PIAP is comprised of: ABOLISH PORK MOVEMENT ● CEBU COALITION AGAINST PORK BARREL SYSTEM● CHURCHPEOPLE’S ALLIANCE AGAINST PORK BARREL● EMPOWERED PEOPLE'S INITIATIVE AND REFORM MOVEMENT ALLIANCE (EPIRMA )● MAKABAYAN ● SCRAP PORK NETWORK● SOLIDARITY FOR TRANSFORMATION PHILIPPINES

FOR REFERENCE: Sr. Mary John Mananzan, OSB (09178980637) ● Marc Canton (09273493409) ● Mae Paner (09178106145) ● Manny SD Lopez (09179582735) ● Fr. Ben Alforque, MSC (09178263496)

STATEMENT ON THE SUPREME COURT DECISION AGAINST THE DAP July 2, 2014

The People’s Initiative to Abolish Pork Barrel (PIAP) reiterates its call for the conduct of a people’s initiative to abolish the pork barrel system even as the Supreme Court (SC) declared the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) unconstitutional. While DAP and Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) were declared by the SC unconstitutional, there is still no law criminalizing and penalizing acts related to DAP, PDAF and other forms of pork barrel. The proposed Pork Barrel Abolition Law through People's Initiative will criminalize and penalize the following: withdrawal of unobligated funds before the end of the fiscal year, cross-border rechanneling of funds, allocating funds to items not considered in the general appropriation, as well as the allocation and use of any form of congressional and presidential pork. The Supreme Court decision is an affirmation of our position that DAP is a form of pork barrel that has led to the diversion of badly needed public funds to highly questionable projects including the grant of billions to Senator judges in the impeachment of former Chief Justice Renato Corona. The decision voided one form of presidential pork barrel that amounted to at least P142 Billion. The battle against the pork barrel system, however, must still be pursued especially since at least P932 Billion pesos in presidential pork can be found in the 2014 national budget and in the various off-budget items including Malampaya fund, President’s Social Fund and Motor Vehicles Users Charges. PDAF, although no longer listed as an item in the budget, was merely distributed in various agencies but will still be subject to the same power of congressmen and senators to select the projects and the beneficiaries they want to splurge these discretionary funds on. The 2015 budget will definitely contain larger amounts of pork in the lead up to the 2016 elections which in turn will be the subject of corruption and patronage politics unless the people succeed in passing a law that will criminalize any insertion of pork barrel in the budget. Thus, the more reason for the people to vigorously pursue the abolition of the pork barrel system. The People’s Congress scheduled on August 23, 2014 in Cebu will push through despite the SC decision and we expect the broadest and the largest number of anti-pork barrel groups and personalities to come together and launch the historic campaign to pass a law abolishing the pork barrel system through a people’s initiative.