Monsod required reading for columnists

There has been a welter of comments on President Aquino’s handling of the controversy over the Disbursement Acceleration Program, but there had been no qualified explanation to the Filipino people of the issues involved until Solita Monsod came out with her column titled “SC’s DAP decision and PH’s budget process ” (Opinion, 7/19/14).

Thanks to Monsod, I now know that the budget is “inflexible…. does not allow greater investment or innovation in the delivery of public services.” But the Aquino administration introduced changes in the form of increased expenses in health, education, etc.; and changes for greater efficiency in management and accountability from zero-based budgeting.

Further, she said “The DAP was an attempt to make the budget process more flexible…. by taking away (temporarily) the unobligated appropriations and putting them in faster moving projects …. which was an excellent way to make sure that the peoples’ money was not allowed to lie idle.” Although “flexibility was not allowed by the General Appropriations Act, the budget department’s position is that this flexibility is allowed under the revised Administrative Code of 1987 (RAC).”

Then Monsod concluded: “In tying the hands of a too powerful executive, the high court may have overextended itself when it pronounced that all items in the DAP had no appropriations cover (that absolute). This after the DBM had submitted the list of projects undertaken by the DAP and pointed out where they fell under the GAA. In other words the Court thought it knew better than the practitioners in the budgeting field and in effect said the DBM was lying. Since when did the Supreme Court justices become budget experts?”

I congratulate Monsod for clearing the cobwebs away from the sometimes narrow commentaries that P-Noy’s critics continue to foist upon the wondering public. I suggest that the column of Monsod be made required reading by newspaper columnists.

—AMADO F. CABAERO,

founding chair and past national president, Philippine Association of Retired Persons, [email protected]