DBM: DAP was not bribes to lawmakers
The government did not use the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) to payoff lawmakers for the ouster of former Chief Justice Renato Corona in 2012, Budget Secretary Butch Abad reiterated on Tuesday.
Abad, in a statement, said DAP was launched in October 2011 to support fast-moving projects that would help the government catch-up with its expenditure targets.
"DAP was thus developed to remedy our expenditure shortfalls and ensure that public funds continued to support priority programs and projects that could not only prime the economy, but address citizens' basic needs as well," Abad said.
He noted that beginning the year 2011, DAP-supported releases were made to national government agencies and various projects endorsed by senators regardless of how they voted in the Corona impeachment trial.
DAP releases are sourced from the overall savings of the national government, including unprogrammed funds generated from revenue collections and unreleased appropriations from slow-moving projects, the Budget Department said.
Abad also noted that the releases did not go directly to the lawmakers.
"In the case of legislator-identified projects, we want to make it clear that DAP releases are never made to the legislators themselves or to their offices. Instead, we study their proposals based on the requirements they submitted, and we make the necessary fund releases to the implementing agency identified by the lawmakers.”
"This is why our records don't specifically reflect releases made to Senators or Congressmen. We never release the funds to them. These releases are actually made to the appropriate implementing agencies as endorsed by legislators in their request letters," Abad stressed.
According to the DBM, as of today, P137 billion have been released through the DAP.
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