Senate probe on DAP--it's like a briefing

The DAP "architect" lecturing those who
received those sinful funds

Yesterday's Senate invitation of Budget secretary Butch Abad, to put it mildly, is another wastage of the people's monies and time. It was like a briefing---the supposed architect of the illegal Disbursement Acceleration Program or DAP using the occasion to "illuminate" or provide sufficient alibis for those who benefitted from his hair-brained scheme.

The hearing even turned Abad into a "witness", with Senate president Franklin Drilon acting like a defense counsel. I can't describe Senators Antonio Trillianes IV and Bam Aquino as "counsels". They were more like choir boys, who sang Hallelujahs every single time Abad opens his mouth and when Drilon shares his perversion before the very eyes of millions of televiewers and radio listeners.

Yes, Abad used History as defense and likened DAP (to my mind) to a prostitute---she was used repeatedly by several presidents, so, why would we be different? It's like saying that an old and wrongful act, when repeated several times over, becomes legal in the eyes of those who do it.

Abad just provided ammunition to law-breakers in this land, particularly smugglers---continue your smuggling ways and eventually, your act will become custom, therefore, legal. Or jueteng lords--continue your jueteng ways, and eventually, government will intervene and legalize everything.

What has happened to our sense of propriety, of Rightness and of adherence to the Rule of Law, when the very ones expected by the People to follow it, are themselves tearing apart every, single shred of these democratic principles?

Are we now saying that the Power of the Purse, which is given to Congress as a form of check and balance, now lodges in the Executive? Logical if you think about it. Right now, there is no more separation between the Executive and Congress, since the Executive has become a tool of politicians in their desire to advance their personal interests.

We claim to be "democratic", when the very ones occupying the Palace think of themselves as more learned than the 200 plus legislators elected by the people.

Lawyer Romy Macalintal is correct---let's abolish Congress since these Congressmen and Senators are useless. Sans the power of the purse, what powers do Congressmen are left with?

Why do we even go thru the budgetary deliberations process when, eventually, the Executive will order his henchmen to generate "savings" in order for those funds to be used elsewhere?

This practice mocks the very democratic and republican character of the State, when eventually, it is the Executive that wields not just police powers, but the Power to toy with the funds of this land?

It is that reason why we, the People, went to EDSA twenty five or so years ago--the realization that one man controls all levers of governance.

Haven't we forgotten that the main thing which sparked this thing called EDSA revolution was our anger against one man's control of the people's funds? That he once arrogated not just the Power to create laws but the Power to use the people's monies for his own personal interests?

Now, we see this country being run by a group of people who think of themselves as more learned, more conscientious and more upright than the rest of the 100 million souls in this land.

If we like this system, then, institutionalize it. If we think that there should be one body that determines where those trillions of pesos would go, then, why not change the Charter to reflect it?