WE’RE not done yet discussing the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP), the concept of which, as a measure of sustaining public spending, has not been abandoned by the government, even if the Supreme Court has declared certain DAP practices as unconstitutional.
Let us revisit and add to our perspectives on this matter of continuing citizens’ interest.
The good news is that DAP has indeed supported economic activity, public services and gross domestic product growth. In 2011 P83.53 billion of DAP provided for additional funds for health care, public works, housing and resettlement, and agriculture. In 2012 P58.70 billion of DAP augmented funds for tourism, road infrastructure, school infrastructure, rehabilitation and extension of Light Rail Transit systems, and sitio electrification. In 2013 P15.13 billion was dedicated for the hiring of policemen, for National Police modernization, redevelopment of Roxas Boulevard, and rehabilitation of Typhoon Pablo victims in Compostela Valley. There are much more to add to the list of DAP projects. (The Center for National Budget, headed by Joseph Rañola, is a rich resource for national budget researchers like me.)
The bad news is that the DAP funds were sourced from “savings” that were declared by the SC as not really savings and, therefore, unconstitutional. By law, the President can indeed realign savings generated from the Executive department’s budgetary allocations, to programs and projects within the Executive department. In its implementing National Budget Circular 541, dated July 18, 2012, the Department of Budget and Managemant (DBM) had directed “the withdrawal of unobligated allotments of agencies with low levels of obligations as of June 30, 2012, both for continuing and current allotments.” This was a premature judgment that should wait until later in the year. Otherwise, the intention of Congress to appropriate for the original particular purpose is subverted by pre-emptive presidential action. There was, in effect in the DAP, an arbitrary way of defining savings that would allow the President to realign amounts which he himself created as savings, opening up opportunities for potential abuse. The funds for the DAP, it was explained, were sourced from savings generated by the government; and from so-called Unprogrammed Funds, which are windfall revenue collections, e.g. dividends from GOCCs and GPIs.
Savings, in turn, were sourced from (a) the pooling of unreleased appropriations, such as unreleased Personnel Services appropriations, which would lapse at the end of the year, unreleased appropriations of slow-moving and discontinued projects; and also from (b) the withdrawal of unobligated allotments, also for slow-moving programs and projects, earlier released to government agencies.
To be continued
Santiago F. Dumlao Jr.