Aquino’s last years: Reality check after the SONA

First the good news: In his penultimate State of the Nation Address, President Benigno Aquino 3rd wisely desisted from another lambasting of the Supreme Court’s unanimous and widely applauded decision declaring the Disbursement Acceleration Program unconstitutional for misdeclaring savings, transferring funds between branches of government, and making expenditures not in the national budget.

Besides not challenging the DAP ruling, Aquino did what he should have done instead of his illegal fund-juggling if he wanted to shift resources from appropriated items to unappropriated ones: ask Congress to pass a supplemental budget, something it would have done in past years, especially with billions of pesos earmarked for legislators who impeached and convicted then-Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona.