Getting into the fray

By Alfredo C. Garvida Jr.

The arrest and incarceration of Senators Enrile, Estrada and Revilla on plunder and corruption charges have substantially seized the nation's daily rhythm of life these days. People are getting famous, even those stationed erstwhile in obscurity. Police officers, magistrates, prosecutors, private lawyers, media people and anyone obliged to dip his finger into the Napoles pie is becoming famous reducing thus the self-righteous' presence in the rhetoric to indistinct.    

The issue of corruption, true to the pundits' forecast, has now spread like wildfire, reaching now the doors of Malacañang and not long enough will creep up the halls of the judiciary. Arlene, Janet Napoles' predatory twin at the judiciary, I venture to surmise, must be nervously waiting on deck to be joined into the fray by the self-righteous: after they are done with President Aquino. 

The fresh Supreme Court decision that declared the DAP as an unconstitutional act by the President has doused kerosene into the burning issue of corruption in the country—which opened a road for the self-righteous to stampede into the fray. As expected, the obligatory Oliver Lozano impeachment suit beat everybody else to the filing line. This was followed by the youth party-list in Congress, which will be followed too by other militant groups, as forewarned by Bayan Muna Party-list Rep. Colmenares.

Observing the political landscape fairly, it seems that the rhetoric on the DAP is much higher than the PDAF ( the congressional pork barrel) now, which tends to substantiate the conventional belief that you'd rather fish on a bigger fishing ground to get a bigger catch to be better known. 

The impeach filers are seemingly orchestrating a rush to judgment on Aquino, obscuring the real and blatant issue at bar, which is thievery of the highest level. Mr. Aquino's Disbursement Acceleration Program was aimed at speeding up the delivery of funds for basic services for the people sans the mandatory kickbacks legislators and bureaucrats would otherwise pocket. The fund source has already gone through the congressional mill as being money available for the people although its original purpose was not what it was applied to being that such original purpose no longer existed but which other purposes for the people's benefit could use.

It is like that of a family which has budgeted its money for a month's expense spread out on various categories, like food, school supplies, children's allowances, water and electricity, etc., and it happens that the electricity bill was to go down because the family suddenly decided to cut down their electrical consumption and one of the children needs some extra money for a necessary school project which was not originally budgeted for him. The question is: Would the family use the unused budgeted money for electricity to address the child's school project need? I would bet my bottom peso that no right-thinking father or head of a family would respond to the negative. 

That is the analogy of President Aquino's DAP. To juxtapose it with the Napoles funds would be like comparing a deer with a crocodile. In simple terms, Aquino's DAP was intended for the people. Napoles PDAF was intended for her and her brigade of conniving senators and congressmen. And this is the central issue that these self-righteous people ganging up on the president now must have to bear before the judicious sensitivity of the Filipino people. 

The congressional pork barrel (PDAF), which was declared by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional early on, has been in use and abused by legislators for years. If the basis of Aquino's alleged crime is his DAP's unconstitutionality, which was served directly and fully for the people's benefit anyway, then every former and current congressman and senator, who had used their pork barrel all these years, should be haled to court as well and face criminal indictment based on the unconstitutionality of their PDAF. Then let's find out if the whole grounds of Camp Crame and Camp Diwa are enough to house them. 

There is no offense to allege against Aquino to merit his impeachment other than on the constitutional provision of "culpable violation of the Constitution." Culpable means deserving blame or censure as being wrong, evil, improper or injurious. Was it wrong, evil, improper or injurious to deliver and maximize the money value of the fund for the people's basic needs, i.e., without the standard kickbacks for legislators, district engineers and the rest of them corrupt bureaucrats? The DAP was a pragmatic way of eliminating corruption and timely spending public fund for the right purpose, and the self-righteous militants, led by Cong. Colmenares and Youth Party-list Cong. Ridon want to crucify the President for this? I don't know about Ridon—for I have yet to see a meaningful legislation to his credit in behalf of the youth he represents, especially the students—but Colmenares seems to be doing just fine in Congress legislation-wise, yet he seems to be in a self-impeaching trance in the rhetoric as he is on record of having received Php25 million from the President's DAP for him to dispense for the people's basic needs, which he has cleanly accounted for in consonance with the wisdom of this program. On his accounting, Colemenares, by implication, has acknowledged that he has helped people with the DAP fund he had disbursed, but now he questions why it was given to him in the first place? Just because the President is a bigger catch to dangle to the media?  What a mode to further your mileage, Mr. Congressman! 

They want to impeach the President for something he nobly did for the people's good on the basis of the phrase, "culpable violation of the Constitution." If the impeachment case prospers in the Lower House, it will be for the senate tribunal, presided by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, to rule on what the term, "culpable" means in law—to base Aquino's conviction, or acquittal. If they convict him, this may trigger a constitutional crisis in this land for they will convict themselves too which will include scores of judges and justices, implementing bureaucrats, mayors and governors and of course senators and congressmen, including Colmenares—for having received DAP funds themselves from the President, the rightness of their use notwithstanding.

The big difference between Aquino's DAP and Napoles' PDAF is that before that Supreme Court ruling, the President had thought all along that it was right and constitutional to use unused appropriated public money for purposes, legitimate however, other than where it was intended, as opposed to the bare truth that Napoles and her congressional connivers knew that they were violating the law when they were devising elaborate schemes to enrich themselves out of the people's money. 

Ridon, Colmenares, Lozano and the rest of the self-righteous know this difference, and they know too of the far-reaching impact of a presidential impeachment at this time, and it would be foolhardy at their end if they don't know as well that it will be next to impossible to muster the required impeachment vote in the Lower House, let alone the conviction vote in the Senate, under the present circumstances. But they are the stars in the news media these days. Aren't they? 

If there was thievery involved on the DAP, get the culprits unmasked and prosecuted. Meanwhile, the public should not rush to judgment on the President on the basis only that his good faith belief that his program was well within the framework of the Constitution was wrong. Had he known beforehand that his DAP was unconstitutional and he still implemented it, he would have committed a "culpable" act meriting his impeachment. Napoles and her brigade of thieves knew that they were doing some criminality and yet they did it out of personal greed, therefore, they can't be the same as the President. 

The DAP was dispersed to different government agencies for socio-economic upliftment of the nation and we've seen and felt the results. Bridges, roads, schools and other commerce-enhancing infrastructures have mushroomed all over the place which thus have immensely improved our economic ratings--placing us the most ideal foreign investment destination in Southeast Asia these days. Along with Aquino's unflinching will to fight corruption in every level of government, the DAP has made all these good economic indications possible. And we want to savage the President and his wisdom in public just so we can be famous? 

There have been presidential acts declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in past administrations but no impeachment case on this basis has ever been filed against any President up to Gloria Arroyo's time. President Estrada was impeached not on the basis of a Supreme Court's decision of unconstitutionality on his act but on the basis of a direct accusation of wrongdoing he committed. The issue of impeachment on Aquino is serious, not on his office tenure but on a crafted perception that his wisdom to move the nation forward is unmeant. No Philippine President before him has ever earned the kind of international economic ratings he has earned in behalf of the country. And this is all because of his fearless drive to weed out corruption and bringing the government closer to the people by speeding up and maximizing the service due them. The economic advantages his reforms have earned for the country is at peril of going to waste and reverting the country back to its erstwhile sordid state if we let our better judgment infringed by agenda-based rhetoric. 

In the final analysis, the questions that must be asked are whether his DAP did good for the people and whether the President or his people stole from it.