Former Philippine President Benigno Aquino has been indicted over his decision to reallocate $1.67bn in government funds to a program later declared by the country’s top court as unconstitutional. Aquino has vehemently defended his administration’s budget disbursement acceleration program, the poorly understood and widely criticized fund allocation scheme that has cast doubt on his fight against graft and corruption. Compared to the multiple scandals and massive instances of corruption that tainted the two presidents who preceded him — Arroyo and Joseph Estrada — the cases of wrongdoing ascribed to Aquino were essentially omissions of diligence rather than commission of crimes, writes Joel Ruiz Butuyan for The Inquirer.