By EUGENE ADIONG
BACOLOD City — A business leader here worries that the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) controversy would slow down the country’s economy.
Investor confidence may drop if the embattled Budget secretary, Florencio Abad, stays in his post, said Frank Carbon, president of the Metro Bacolod Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
Foreign and local investors have praised the government for its anti-corruption efforts that increased credit rating and boosted investor confidence, Carbon said.
“However, with the recent DAP controversy, investors now have doubts on investing [in the country],” he said.
The Supreme Court has declared DAP as unconstitutional.
It struck down on July 1 parts of DAP, implemented from 2011 to 2012 as an “economic stimulus” program, “for violating constitutional provisions on the transfer of appropriations and separation of powers.”
Abad, who engineered DAP in 2011, had since come under fire. Cause-oriented groups last week filed plunder charges against him.
Amid the controversy, Abad submitted his resignation letter, but President Benigno Aquino III turned his resignation down.
Carbon is concerned that investors might “wait and see” until the controversy is over before shelling out.
The Aquino administration last year halted the DAP after the program was dragged into the Priority Development Assistance Fund, or pork barrel, scam.
The DAP, allocated to legislators after the impeachment trial of then Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona, was taken from previous slow-moving projects.
There were claims, however, that the fund was a reward to lawmakers who voted for Corona’s ouster./PN
