Face the music, Binay camp tells Abad

MANILA - ''Face the music.'' This is the challenge of the camp of Vice President Jejomar Binay to Budget Secretary Butch Abad, who is facing another plunder case in connection with the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP). Lawyer Bonifacio Alentajan, former president of the Philippine Constitution Association (Philconsa), cited in his plunder complaint before the Office of the Ombudsman Senator Jinggoy Estrada's privilege speech in 2013 wherein he claimed that senators received P50 million each from DAP for voting for the impeachment of then Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona. Abad branded the complaint as baseless and incredible, saying it was just "a figment of their imagination." In a statement on Saturday, vice presidential spokesperson for political affairs Atty. Rico Quicho criticized Abad for still insisting that there was nothing illegal in the DAP, several provisions of which were declared unconstitutional by the high court in July last year. "What is incredible is that Abad can say with a straight face there was nothing illegal or immoral about DAP. What is baseless is Abad's persistent claim that DAP helped stimulate the economy when even the Commission on Audit (COA) says otherwise," Quicho said. He cited a COA report released last year that showed four government-owned and -controlled corporations (GOCCs) -- National Dairy Authority (NDA), National Electrification Administration (NEA), Philippine Fisheries Development Authority (PFDA), and the Philippine Institute of Development Studies (PIDS) -- were slow or completely failed in releasing DAP funds. Quicho, however, expressed doubts that the case against the budget secretary would prosper due to the alleged "partiality" and "selectiveness" of the Ombudsman. "The Ombudsman is hell-bent in consolidating the pending complaints against the Vice President and to file a plunder case against him to showcase the administration's discredited 'tuwid na daan' promise even if it directly transgresses the Constitution," said Quicho.//