By Ben Rosario

Successfully dodged during the past Congress, a congressional inquiry into the alleged misappropriation of some P144 billion sourced from the now banned Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) is being sought by a neophyte Mindanao lawmaker.

In House Resolution No. 1520,  Compostela Valley Rep. Ruwel Peter Gonzaga underscored the need to determine the truth about the DAP expenditures, saying that its alleged use as a lobby fund in the impeachment of the late former Chief Justice Renato Corona is vital in determining misappropriation of government money.

During the 16th Congress, then opposition Rep. Jonathan de la Cruz proposed a congressional probe into DAP expenditures but the House Committee on Rules during that time did not act on the resolution.

Filed on December 6, 2017, HR 1520 has yet to be formally referred by the rules panel to either the Committee on Justice or on Good Government and Public Accountability.

Gonzaga said it was the previous administration that introduced DAP as a “reformed intervention to speed up public spending and to boost economic growth.”

But he recalled that on July 1, 2014, the Supreme Court declared DAP “partly unconstitutional” for various reasons, including the fact that funding of projects and activities through the use of DAP is not covered by the General Appropriations Act.

Gonzaga noted that DAP expenditures have been linked by then Senators Jinggoy Estrada and Ramon Revilla Jr. to the Corona impeachment.

In separate privilege speeches, Estrada and Revilla revealed that senators who voted to remove Corona as SC chief justice received additional P60 million from DAP “to fund infrastructure projects of their choice.”

The two senators were later charged and were detained without bail for alleged plunder in connection with  alleged anomalies in pork barrel fund disbursements.