If only to dispel the impression that he is channeling US president Richard Nixon and turning the DAP mess into his own Watergate, President Benigno Aquino 3rd should be wary of invoking “executive privilege” in preventing Budget Secretary Butch Abad from facing the Senate and answering questions about the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) and the illegal expenditure of P140-billion of the people’s money.

Nixon’s use of executive privilege did not save his presidency; in the end he had to allow his White House legal counsel John Dean to testify in the Senate; his chief of staff H. R. Haldeman and presidential assistant John Ehrlichman were hauled to court and convicted on charges of obstruction of justice. Nixon was ordered by no less than the US Supreme Court to surrender his White House tapes to the special committee formed to investigate Watergate.