Finally, after months of debate, the cat is now out of the bag! The Supreme Court has released its verdict on whether or not the Disbursement Acceleration Program of the Aquino administration is constitutional. Both sides of the issue has been presented and heard and the highest court of the land has spoken that such program is unconstitutional which means the disbursement acceleration program is against the basic and fundamental law of the land, our Constitution. We have heard the justifications of no less than the President telling on nationwide television that the action of the government on the issue at hand is justifiable on the ground that Malacanang did not steal even one peso from the said disbursement acceleration program but used the savings to create and accelerate the economy of this nation. The intention might be right but the means towards that end cannot be right. The pragmatic approach of President Aquino where the ends justify the means would never work under the rule of law. As a matter of fact, this might be used against the President because such can be construed as culpable violation of the Constitution which under jurisprudence is an impeachable offense.

Certain points of paramount importance are declared to be unconstitutional in the disbursement acceleration program of the Aquino administration. On July 1, 2014, the Supreme Court has declared three (3) specific acts under the program unconstitutional: the first is the withdrawal of unobligated allotments from the implementing agencies and the declaration of the withdrawn unobligated allotments and unreleased appropriations as savings prior to the end of fiscal year and without complying with the statutory definitions of savings contained in the General Appropriation Act, Second, the cross-border transfers of savings of the executive department to offices outside the executive department; and third, funding of projects, activities, programs not covered by appropriations in the General Appropriation Act. All of these acts are against the Constitution according to the Supreme Court.

In layman's term, the first act is unconstitutional simply because you cannot say that the government has a lot of savings because the fiscal year is not yet completed or finished. You can only have savings after the end of fiscal year. What the government is doing is that they intentionally withdrawn money from implementing agencies and declared it as savings prior to the end of fiscal year. This is a clear violation to the General Appropriation Act itself and the Constitution. With all these acts committed by the Aquino administration, it seems like the power of the purse which belongs exclusively by Congress is taken away from them by the people behind DAP. That's why to save the face of the President, some quarters say somebody should act as the sacrificial lamb and this must be the resignation of the brain of DAP in the person of Secretary Butch Abad.

Will the Secretary Butch Abad resign from DBM? That remains to be seen in the next couple of weeks depending on the pressure from the social media and civic society organizations nationwide. In fact the issue of DAP will never die even after the term of President Aquino. Why such a big deal about DAP? Simply because the disbursement acceleration program created by the present administration is about huge amount of money, bigger than the PDAF scandal. This will be the ghost that will haunt him once he will be out from power. Like what happened to his predecessors, he might be charged with plunder once he is no longer in power.