Reality check: The DAP Express
by Malou Mangahas, Rowena F. Caronan, and Charmaine P. Lirio
THERE ARE clear winners, as there are clear losers, in terms of provinces and congressional districts and project types, in the distribution of over P11 billion in tax money under the controversy-ridden Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP).
Sidebar
NO LESS than the home province of Budget and Management Secretary Florencio ‘Butch’ B. Abad, head of the architect agency of the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP), received the largest allotment releases from the program, based on per capita releases or what each resident in a province could have gotten on average.
Reality check: The DAP Express
by Malou Mangahas, Fernando C. Cabigao Jr., and Charmaine P. Lirio
IT WAS supposed to speed up the disbursement of state monies for high-impact projects that have been badly needed by the people. Yet while there are government agencies that offer glowing reports on the status of the projects assigned to them with funding from the controversial Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP), several admit to pale to poor performance when it comes to implementing DAP projects.
Sidebar
NOTHING IN the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) has ever been easy or simple, but the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) seems to have complicated matters even more for projects it was (and is still) supposed to fund.
The P144-B DAP Express
by Malou Mangahas
IN ITS 2012 Annual Financial Report for National Government, the Commission on Audit (COA) said regular appropriation for programmed activities of the departments and agencies of the national government amounted to P868.92 billion.
The amount includes P11.28 billion in SAGF (Special Account in the General Fund) for specific programs provided in the Special Provisions of the General Appropriations Act or GAA. The total available allocation left was P857.64 billion that was supported by funds from two sources.
Sidebar
THE STORY of the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) has been debated using various frames.
President Benigno S. Aquino III has offered the “right vs. wrong” frame, saying that “even our most vociferous critics grant that DAP has benefited our people.”
The P144-B DAP Express
by Malou Mangahas, Karol Ilagan, and Rowena F. Caronan
THE GOOD, the bad, and the dead combine, in terms of projects and activities, under the Aquino administration’s Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP), which is now wreaking havoc on relations between institutions, as well as between the government and the citizens.
Put aside the lack of transparency in details about which legislators and local officials pushed what projects, where, and for how much, under the “various priority local projects” funded by billions of DAP pesos. To date, the pace, quality, and impact of project implementation under DAP is a quizzical record.
AT LEAST P32.23 billion of taxpayers’ money had been released under the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) for projects and activities that had no funding cover or were not enrolled as approved expenditure items in the national budget or General Appropriations Act (GAA) for 2011 and 2012.As far as the available documents allowed, PCIJ reviewed the […]
The P144-B DAP Express
by Malou Mangahas
“Good intentions are not good enough.”
That, according to Public Works and Highways Secretary Rogelio ‘Babes’ Singson, is the lesson from the sorry episode that was the Disbursement Acceleration Program or DAP.
The Supreme Court on July 1 voted 13-0 to declare DAP unconstitutional in part because of the amounts that crossed over to other branches of government, the withdrawal of funding for items enrolled in the national budget, and the transfer of funding to items not enrolled in the national budget.
Sidebar
by Rowena F. Caronan and Karol Ilagan
IT TOOK a peeved senator, who was being accused of corruption, for the public to be inadvertently introduced to what is now known as DAP or the Disbursement Acceleration Program.Yet almost a year after Senator Jose ‘Jinggoy’ Ejercito Estrada — now in jail for alleged plunder — gave his privilege speech that led to the […]
