One of the most powerful officials of the Aquino administration has finally been haled to court. Does this mean that Noynoy Aquino himself will soon be called to account for the various offenses he committed during his term?
Florencio “Butch” Abad, who gained fame during the previous administration for being both the budgetary brains of Aquino and the mentor of pork barrel scam mastermind Janet Lim Napoles, has been indicted by the Office of the Ombudsman. The anti-corruption prosecutorial service found probable cause to charge Abad with usurpation of legislative powers in connection with the creation of Aquino’s Disbursement Acceleration Program, a portion of which was used to pay off legislators after the pork barrel system was declared illegal by the Supreme Court.
Through DAP, Aquino was able to impound unused funds allocated to all government agencies after declaring them “savings.” The seized funds, taken back even if they had only lain unused for as little as three to six months, basically became a humongous slush fund of unappropriated money that the central government could use whichever way it wanted.
DAP was widely believed to be a brainchild of Abad, who became one of the most powerful government officials for his creative management of the national budget and for weaponizing it against the administration’s political opponents. Along with the bungling of the government effort to capture Malaysian terrorist Marwan, which led to the Mamasapano Massacre, and the anomalies that attended state efforts to rehabilitate the areas hit by super-typhoon Yolanda, the DAP fiasco is believed to be most grievous official offense committed by the Aquino administration.
The Supreme Court also declared Abad’s DAP illegal, although it later opened the door for the exoneration of those involved in DAP’s creation and implementation if it is proven that they acted in “good faith.” The court also pointed out that the “operative fact” doctrine held that the projects for which DAP funds were spent did not allow their destruction, basically saying that they should be allowed to remain even if the program itself was discontinued.
However, the high court ruled that so-called “cross-border” fund transfers between different agencies, which became standard procedure under DAP, were patently illegal. And Aquino’s admission that 9 percent of a total of P281.7 billion used up through DAP from 2011 and 2013 paid for programs, activities and projects (PAPs) identified by members of Congress made the program synonymous with bribing lawmakers in order to get them to do the palace’s bidding.
Indeed, DAP became a household acronym after certain lawmakers claimed that it was used to “buy” their vote during the impeachment trial of Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona. It was then Senator Jinggoy Estrada who exposed the existence of DAP when he revealed that senators were given at least P50 million in projects each in order to convict and unseat Corona.
Now Abad, who was one of the three top government officials sued in connection with DAP (including Aquino himself and his executive secretary, Paquito Ochoa Jr.) before the high court, has been indicted. And this development means, to paraphrase the late Senator Joker Arroyo, that the trail now leads directly to the doorstep of Aquino on Times Street.
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Next witness, please. And make him believable, this time.
Retired SPO3 Arturo Lascañas was anything but credible. But then, the only people who expected that he would be truthful this time around are those who, in the face of all testimony to the contrary, still consider his tales gospel.
Senator Panfilo Lacson, chairman of the Senate committee on public order and illegal drugs, who heard Lascañas’ testimony for the full six hours that it took to use up his 15 minutes of Warholian fame, believes the chamber has heard enough from the ex-cop. There will no longer be any more hearings involving this perjured witness.
“He can still hold press conferences, if he likes,” Lacson told me in an interview. “But I think the majority in the senators don’t want to call him back any more.”
The Senate, of course, is also to blame for giving in to the call from Senator Antonio Trillanes to hear Lascañas again, after he recanted his testimony given last October, wherein he cleared President Rodrigo Duterte of any involvement in the so-called Davao Death Squad. Apart from a questionable handwritten journal that suddenly appeared right before Lascañas went to the Senate again yesterday, the only thing new that ex-cop disclosed was a fantastic claim that he had personally killed 200 people on Duterte’s behest and that he was involved in the liquidation of a total of 300.
But Lascañas was unable to say why he lied the first time around, even after he underwent a “spiritual renewal” before giving his original testimony. After he admitted Monday that he lied in October, who’s to say he isn’t lying again?
I think Lascañas has served his purpose, however, even if he may never be heard from again. Now, the people who pulled his strings have to find someone else to lie on their behalf—hopefully, it will be someone more credible than the ex-cop from Davao.