CLARK FREEPORT – The latest Supreme Court ruling on the unconstitutionality of the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) was an affirmation of the “modus” employed by Pres. Aquino and two Cabinet members to pay the Cojuangco-Aquino clan some P471.5 million as compensation for lands covered by land reform in Hacienda Luisita.
“The latest SC ruling declaring DAP as unconstitutional strengthens the belief that Aquino had withdrawn DAR (Department of Agrarian Reform) funds allocated for 2010 and 2011, declared it as DAP, and plundered the funds under the guise of landowner compensation for his relatives, the Cojuangco-Aquinos, who received P471.5 million from DAP funds,” said the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipi-nas (KMP) in a statement yesterday.
KMP Chair Rafael Mariano said that “the plunder of almost half a billion of DAR funds is further aggravated by the fact that Hacienda Luisita remains undistributed and is still controlled by the Cojuangcos.”
He noted that the latest Supreme Court ruling reiterated the unconstitutionality of the “the withdrawal of unobligated allotments from the implementing agencies, and the declaration of the withdrawn unobligated allotments and unreleased appropriations as savings prior to the end of the fiscal year and without complying with the statutory definition of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 Act (GAA).”
“This is the exact modus employed by Aquino, Budget Sec. Florencio Abad, and Agrarian Reform Sec. Virgilio Delos Reyes on the P5.4 billion DAR funds used to compensate big landlords and agribusinesses like the Cojuangco-Aquinos,” said Mariano.
Mariano recalled that before the DAP became controversial, both Delos Reyes and DAR Undersecretary Anthony Parungao had openly admitted that the funds for landowners compensation was appropriated and allotted under the 2010 and 2011 General Appropriation Act, with the actual cash release being facilitated under the DAP.
“We must remember that Aquino and Abad used DAP as a ‘creative’ plunderousscheme of embargoing and not releasing funds of various agencies and pooling it into one big discretionary fund of the President,” said Mariano.
He recalled that through DAP, DAR released to Landbank the amount of P5.432 billion from the P7.932 billion appropriation for Landowners Compensation for fiscal years 2010 and 2011. Mariano also noted that in 2014, De los Reyes was quoted to have said that “from 2011 to June 2014, Landbank disbursed PP4.052 billion representing the cash portion of Landowners Compensation to the landowners of Apo Fruits Corp. and Hijo Plantation and of Hacienda Luisita.”
