[Official Statement on the Sept. 17 Protest Action against DBM Sec. Butch Abad] Corruption has no place in our bureaucracy, and all its masterminds should be held accountable. This was our call when we mobilized last September 17 during UP Diliman University Student Council’s Balitaktakan. It was a fitting venue, because Dept. of Budget and Management Sec. Butch Abad, the architect himself of the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP), came as one of the forum’s main speakers. Abad represents the ongoing greed and corruption in government. It would have been unforgivable to let him get away without showing the anger felt by each and every Filipino suffering every single day from dire poverty and oppression instigated by thieves like Abad and his boss Pres. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III. It is therefore necessary to protest; to register dissent against the wrongdoings of this state was urgent. It is already public knowledge that DAP is today’s main means of stealing from public money. Still, despite all exposed billions-worth of DAP that went to questionable lump-sum projects and the Supreme Court declaration of it being unconstitutional, Aquino and Abad have consistently defended it as an efficient tool for government spending that brought their claimed economic boost. They say it was all done “in good faith.” Yet all morality posed to justify DAP is far from the reality that happening. DAP, as a form of pork barrel, promotes patronage politics. It is much similar to the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF), but with only the president having that sole discretion on where to allot savings and unprogrammed funds and released at the soonest possible time. This effectively gives Aquino the super power to control all government branches. For the record, DAP subsidized mostly infrastructure projects by Aquino’s allies in Liberal Party – which Abad is also a part of – and its led ruling coalition since 2011. Abad’s home province Batanes even received the largest allotment released from DAP, according to a report by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism. However, it still remains to be one of the poorest provinces in the country. And now, they are legalizing DAP in the 2015 national budget by changing the definition of “savings.” This, with the floating proposal of term extension and Charter Change, are but systematic moves of the Aquino regime to remain in power. The current political crisis presents this seeming threat of another tyranny amidst the aggravating issue of corruption, at a time when we are commemorating the 42nd anniversary of Martial Law. Civility and decorum at the height of social unrest and deprivation is consent to the existing status quo and a betrayal to the genuine essence of democracy, a very valuable lesson from the dark days of Martial Law. Likewise, to trivialize the protest as mere violence or aggression and to allege that its objective was to harm – these are but poor attempts of the state to sensationalize what happened and veer attention away from the actual and more important issue at hand. We challenge all those who have judged our behavior as unruly and barbaric – including fellow iskolar ng bayan and dear professors who have issued statements against us – to take a stand against the yellow dictatorship and corruption. The real hooligans with behavior more worthy of condemnation are out there in the government, lambasting our rights and stealing our hard-earned money paid as tax for their own benefit. We believe that is what UP meant by “honor and excellence,” true to the Oblation’s message and our responsibility of selfless service to the people. And might we remind all that even if UP is indeed a free and academic institution, but it does not exist in a vacuum. Manners are not defined by intellectual arrogance, but by history – when lives are at stake, etiquette is biased to the ones struggling for our legitimate democratic rights and interests. In the end, we uphold: DAP, corruption and tyranny are all unconstitutional, while how we exercise democracy – the protest we staged – is a constitutionally granted right and has its place in a society ill from crisis. UPHOLD FREEDOM TO EXPRESSION AND ASSEMBLY! NO TO CAMPUS REPRESSION! ABOLISH ALL FORMS OF PORK BARREL! NO TO YELLOW DICTATORSHIP! BUTCH ABAD AT NOYNOY AQUINO, PANAGUTIN AT PATALSIKIN!
Posted on: Fri, 19 Sep 2014 16:18:38 +0000
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