5 Million Signatures Enough to Junk PDAF, DAP, Former Chief Justice Says

Former Supreme Court Chief Justice Reynato Puno has said the electorate can bypass Congress and directly scrap the Priority Development Assistance Funds (PDAF), commonly known as pork barrel, and the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) if five million signatures calling for their abolition can be gathered.

In an interview, Puno said “Hindi lang Kongreso ang may karapatang magpanukala ng batas. Ang taumbayan mismo ay may karapatan na magpanukala ng batas kung sa palagay nila ang ating Kongreso ay hindi ginagawa ang kanilang katungkulan,”

Puno said “You cannot expect them [lawmakers] to pass legislation that will be contrary to their selfish interest,” and added, “Nawala na ‘yung moral authority nila to enact this kind of law.”

Reports said Republic Act No. 6735 provides that the citizenry has the power to directly propose, enact or approve a law provided: At least 10 percent of Filipino voters signed the petition. There are about 52 million voters in the country, so the petition needs to be signed by at least 5.2 million people,- At least three percent in all the legislative districts signed up the petition, Gma news online reported.

After the petition obtains the required signatures, the Commission on Election, will verify the signatures in the petition and set the election day for the Filipino voters to choose to abolish pork barrel or not.

Puno said if the peoples’ initiative does manage to do away with lawmakers’ pork, this will mean that democracy is alive and well in the country.

Several rallies all over the country have been staged calling for the abolition of the pork barrel and other lump sum appropriations, which were believed to be a source of corruption and patronage politics, Gma news online reported.

The pork barrel faces controversy recently after an alleged multi-billion fund scam surfaced where businesswoman Janet Lim-Napoles, dubbed the ‘pork scam queen’ allegedly funneled the PDAF through bogus NGOs in connivance with lawmakers and other ranking government officials.

Source: Gma news online, Gma news TV