Abad: senators given P10 billion DAP funds

Budget Secretary Florencio Abad. Photo courtesy of the World Economic Forum 2014 / Fotopedia

MANILA – Budget Secretary Florencio Abad revealed yesterday that lawmakers received some P10.8 billion worth of funds under the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP).

The said funds, which were coming from DAP, a fund system declared to be partially unconstitutional by the Supreme Court (SC), allegedly went to the projects of senators and congressmen.

Abad made the revelation during a house committee hearing on the proposed P2.606-trillion 2015 national budget of President Aquino.

Answering questions from Navotas Rep. Tobias Tiangco, Abad added that seven percent of the P144 billion DAP funds disbursed between 2011 and 2013 were given to projects endorsed by the lawmakers.

He also said that it might take a while to probe on the letter-recommendations in order to come up with the list of all the senators whose endorsements were funded with DAP.

“It would take time to match the letter-recommendations of members of Congress and the PAPs, since it is possible that not all the recommendations were accommodated and it would be unfair to come out with their names,” he said.

Despite this, he promised to make available the documents about the listing of DAP projects, with specific information on their funding, date of release, implementing agencies, and the lawmakers involved, before the start of the plenary debates on the 2015 budget proposal.