(Eagle News) — Presidential Legal Counsel Salvador Panelo on Friday, June 22, said former President Benigno Aquino III should have been indicted for plunder or “at the very least” graft and corruption over the disbursement acceleration program.
Panelo made the statement after the Ombudsman filed a complaint of usurpation of authority–which carries a penalty of “temporary special disqualification” and imprisonment between six months and one day to six years— against the former president instead.
According to Panelo, involved, after all, were “P36 billion of the people’s money with the Supreme Court no less declaring that the disbursement was in violation of the Constitution.”
He was referring to the 2014 Supreme Court decision that declared National Budget Circular 541 and other related issuances related to DAP unconstitutional.
Under Budget Circular 541, the Department of Budget and Management was given the power to withdraw “unobligated allotments of agencies with low levels of obligations as of June 20, 2012, both for continuing and current allotments,” among others.
In 2015, the High Court affirmed its 2014 decision.
“There is a glaring discrepancy of the act committed as against the complaint filed,” Panelo said.
“Repeat of anomalous” move
For Panelo, what the Ombudsman did was “a repeat of (its) anomalous” move to charge Aquino with usurpation of authority instead of reckless imprudence resulting in homicide, in connection with the Mamasapano incident in 2015.
The second charge was being put forward by the kin of the Special Action Force members who died in the botched operation.
The SC has ordered a halt in the proceedings in the Sandiganbayan, pending a review of the Ombudsman’s resolutions.
Even then, Panelo said that “crime does not pay no matter your status in life.”
“While sometime the wheels of justice grinds exceedingly slow, it does grind, and in the end justice will catch up on the perpetrators of the crime and reap their deserved punishment,” Panelo said.
