Senators: Was DSWD cash aid used in PI?

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SEN. Imee Marcos yesterday said she intends to call for a separate probe on the real purpose of the Ayuda para sa Kapos ang Kita Program (AKAP) of the Department of Social Welfare and Development to determine if government financial assistance programs were used in the people’s initiative (PI) signature campaign.

AKAP offers a one-time P5,000 cash assistance to “near poor” workers who get P23,000 or less a month. Congress has allocated P60 billion for the program under the 2024 national budget, with P26.7 billion lodged in the DSWD for locally funded projects.

In a chance interview after a media forum in Manila, Marcos said the Committee on Electoral Reforms and People’s Participation, which she chairs, will determine if the AKAP was used to entice people to affix their signatures on the PI sheets.

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“Yes, hiwalay na kasi talagang lihis na siya dun sa paksa ng PI (it will be a separate inquiry because the topic is already a deviation from the purpose of the PI hearings),” Marcos told reporters when asked if she will seek an investigation on AKAP.

The Committee on Electoral Reforms and People’s Participation is looking into the alleged payoffs in the people’s initiative drive.

The AKAP budget was questioned by senators during the third hearing of the Committee on Electoral Reforms and People’s Participation last Tuesday on allegations that PI proponents bribed individuals with varying amounts of cash to sign the petition, which some senators believe is the handiwork of the House leadership led by Speaker Martin Romualdez.

During the Kapihan sa Manila Bay forum yesterday, Marcos said she will invite DSWD Secretary Rex Gatchalian to shed light on the alleged use of AKAP in Cha-cha efforts.

“I think because of this alien, foreign project AKAP, we’ll have to call Secretary Gatchalian. Kailangan ipaliwanag kung ano ito (He should explain what this program is about), and the DBM secretary perhaps,” she said.

“Kailangan siguro pag-usapan baka naman mabigyan na tayo ng linaw ni Secretary Gatchalian pero ang pagka-alam ko talagang hindi alam ng DSWD. Kailanman hindi lumabas sa anumang subcommittee plenary o iba pang debate (We need to clarify this program, maybe Secretary Gatchalian can do that. But as far as I know, the DSWD knows nothing about this. This program was never contained in any subcommittee, plenary or in other debates),” she said.

Marcos, who sponsored the 2024 budget of the DSWD in the Senate, insisted that the AKAP was not in the original proposal of the agency and criticized the lack of transparency in the changes to the budget bill during the bicameral conference committee meetings.

“Ku-konsultahin ko rin ang aking mga kasamahan kasi gusto ko rin malaman ano nangyari. Pero mukhang malabo talaga kasi ‘yung mismong DSWD hindi alam ang nangyari, tapos maski ang DBM hindi alam kung paano sila magre-relis samantalang walang IRR na maayos (I will consult my colleagues because we all know want to know the truth. But this is really vague because even the DSWD itself does not know how it came about, and even the Department of Budget and Management does not know how it will release the funds because it has no clear implementing rules and regulations),” she added.

Sen. Juan Edgardo Angara, chairperson of the Committee on Finance and head of the Senate bicameral panel when the 2024 national budget was discussed by both houses of Congress, said AKAP was an amendment introduced by the House of Representatives.

“Obviously, when it was proposed, wala namang nakalagay na it will be used for PI (there was nothing that said it will be used for PI),” Angara said.

Senior Deputy Speaker Aurelio Gonzales Jr. reminded Marcos that she approved the new P26.7B AKAP funding and showed a copy of the 2024 national budget bicameral report which was signed by Marcos.

“Para malinawan lang po natin na, Senator Imee, ito po o, nakabilog pangalan niya na pumirma po siya sa bicam report. Sana po tinignan niya ito. (Just to be clear, Sen. Imee, your name is encircled here, she signed the bicam report. We hope she takes a look at this). This is P26.7 billion,” Gonzales told a press conference.

Gonzales said the Senate clearly gave its stamp of approval on AKAP when it passed the then proposed P5.768 trillion outlay for this year in plenary last November 28 through a plenary vote of 21-0 with one abstention.

He added that the Senate later ratified the bicameral conference committee report on the budget signed by committee members led by finance committee chairman Angara and his House counterpart Elizaldy Co.

“It would be absurd now for senators to be questioning the AKAP and other assistance funds included in the national budget and administered by the Department of Social and Welfare Development (DSWD) because they approved it,” Gonzales said.

Gonzales pointed out that one or two senators expressing “surprise” over the presence of AKAP in the 2024 national budget were even members of the House-Senate conference committee that reconciled the two chambers’ version of the spending program for this year.

“They are estopped from speaking against or criticizing what they have approved, unless they tell us now that voted ‘yes’ without reading the budget or at least the conference committee report, which is a summary of the outlay,” he said.

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The House leader said questioning the 2024 budget now “would also mean questioning the decision of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to sign the then budget bill into law.”

Gonzales also denied insinuations that Romualdez or any House member has a hand in the release and use of AKAP fund “or any program specified in the budget that extends assistance to the poor, jobless, underemployed, and other individuals needing government help.” He said it is the DSWD that has “sole authority over these funds”  and “that is clear in the budget law.”

For his part, Rep. Ramon Rodrigo Gutierrez (PL, 1-Rider), a member of the House minority bloc, said he could not understand why AKAP is being linked to the PI campaign PI campaign, saying it is a “welcome” budget insertion like the Libreng Sakay program at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“So, with such a laudable intention, I don’t know why this would be linked with PI. Perhaps by timing, but I really think it’s unfortunate.  It does not mean that insertions in the bicam have bad intentions.  I hope we can do away with putting malice to that,” he said.

Meanwhile, Sen. Christopher Go called out the DSWD regarding the delays in the distribution of assistance to indigent families and crisis-affected communities amid allegations that government programs were reportedly used to push for the PI.

Go said there have been complaints on the delay in the release of assistance under the DSWD’s Assistance to Individuals in Crisis program, while the PI signature campaign has been rolling allegedly in exchange for government assistance program.

Meanwhile, Sen. Ronald dela Rosa urged the Commission on Elections to provide options for Filipinos who were fooled to sign the PI signature forms.

He said that registered voters in Davao who were made to sign the forms now want to withdraw their signatures after learning that they were duped.

“It is incumbent on your part as Comelec to at least act on their complaints… They want to go to the Comelec offices to withdraw their signatures,” Dela Rosa said.

Likewise, an official of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) yesterday said the discovery that the People’s Initiative for Reform, Modernization, and Action (PIRMA) is no longer registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) makes the PI it is pushing for more questionable.

In an interview, CBCP – Episcopal Commission on Social Action, Justice, and Peace (ECSA-JP) Vice Chairman Bishop Gerardo Alminaza said the latest finding that PIRMA is not registered with SEC for the past 20 years proves the lack of transparency over the move to amend the 1987 Constitution.

“It is very consistent with what we are saying: that the process is not transparent. If the motive is very righteous, with this, it has been betrayed since the one pushing for it is not legitimate,” said Alminaza.

“This means that the entire process, the motive, how it surprised everybody, make the PI highly questionable,” he added.

The San Carlos bishop said such a questionable fact makes it imperative for lawmakers to withdraw their support to the PI drive.

“The best and most decent response they can have is to withdraw their support to the PI,” said Alminaza.

On Tuesday, the SEC bared that PIRMA has been unregistered with the agency for the past 20 years due to its failure to submit any reportorial requirements.

To note, PIRMA is the group that has come out and declared that it is the one behind the signature campaign for a PI to amend the 1987 Constitution.

Also on Wednesday, the social action arm of the CBCP, Caritas Philippines, led the launching of a broad coalition against Charter Change, dubbed as “Koalisyon Laban sa ChaCha”.

In a press conference, the umbrella group composed of different religious groups and civil society organizations insisted that Charter Change is not the solution to the country’s problems.

“Our legislators blame the Constitution for the poverty of the people. That is not true. The causes of chronic poverty in the country are manifold, including systemic inequality in the distribution of wealth and brazen institutionalized corruption,” said the coalition.

“The country is sick not because of the Constitution but because of bad self-serving governance and social injustice. Our Constitution is robust but not fully implemented and completed with the necessary implementing laws,” it also said.

What makes it more unacceptable, it said, is the fact that it is being pushed by individuals and public officials with selfish motives.

“They want to revise it for selfish motives. They only want to perpetuate themselves and their families in power, while the rest of us, ordinary Filipinos, have to struggle for a just share of the fruits of our labor,” said the coalition.

Aside from Caritas Philippines, co-convenors of the coalition are the K4Philippines Intercessors Movement, National Council of Churches in the Philippines, Tindig Pilipinas, Nagkaisa Labor Coalition, and Akbayan Youth. — With Wendell Vigilia and Gerard Naval

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