As Minority Leader, I do not consider it a feat or a silencer to get the full amount of my congressional district’s half-year PDAF allocation after the recent releases of the corresponding Notices of Cash Allocation (NCAs), while many Members of the Minority have zero or incomplete releases for their respective districts’ entitlements.
The First District of Albay rightfully deserves the releases in the same manner as all other districts nationwide are entitled to their own releases.
The uneven treatment of opposition legislators smacks of a “divide-and-rule” strategy reminiscent of the colonial masters by driving a wedge within the ranks of the opposition.
The Minority as a block demands the full release of the PDAF to all its Members and supports the complaints of some marginalized Members of the majority coalition who are similarly discriminated against.
If the releases are not made soonest, the Minority shall consider boycotting the budget briefings to be conducted starting August 1 by the Committee on Appropriations or the committee hearings on the 2012 national budget after the general appropriations bill is filed.
Budget briefings and hearings are exercises in futility and are worthless tapestries if funds are impounded and immobilized after the General Appropriations Act is enacted.
President Aquino must respect the independence of the Office of the Ombudsman by not putting on the spot the new Ombudsman, retired Supreme Court Justice Conchita Carpio-Morales, by suggesting that she should pursue the mission of the scuttled Truth Commission in prosecuting former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
To further highlight his veiled instruction, the President announced that the documents and evidence against the former President and her officials which were submitted to or gathered by the infirm and disbanded Truth Commission will be transmitted to the new Ombudsman.
The President is virtually giving the new Ombudsman marching orders to prioritize the prosecution of his immediate predecessor.
These actuations demean and politicize the Office of the Ombudsman, an independent constitutional body, which should be allowed to voluntarily assume jurisdiction, freely conduct its own investigations and judiciously resolve complaints.
While the President denounced former President Arroyo for allegedly co-opting now retired Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez, he himself is effectively pressuring the new Ombudsman with his importuning.
Minority Leader and Albay Representative Edcel C. Lagman lauded the Supreme Court for once again upholding the supremacy of the Constitution and the ascendancy of the rule of law in junking with finality the Philippine Truth Commission as a constitutional aberration.
The Truth Commission was created by Executive Order No. 1 issued by President Aquino on 30 July 2010.
Lagman added that the “final decision of the Supreme Court is a virtual sanction against the President who was found to have been motivated by partisan vengeance and selective retribution in solely targeting for prosecution his immediate predecessor.”
According to Lagman, the “Aquino administration self-derailed its ballyhooed agenda against corruption for one year by foisting an unconstitutional body and insisting on its contrived validity before the public and Supreme Court.”
Lagman challenged the constitutionality of E.O. No. 1 as a patent violation of the equal protection clause for selectively investigating officials of the Aquino administration and as an arrogation of the legislative power to create public office.
Lagman has also contested the constitutionality of Republic Act No. 10153 postponing the ARMM elections and authorizing the President to appoint officers-in-charge for being violative of Muslim autonomy and Republic Act No. 10149 or the GOCC Governance Act of 2011 for violating the security of tenure of Government-Owned and Controlled Corporations (GOCC) officials and creating the “Governance Commission for Government-Owned and Controlled Corporations” (GCG) as a super executive body with powers to unilaterally repeal, with the imprimatur of the President, original charters granted to the GOCCs by Congress.
The petition assailing Republic Act No. 10153 has been set by the Supreme Court for oral argument on August 9, 2011, thus effectively granting due course to the petition.
I did not solicit, ask or demand any cash or check from the PCSO or any operator in connection with the Small Town Lottery (STL) operation in the First District of Albay.
I recall having received in 2008 or 2009 a check or not more than two checks of small amounts purportedly pursuant to PCSO Board Resolution No. 323, Series of 2008, granting 2.5% of Charity Fund (30% of net sales) to Congressional Districts.
I have not encashed the check and I do not recall having deposited it.
Minority Leader and Albay Representative Edcel C. Lagman has challenged yet another pet measure of the Aquino administration when he filed on Thursday a petition asking the Supreme Court to invalidate as unconstitutional R.A. No. 10149 or the “GOCC Governance Act of 2011”.
While admitting that scandalously huge salaries, allowances and perks of some Government Owned and Controlled Corporations (GOCCs) should not be tolerated and must be rectified, Lagman said that “a wrong cannot be righted by another wrong.”
Lagman asserted that the assailed law is a “compendium of sweeping, wayward, illegal and unconstitutional solutions to a problem which is grave but not widespread.” It is “indiscriminate wrath against the entire GOCC sector”, he added.
The Bicol solon told the Supreme Court in his petition for certiorari and prohibition that the infirm statute is “a shortcut and an ill-conceived remedy which punishes both the guilty and the innocent without due process, violates the security of tenure of civil servants, provides for undue delegation and utter abdication of legislative powers; and supplants the jurisdiction of the constitutionally created Civil Service Commission.”
The petition also asked that respondent Executive Secretary Pacquito N. Ochoa, Jr. be enjoined from enforcing the controverted law and respondent Budget Secretary Florencio B. Abad restrained from releasing funds to support the implementation of the law.
Lagman cited the following constitutional infirmities afflicting the challenged statute:
1. R.A. No. 10149 violates the constitutionally guaranteed security of tenure of officials, trustees and directors of GOCCs with original charters or those created under special law when it pre-terminated the terms of office of incumbents as of June 30, 2011 without due process.
2. The grant of principal functions and powers to the “Governance Commission for Government-Owned or Controlled Corporations” (GCG) constitutes undue delegation of legislative powers like amending or modifying GOCCs’ original charters enacted by the Congress as well as recommending their abolition or privatization with the sole approval of the President and without the requisite legislation.
3. The grant of awesome powers to the GCG constitutes an abdication of legislative authority which is violative of the constitution.
4. The creation of the GCG duplicates and supplants the constitutional authority and jurisdiction of the Civil Service Commission.
Lagman also said that the enactment of the challenged statute was fast-tracked in order to create vacancies in the helm and governing boards of GOCCs to accommodate partisans of the Aquino administration who are seeking government jobs after the employment ban on election losers had elapsed last May.
Lawyers Johween O. Atienza and Tristan Frederick L. Tresvalles assisted Lagman in filing the petition which was docketed as G.R. No. 197422.
