otherwise uncomfortably close to the mark to describe a DAPed
president as a mini-Congress, and a PDAFed legislator as a mini-president.

Yet this confluence and contradiction of roles has likely subsisted in the foundations of
Philippine politics-in-practice certainly since PHILCONSA v. Enriquez earlier ruled pork barrel
as constitutional, allowing the practice to continue with judicial leave. For all the diatribes raised
against Aquino in the wake of the PDAF scandal, the truth is that, as with his predecessors, he
had inherited prior practices of Philippine government that have become so ingrained in political
culture.

Malice

Other than outright malice (which has to be proven first!), nothing else but the honest belief that
pork is right (if used right) would have motivated congressmen who cried foul and threats of
impeachment over Belgica. And I do believe (despite others that claim otherwise) that what
motivated the administration on the exercise of and its defensiveness with DAP was not the
malice they denounce, but a similar honest belief that the Executive could reallocate unused
money as it did, for the good of the nation.

Ironically, it was Aquinos own high standards of daang matuwid that allowed the Court to
resolve the DAP question as it did or for the question to explode into public consciousness as it
did. The records of the case will reflect the packages of memoranda and orders in relation to
DAP money movements: amply documented and volunteered upon summons.

Admittedly, and as will be elaborated later, an audit will still be necessary to uncover the full
story of DAP (and the Court did note that documents relating to DAPs conceptualization were
scarce), but the evidence package offered in Court was enough for the Justices to parse how
the President exercised his powers, the bone of contention in Araullo.

If anything, such level of documentary detail, readily presented upon order, would be evidence
of good faith on the part of the administration. Which is where our discussion now turns to the
question of impeachment against Aquino, or calls for Abad to resign. Ever since last year, there
has been an undercurrent of vindictiveness in the campaign against pork. Understandable, given
the scale of the scandal, and the defenses offered by all the parties under attack whether
Senators Enrile, Estrada, or Revilla; or Aquino or Abad that some feel are just attempts to
deflect or delay the inevitable condemnation. And we feel that anger in critical op-eds, or the
vitriol in the comment boards of news outfits and social media.

Unconstitutional but not criminal

Yet here we must demur. Legally and morally, to condemn requires proper evidence culpable
violation in case of impeachment, or the commission of the elements of the crime charged, in
case of criminal prosecution. As Professor Randy David observed in his Inquirercolumn,
reflecting on his arrest in the wake of President Arroyos Proclamation 1017, a policy being
unconstitutional does not always mean the policy-maker being criminal or culpable for that
matter.

Justice Marvic Leonen pointed it out clearly in his separate opinion: to rule that a declaration
of unconstitutionality per se is the basis for determining liability is a dangerous proposition. It is
not proper that there are suggestions of administrative or criminal liability even before the proper
charges are raised, investigated, and filed.

If we keep insisting that government officials should always be held liable, especially criminally
liable, for acts subsequently declared to be unconstitutional by the Court, then all government
would be paralyzed by terror, unable to exercise such powers even granted to them by the
Constitution, for fear of the next prosecution (whether truly aggrieved or politically motivated)
thrown in their direction.

The Supreme Court may be the final arbiter of constitutionality, but by virtue of separation of
powers, the Executive and Legislature get first crack at interpretation of the constitutionality of
their acts (contemporaneous construction). Such interpretation is still open to challenge by any
aggrieved party, but a principle of law is that constitutionality is generally presumed; its
unconstitutionality must be proved. Until proven otherwise, the law grants the President or
Congress the benefit of the doubt.

Absent further evidence on malicious or culpable acts of the Administration, it is enough
thatAraullo reestablishes the proper budget-handling borders of the separated powers of
government.

Governance

This leads us to our next set of implications: governance. As pork had become ingrained in
national politics, it had also wormed its way into governance, into the implementation of policy
and the spending of money on policy. PDAF again demonstrates how dependent public services,
even those provided by NGOs, were on the largesse of legislators, such that the system could be
manipulated with ghost NGOs. It feeds into the patronage politics of Philippine governance: that
public services and the benefits every citizen receives, by law, from government is held hostage
by the political elite, who can then extract staying power and the occasional graft from his
constituency and budgetary allocation.

It should be noted that the same Secretary Abad critics are now wont to hang for DAP, is the
same Secretary Abad who declared, in his Metrobank Professorial Chair lecture last year at the
Ateneo School of Government, that the budget could be a tool for citizen empowerment
(particularly though inclusive budgeting reforms introduced under his watch, such as bottom-up
budgeting).

Weeding governance of bad budgetary habits strengthens good and responsive governance.
Subjecting government allocations and allotments to stricter scrutiny and controls, thanks to the
restoration of the borders, will ultimately help in restoring fiscal credibility to Philippine
governance: the legislature authorizes where the money goes, the executive releases the money
to such expenditures, with the citizenry participating at the budget planning, deliberation, and
execution stages, either through their elected representatives or as citizen organizations.

Still, good governance has up to 27 years to catch up on a history of bad budgetary habits, since
the restoration of traditional political dynamics following the fall of the Marcos regime. In the
short term, government and citizenry both will have to break some of those habits:
congressionally-branded scholarships and free clinics; the basketball courts and multi-purpose
halls, that seem to be the low-hanging fruit of GAA allocations to public works.

Padrino system

There will likely be a painful adjusting period as constituents suddenly find themselves without
a padrino, learning instead political habits of interest aggregation, interfacing with
representatives and bureaucrats, of leveraging policy planning and execution to their benefit. As
our colleagues have found in the G-Watch project, this learning process is more needed and
more painful outside the cities, in the bailiwicks of trapo dynasties, and among a population so
used to binyag-kasal-libing interaction with their political representatives.
Padrinos and trapo dynasties may seem more the terrain of Congress, but Abads concept of
budget-as-empowering is sorely needed in Malacaang as well. Keynesian economics does hold
that government spending does have a stimulus effect on the economy Justice Leonens
concurrence to Araullo noted this; exemplified by the World Bank report cited in the majority
that found DAP to have contributed 1.3% to the 2011 gross domestic product growth.

Yet a dependence on DAP as a stimulus tool may yet breed dependence on executive
augmentations in the name of economic growth.
In the earlier-referred Metrobank lecture, Abad had rightly described the national budget as an
arena of struggle among competing interests but heretofore that struggle and those interests
were assumed to be in congressional deliberation, not executive execution. This is the danger
implied in Araullos finding that augmentations made outside of GAA line items were
unconstitutional, as were cross-border releases to Congress.

The accusation that DAP may have been used to secure the votes needed for Chief Justice
Renato Coronas impeachment, or the RH Bills passage, stings the most in this regard. True or
untrue (or simply very uncomfortable timing), it has become highly embarrassing for the Office
of the President at the least. At most, it makes the Office of the President as much apadrino of
his own constituency (e.g., Congress) as a local political lord.

Mitigating such dangers requires robust accountability. Araullo complements Belgica by
delineating, once and for all, the roles and functions of the branches of government in the
budgetary process. It is easier to color within the lines, after all, when the lines themselves are
clear.

Accountability

Judicial decisions alone, however, will not color between the lines, so to speak. Financial
accountability is the reserve of the system of checks and balances among the branches of
government (which Araullo and Belgica thankfully clarify), and of the Commission of Audit,
itsraison dtre.

It also ought to be the resolve of citizens to watch over the effective and equitable expenditure of
public funds through project monitoring, and working with government a cause our school, the
Ateneo School of Government, has championed through the social accountability framework.

However, there is something Malacaang ought to do now, in the wake of Araullo. So far, what
has been made public by court action were the DAP-related memos and subsequent
documentation of the Office of the President. As noted in the ponencia, other documents remain
to be revealed, such as the decision-making process behind DAPs creation, and of course the
proverbial paper trail of the money, especially once it left executive hands. This goes double for
the releases to legislators, in case it can help clarify the paper trail in the PDAF cases on file now
and later, and to clarify which personalities or programs may benefit from the doctrine of
operative fact under a good-faith defense (as Justice Antonio Carpio cautions in his separate
opinion).

We would like to repeat, however, that this exercise in accountability must not turn into an
exercise of vindictiveness. Accountability based on threat (or at least threat alone), a climate of
fear of the hangmans noose, will not be sustainable. Where liabilities can be established, as
Justice Leonen observed, there the proper cases may be filed (and if the travails of the PDAF
prosecution team be instructive, then those liabilities must be thoroughly established).

But as with the Benhur Luy revelations, Araullo can help guide everyones hand in establishing a
better structure of public finance management and accountability. Fully threshing out this
promise is best left to a future article, but suffice to say that Araullo and Belgica mitigate, if not
eliminate, the risks opened up by the earlier PHILCONSA ruling.

The administrations habit of documentation, too, is a hopeful portent of practices to come, and a
willingness of Aquino officials to further disclose the extents and consequences of DAP in the
name of accountability and better governance design. (Besides, a working Keynesian stimulus is
a good achievement, especially for an administration earlier criticized for dragging its feet on
post-Arroyo government spending.)

Admit mistakes

And to help stimulate both accountability and discussions for governance redesign, here we must
submit unsolicited, but hopefully useful, advice for the administration, to tone down the self-
righteous defensiveness.

Araullo, as well as Aquinos forthcoming submission of the requested evidences, already point to
good faith exercised in the execution of DAP. The presidential prerogative for constitutional
augmentation has not been stripped. It is possible to look at the Supreme Court decision as a
starting point for dialogue and reform. As with persons, it helps for governments to admit their
mistakes as a step towards reconciliation and recovery. It also helps that the populace be ready to
dialogue with its mistaken, but cooperative, government but we have already stressed this point
in previous paragraphs.

So where does the country go from here? How does the Philippine polity go cold turkey, bear
the withdrawal symptoms from weaning itself from a dependence on pork barrel? Money,
legitimately or illegitimately appropriated and disbursed, had been used in times past to grease
the wheels of legislation and execution.

This is what Congress crowed about in the wake of Belgica, to take away the proverbial prop
upon which their Houses stand. But the very picture of political horse-trading did not envision
the exchange of money, especially the peoples money, but the aggregation and trading of
political, economic, and social interests deliberated openly, for which the money will then be
disbursed, and the reward is continued political (and practical) relevance to their constituencies
(as well as their respective salaries).

Idealistic, we know even America struggles with corrupt money politics and pork, though
manifested in different forms (e.g., earmarks).
Yet it is high time we learned the habits of modern, accountable politics.
Consider Araullo andBelgica a badly-needed intervention, a judicially-mandated stint in rehab
that may finally give Philippine politics a chance to detoxify, shed some bad money habits, and
come clean into the 21
st
century.

As with any intervention, it would help for the intervenors to approach their addict-subject with
detachment and compassion; with sensitivity as well as resolve.
Wednesday, July 16, 2014
DAP is like a condom: the making of a tyrant
A. Disbursement Acceleration Program and the RH Law

Last December 21, 2012, Pres. Noynoy Aquino signed the RH Law, which was later declared by the
Supreme Court as not unconstituional, but with eight items stricken out. This law provides stipulates
the use of public funds for the purchase of contraceptives (that do not primarily act as abortifacients)
and for the sex education of the youth. According to the complaint being circulated last April for the
impeachment and removal of Pres. Aquino, the president accomplished this through the promise of
PDAF and DAP to lawmakers:
Using the PDAF and DAP, respondent Benigno Simeon Aquino III coerced and corrupted members of
Congress to approve the highly controversial Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health bill
(hereafter RH bill), which the House and the Senate passed on third and final reading on Dec. 17, 2012.
To make sure that the lawmakers voted according to instructions, respondent Aquino sent four Cabinet
members----Budget Secretary Florencio Abad, Secretary of Interior and Local Government Manuel
Roxas, Presidential Spokesman Edwin Lacierda and Communication Secretary Ramon Carandangto the
Batasan during the voting to assure the congressmen of hefty and immediate PDAF releases in exchange
for their votes. On Dec. 17, 2012, the bill was approved on third and final reading by a vote of 133 to 79,
with 7 abstentions, after having been approved on second reading on Dec. 12, by a vote of 113-104. In
the Senate, the bill passed on third and final reading by a vote of 13 to 8 on Dec. 17.
What is DAP? DAP is Disbursement Acceleration Program conceived by Abad, the head of the
Department of Budget and Management, and Pres. Aquino, the Chief Executive of the government. In
this program, unused funds of government agencies are pooled at the middle of the fiscal year (June 30)
in order to provide the Executive department discretionary funds to distribute at will, such as the
construction of e-Library of Congress or the Computer Information Technology infrastructure of the
Commission on Audit. In short, DAP is the presidential pork barrel that the President can use to bestow
gifts to his allies and coerce the those who oppose him, as what happened to the RH Law.

B. DAP and Contraception

In a way, DAP is like a condom.

The purpose of the sexual act between a husband and wife is two-fold: (1) to physically unite the
husband and wife and (2) to beget children. What a contraceptive does is to retain the union with all its
joys and pleasures, but forego with the procreation--the act of making babies. In a similar way, DAP
maintains the fiscal union between the government and the people--with the government enjoying the
pleasures of giving and the people enjoying the pleasures of receiving--except not in the way that was
designed by Congress when it makes the yearly General Appropriations Act (GAA). The funds were
released, but halfway through the year, the government pools the unused funds and transfers them to
other budget items--even to items not budgeted at all or even items outside the Executive department's
domain, e.g. Congress. In a similar way, at the height of sexual intercourse, the semen is released by the
man, but caught halfway in the condom's reservoir, preventing the sperms from meeting the female
ovum. The chief executive, the man, can then decide whether he wants to have a baby or not: he can
throw the condom away or store his semen in the bank for future use, such as for the in vitro
fertilization of his wife (or other men's wives or simply just other girls who wishes to have babies but do
not want to have to burden of living with a man).

In his Encyclical Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI warned that the use of contraceptives have grave social
effects:
17. Responsible men can become more deeply convinced of the truth of the doctrine laid down by the
Church on this issue if they reflect on the consequences of methods and plans for artificial birth control.
Let them first consider how easily this course of action could open wide the way for marital infidelity
and a general lowering of moral standards. Not much experience is needed to be fully aware of human
weakness and to understand that human beingsand especially the young, who are so exposed to
temptationneed incentives to keep the moral law, and it is an evil thing to make it easy for them to
break that law. Another effect that gives cause for alarm is that a man who grows accustomed to the
use of contraceptive methods may forget the reverence due to a woman, and, disregarding her
physical and emotional equilibrium, reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his
own desires, no longer considering her as his partner whom he should surround with care and
affection.
Finally, careful consideration should be given to the danger of this power passing into the hands of those
public authorities who care little for the precepts of the moral law. Who will blame a government which
in its attempt to resolve the problems affecting an entire country resorts to the same measures as are
regarded as lawful by married people in the solution of a particular family difficulty? Who will prevent
public authorities from favoring those contraceptive methods which they consider more effective?
Should they regard this as necessary, they may even impose their use on everyone. It could well
happen, therefore, that when people, either individually or in family or social life, experience the
inherent difficulties of the divine law and are determined to avoid them, they may give into the hands
of public authorities the power to intervene in the most personal and intimate responsibility of
husband and wife.
The first prediction is already visible in our society: just look at the movie stars whom we idolize. How
many of them engaged in sexual intercourse within the context of marriage and marital fidelity? The
second prediction already happened because of the rise of pornography, offline and online. The third
prediction already happened with the passage of the RH Law: the government shall now fund the
purchase of contraceptives and the education of the youth regarding sexuality.

C. Tyranny in the Making

But let us focus on the second prediction:
A man who grows accustomed to the use of contraceptive methods may forget the reverence due to a
woman, and, disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium, reduce her to being a mere
instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires, no longer considering her as his partner whom he
should surround with care and affection.
If we apply our analogy of DAP to contraception, the chief executive to the man, and the people to the
woman, then one ill-effect of contraceptive mentality as applied to public funds through DAP is the rise
of an autocratic chief executive, a presidents who acts like a dictator--his interpretations of the law
surpasses that of the Supreme Court, his use of public funds surpasses what Congress can
appropriate. The Philippine democratic government system is designed by the Constitution to be a
triumvirate or a trinity: the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial--all co-equal and superior in its own
sphere. But with the DAP, the Executive can bribe Congress to submission and can coerce the Supreme
Court to bend to his rules. "Kayo ang Boss ko!" "You are my boss!" Pres. Noynoy Aquino always says to
the people. But with the DAP, this phrase stands on its head and comes to mean as "I am your
boss." There can be no other boss than PNoy.

In his speech in defense of DAP, Pres. Aquino challenged the Supreme Court:
My message to the Supreme Court: We do not want two equal branches of government to go head to
head, needing a third branch to step in to intervene. We find it difficult to understand your decision. You
had done something similar in the past, and you tried to do it again; there are even those of the opinion
that what you attempted to commit was graver, if we were to base it on your decision. Abiding by the
principle of presumption of regularity, we assumed that you did the right thing; after all, you are the
ones who should ostensibly have a better understanding of the law. And now, when we use the same
mechanismwhich, you yourselves have admitted, benefit our countrymenwhy is it then that we are
wrong?
Here is a tyrant in the making. And now he is calling all his supporters to wear yellow ribbons in
solidarity to his noble cause. Oh, what an tragedy. We ousted the Dictator Ferdinand Marcos by
holding the yellow banner of Cory Aquino along the length of EDSA. And now the son of Cory wants us
to make another revolution by making us join his feverish yellow campaign. Power corrupts and
absolute power corrupts absolutely. As Galadriel said to Frodo who offered to her the One Ring of
Sauron:
And now at last it comes. You will give the Ring freely! In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a
Queen. And I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and Night! Fair as the Sea and
the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the
foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair! (The Mirror of Galadriel, Lord of the Rings, pp.
365-366)
Pragmatism and the issue of means and ends


159 0 Google +0 4
THE MORAL of the story that is the Disbursement Acceleration
Program (DAP) is a hackneyed one: a noble end does not a winner
make. Your matching means must be noble as well.
Yellow
Pad
Mario
M.
Galang
RELATED STORIES


Yellow Pad -- Filomeno
S. Sta. Ana III: "Top
performers are among
the least appreciated"

Yellow Pad -- Mario M.
Galang: "A too-
controlled budget"

Yellow Pad -- Mario M.
Galang: "Legalism is not
the enemy of good"

The Supreme Court declared unconstitutional some acts and practices
under DAP, but not the whole DAP itself. The ponencia appreciates its
function as a stimulus package and admits that it worked. It says: it has
been adequately shown as to be beyond debate that the implementation of
the DAP yielded undeniably positive results that enhanced the economic
welfare of the country.

Associate Justice Marvic Leonen, in his concurring opinion, supplied the big
but: But, the frailty of the human being is that our passion for results
might blind us from the abuses that can occur. In the desire to meet social
goals urgently, processes that similarly congeal our fundamental values may
have been overlooked.

The means judge the end. The DAP case is a morality play, with the ethics of
means and ends as its theme -- where your moral purity is defined by the
nobility of your means. The road to hell is strewn with good intentions.

The issue is a perennial one. In the 1960s, community organizer Saul Alinsky faced the issue for the
activists of his time, and looked at it through a pragmatic lens. He believed with Goethe that conscience
is the virtue of observers and not of agents of action. The ethics of means and ends is so divorced from
the politics of life that it can apply only to angels, not to men. The standards of judgment must be
rooted in the whys and wherefores of life as it is lived, the world as it is, not our wished-for fantasy of
the world as it should be.

Alinsky fleshed this idea out in 1971 with a series of rules of the ethics of means and ends. I thought of
passing them on, but in paraphrase, with annotations drawn largely from the situation surrounding the
DAP issue.

First, your concern with the ethics of means and ends varies inversely with your proximity to the action.
Those in the thick of action understand; they take a pragmatic stand. The less you know about whats
going on, the more you tend to moralize and blabber on.

A parallel rule states: Your moralizing about means and ends varies inversely with your personal stake
on the issue. Whats in a name?, a columnist asked rhetorically. For honest people, a good name is
everything, he answered. Thats to conclude a well-reasoned defense of somebody who was being
savaged in media for getting a fat bonus. Hes my brother. In several other columns, you read this time
how he savages a Cabinet secretary, his wife and his daughter -- caring less about their common
surnames than about the common good. For what? Partly for lacking a moral trait, hiya, delicadeza. A
bad name is a bad idea -- its nothing. Hes not my brother.

Second, your moral position depends on your political position. What do you make of this senator who
admitted receiving P50 million in pork barrel funds via DAP, but who is now calling for heads to roll
Yellow Pad -- Manuel
Buencamino & Filomeno
Sta. Ana III: "The
problem with the high
court"

Yellow Pad -- Filomeno
S. Sta. Ana III: "DAP
setback: Govt needs to
stay the course"

following the DAP decision -- and he is not referring to his head. Science is on the lookout for real cases
proving that the reverse of this rule is true: that your political position depends on your moral position.
The local Roman Catholic Church wishes science all the luck.

Third, in politics, the end justifies almost any means. A widely observed rule, but most widely denied.
Hence, it spawned an important sub-rule: Honesty, if and only if it is the best policy.

Fourth, moralizing grows with the number of means available. You have a stimulus package that need
money in the right amount, at the right time, right away. What are the means available to fund this?
With only one means, youre entitled to just one question -- will it work? Nobody asks the ethical
question. Automatically the lone means becomes endowed with a moral spirit.

Fifth, success or failure decides moral judgment. You never argue with success. Nobody spoils it by
moralizing about the means; everybody is too busy claiming to be its parent. Its oftentimes an open
invitation to self-righteous indignation: never mind the noble end, the means matter the most. Often,
too, the sanctimony spurs the cry for blood. A version of this rule states that moral judgment rests on
winning or losing. History is written by the victor. There are no victorious brigands, only founding
fathers.

Sixth, to the degree that the opposition denounces your means as unethical, these are bearing good
results. Was the DAP used as an impeachment bribe? It depends on whom you ask.

Seventh, do your part -- do what you must and what you can with what you have: but wear a moral
mask. It pays to pretend.

Mario M. Galang is a senior fellow of Action for Economic Reforms and a specialist in development and
governance.