Just in time before Aquino’s 5th SONA

Another Impeachment Case filed against Aquino

By SANLAKAS
July 24, 2014

QUEZON CITY – When it rains, it pours goes the saying. Dark and heavy clouds seem to be steadily hovering above the presidency of Benigno Aquino III after another impeachment case was filed against him by cause-oriented groups.

Bringing to a total of five impeachment cases filed versus the beleaguered chief executive after some portions of his Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

Progressive multi-sectoral group Sanlakas led by Atty. Aaron Pedrosa and other leaders of various peoples’ organizations submitted their 51-paged impeachment complaint this morning at the Office of the Secretary-General of the House of Representatives, just two days before Congress resumes session on Monday for Aquino’s 5th State of the Nation Address.

Petitioners anchored their case on the charges of betrayal of public trust and culpable violation of the constitution.

“Unlike the previous cases filed, our complaint revolved around the highly questionable spending habits of Aquino, how he deliberately went over and beyond constitutionally-mandated limitations and instituted what legal luminaries would consider as fiscal dictatorship,” said Pedrosa.

In the complaint, petitioners allege that the president committed betrayal of public trust “through tyrannical abuse of power and gross exercise of discretionary powers” when under Aquino’s directives, public funds were used, stopped, revoked and suspended the implementation of government projects and services “in order to corner appropriated funds as “savings” to be expended at his pleasure”.

They also maintained that Aquino is likewise guilty of culpable violation of the constitution when he undermined Congress, the peoples’ representatives in government and its power of the purse “when he declared unreleased appropriations and withdrew unobligated allotments from the appropriations in violation of the separation of powers” provision of the charter.

The young lawyer stressed that Aquino’s DAP was merely the tip of the iceberg considering the long history of abusive and arbitrary fiscal malpractices of the Aquino administration. “For as early as August 2010, he had already declared that the Zero-Based Budgeting program was his spending strategy and a cornerstone of his Daang Matuwid and when it backfired and reaped criticisms for underspending, he rectified his miscalculation by operationalizing DAP to cover for lost ground”.

Among the programs they claim that were capriciously defaced by Aquino as early as August 2010 were the 2009 budget-approved Department of Education’s Food for School Program, which he transferred to the Social Welfare Department; the Department of Agriculture’s Input Subsidies and the Kalayaan Barangay Program.

On the likely possibility that the allies of the president in Congress will quash all their efforts and not endorse the cases filed before the Lower House, Pedrosa explained that, “despite the tyranny of numbers being employed by this deceitful regime, the actions and statements of Aquino and coconspirators shall only expose their brand of “good governance and democracy” to the poor majority”.

“Tyrants and plunderers will come and go but the resolute masses shall fight on for they have none to fear after “representa-thieves” have taken away everything but their will to liberate themselves from graft, corruption and elite supremacy,” Pedrosa articulated.

Among the petitioners included Leody de Guzman of Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino, Sonny Melencio of Partido Lakas ng Masa, Flor Santos-Assidao of Metro Manila Vendors Alliance and Lidy Nacpil, the current national chairperson of Sanlakas.