Manila: Police officers guarded Malacanang, the Philippine presidential palace, as various groups held protests rallies at several points in Manila, while a survey showed that the popularity rating of President Benigno Aquino has declined.

The demonstrations were held hours before the beleaguered leader appeared on nationwide TV on Monday to defend his non-discretionary development fund, which the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional last week.

“We are watching closely how the president will keep on defending himself,” Renato Reyes Jr, secretary general of Bayan, an activist organisation that has a seat at the House of Representatives, told Gulf News before noon, at Plaza Miranda on Manila’s Quiapo District, near Malacanang the presidential palace.

After lunch, several groups converged on the streets of Mendiola, near the western side of Malacanang, where protesters criticised Aquino’s creation of the Disbursement Acceleration Programme (DAP) in October 2011.

Describing it as the “anomalous presidential non discretionary fund,” Anthony Barnedo, leader of United Congress for Urban Poor (KPML) said, “DAP is funded by alleged savings from line ministries, which totalled to P130 billion (Dh10.83 billion) as of November 2013. Used by the executive level to stimulate spending, [the executive] continued disbursing 10 per cent of DAP funds to senators and congressman in late 2012, which the opposition [members who also received the funds] easily interpreted as a presidential gift for the impeachment of Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona in mid 2012.”

“It resulted in a consistently high gross domestic product (GDP) in the Philippines, but it came from President Aquino’s rotten economic policies,” explained Barnedo, adding, “We know that Aquino will continue telling more lies to insist that his good intentions and end results like high GDP should justify a wrong means done through DAP”.

Members of the Coalition of Filipino Workers (BMP) also held a protest rally near the office of Budget Secretary Florencio Abad, on the eastern side of the presidential palace, where they called for the “ouster of the main author” of Aquino’s presidential order that was signed in 2011.

Leody de Guzman, BMP’s national chairman, said, “President Aquino and Secretary Abad are both implementers and signatories to the illegal disbursement of public funds. They wilfully hid it from the public and used it to undermine both the legislative and judiciary branches of government.”

“The president’s rejection of Secretary Abad’s resignation last Friday was for a show and a ploy for the Aquino administration to look good, cleanse its guilt and stop the people’s cry for justice and accountability,” said de Guzman.

Abad tendered his resignation last Thursday.

On July 1, the Supreme Court declared that parts of the DAP were unconstitutional, adding that DAP could no longer be implemented, but past projects funded by DAP would not be censured, following the country’s observance of the “principle of original doctrine,” a legal expert explained to Gulf News.

But civic groups continued asking for the punishment of DAP’s architects. Two of four impeachment complaints against Aquino were filed at the House of Representatives ahead of opening of the two houses of Congress on July 28. Abad is also facing complaints before the office of the Ombudsman.

For someone who always rode on his immense popularity rating since 2010, the hardest cut against Aquino was the announcement by the Social Weather Station that his popularity has dropped to its lowest level, from positive 45 last March to positive 25 in a survey of 1,200 respondents from June 27 to 30.

In Mindanao, southern Philippines, Aquino’s popularity rating declined to 61 per cent from 80 per cent; in Metro Manila, southern and northern Luzon, to 51 per cent from 70 per cent.

Other issues tackled during the survey were the rising prices of rice, garlic, and other basic commodities; the government’s inability to handle territorial dispute due to overlapping claims with China in the South China Sea; Aquino’s decision to snub popular actress Nora Aunor from the list of National Artist awardees; non-resolution of the massacre of 58 people including 32 journalists in Maguindanao, southern Philippines in November 2009, ahead of the May 2010 presidential polls; and Aquino’s lack of assurance that oil firms must follow international markets when pricing their products in the Philippines.

“I am doubtful that he will be able to recover his previously higher ratings,” said political analyst Ramon Casiple, executive director of the Institute for Political and Electoral Reform (IPER).

“Even if the president controls the Senate and House of Representatives, his popularity rating could be an indication of what might happen to the impeachment complaints filed against him. Those who are running for office in 2016 would not want to go against the tide of people’s sentiment,” explained Casiple.

Despite the rallies and the low popularity ratings, the president is “always ready” to come out with a list of how DAP was used properly, based on the tallies made by various government agencies, explained spokesman Herminio Coloma before Aquino’s live telecast.

Aquino’s campaign against corruption when he ran for the presidency in 2010 has resulted in the recent arrest and imprisonment of three opposition senators, their staff members, and several other congressmen who reportedly approved the release of the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) allotted to them to ghost projects that were supposed to be implemented by non-functioning nongovernment organisations (NGO) of businesswoman Janet Lim Napoles.

“But in comparison to the president’s fate and that of the allegedly erring senators and congressmen, the balance might tilt against the president because PDAF is allowed by law,” said another legal expert, adding that PDAF funds are released by the Budget Department, not by senators and congressmen.

“The President is empowered under the 1987 Constitution to realign funds. But he is not allowed to transfer funds from the Executive Department to the Legislative Department (as what happened in late 2012),” the same legal expert said, adding that if technical malversation was committed because of DAP, criminal charges can be filed against Aquino, Budget Secretary Abad, Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa and Senate President Franklin Drilon who admitted disbursing funds from DAP to senators in late 2012.

In 1977, the Supreme Court nullified Presidential Decree 1177 of former President Ferdinand Marcos who wanted to realign government funds from the presidential to other government levels. “If not curtailed, it would have allowed the president them “to override the safeguards and procedures prescribed by the Constitution in approving appropriations,” said the Apex Court in its 1977 ruling.