SC justices divided over legality of DAP

MANILA, Philippines - Will President Aquino’s Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) suffer the same fate as the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) of Congress in the Supreme Court (SC)?

The main decision and various opinions of justices on the PDAF ruling last week could provide hints, according to insiders.

While the SC has treated PDAF and DAP separately, it touched on the legality of lump-sum discretionary funds in ruling on the constitutionality of the former. Petitioners in two separate cases claimed that both funds are lump sums.

In its decision promulgated on Nov. 19 but released three days after, the SC justices were unanimous in striking down the pork barrel system of Congress.

But in separate concurring opinions, they appeared divided on the legality of lump-sum funds in general.

Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio believes all lump-sum appropriations in the budget are illegal.

In his 33-page concurring opinion, Carpio explained that Sections 35 and 23 of the Administrative Code do not authorize lump-sum appropriations in the General Appropriations Act.

“The President has a constitutional duty to submit to Congress only a line-item NEP (National Expenditure Program) without lump-sum expenditures, while Congress has a constitutional duty to enact only a line-item GAA without lump-sum appropriations,” he said.

Associate Justices Teresita Leonardo-De Castro and Roberto Abad concurred with Carpio’s opinion.

Chief Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno, however, opposed this view in her 21-page concurring opinion.

Rebutting Carpio’s point, Sereno said the Administrative Code “itself talks of how to deal with lump-sum appropriations,” which implies that there are legal forms of such kind of funds.

She said this is the same opinion espoused in the majority decision on PDAF case penned by Associate Justice Estela Perlas-Bernabe.

Sereno said ruling that PDAF is a “prohibited form of lump sum” implies that there are other allowable forms.

She believes that ruling on legality of lump-sum funds in general in the PDAF case “could be premature and confusing.”

“To arrive at an unwarranted conclusion, i.e. that all lump-sum appropriations are invalid, whether in the 2013 GAA only or in all appropriation laws, is not sufficiently sensitive to the process of deliberation that the members of this court undertook to arrive at a significant resolution,” she stressed.

Sereno added it could also be an “inaccurate inference” that will “jeopardize our constitutional limitation to rule only on actual cases ripe for adjudication fully litigated before the Court.”

Associate Justices Arturo Brion and Marvic Leonen agreed with Chief Justice Sereno on this point.

Brion, in his concurring and dissenting opinion, said a total condemnation of lump sum funding is an “extreme position that disregards the realities of national life.”

Leonen, for his part, said the issue “should be clarified further in a more appropriate case.”

In its decision, the high tribunal held that PDAF and previous pork barrel funds violated the constitutional principle of separation of powers of the executive and legislative branches as it “allowed legislators to wield, in varying gradations, non-oversight, post-enactment authority in vital areas of budget executions.”

The high court also ruled the pork barrel system violated the constitutional principle on “non-delegability of legislative power” by allowing lawmakers to fund specific projects they themselves determine.

The pork barrel system, including the earlier countrywide development fund (CDF) and the practice of congressional insertions in the national budget, also denied the President the power to veto items, the SC explained.