SC asked to strike out lump sum items in GAA

MANILA, Philippines - The Supreme Court (SC) was asked yesterday to void four items in this year’s national budget.

In a petition for certiorari, former Manila councilor Greco Belgica said the Unprogrammed Fund, E-Government Fund, Contingent Fund and Local Government Support Fund are like the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) that the SC declared unconstitutional last November.

Belgica sought a status quo ante order to prevent the use and disbursement of these alleged lump sum discretionary funds in the 2014 General Appropriations Act.

“PDAF is still alive. They only took it out from the office of legislators, but there are still lump sum (items). Basically, the budget is lump sum-infected,” Belgica told reporters.

Through lawyer Eduardo Bringas, Belgica said the executive and legislative branches of government had ignored the SC ruling declaring unconstitutional the PDAF of lawmakers.

“The 2014 GAA is proof that the two political branches have decided to ignore the Supreme Court,” he said.

“It is a budget that is full of lump sums that let discretion run riot. This situation calls for the Honorable Court to exercise its duty as the guardian of the Constitution.”

The four lump-sum appropriations amount to P143.78 billion or 8.94 percent of the P2.265-trillion 2014 budget.

Belgica said the four lump sum items violate the constitutional provision on separation of powers because the legislature is left at the mercy of the President in terms of fund allocation.

“While in concept, Congress has the power of the purse, the reality now under the 2014 GAA is that the Chief Executive through the Offices of the Executive Secretary and the Department of Budget is now in control of the purse, particularly with regard to the lump sum items,” he said.

Belgica said it is not unlikely that administration allies would have an undue advantage in terms of assistance and budget allocations.

Instead of identifying the specific purpose for each appropriation, the 2014 GAA continued the illegal practice of lump sum appropriations and simply passed on the responsibility of identifying the specific projects for appropriation to the agency concerned, he added.

Belgica said a status quo ante order must be issued as the respondents are already in the process of implementing the 2014 lump sum discretionary funds amounting to billions of taxpayers’ money.

The fact that these are “being appropriated and allotted in an unconstitutional manner is enough,” although no allegation of corruption was made, he added.

Belgica said the SC has made it clear that lump sum discretionary funds are unconstitutional for violating the non-delegation clause, the separation of powers, and the power of line item veto of the President.

The SC ruling on PDAF defined what must be the contents and the nature of valid appropriations, he added.

Congress and the President ignored the SC’s ruling when they passed the 2014 GAA despite being filled with “unconstitutional lump sum discretionary fund items” like Unprogrammed Fund, E-Government Fund, Contingent Fund and Local Government Support Fund, Belgica said.

‘PDAF realignment unconstitutional’

In a statement, election lawyer Romulo Macalintal said yesterday the realignment of PDAF of nine senators is unconstitutional.

“Sen. Jinggoy Estrada’s skillful strategy of realigning his P200-million PDAF in the 2014 budget to the cities of Manila and Caloocan and a town in Cagayan province is unconstitutional and a clear and open defiance of the Nov. 19, 2013 Supreme Court decision declaring the legislators’ PDAF as unconstitutional,” he said.

Macalintal said Estrada’s eight other colleagues committed the same violation by realigning their allocations.

The SC made it clear that the PDAF was struck down “to rectify an error which has persisted in the chronicles of our history,” he added.

Macalintal said “Estrada’s and eight other senators’ defense that their P200-million PDAF was ‘re-inserted during the bicameral conference’ is an admission that it was not originally included in the budget.”

“Otherwise, there was no need to ‘re-insert’ the same,” he said.

“Likewise, insertions or re-insertions of budgetary items during a bicameral conference are of doubtful constitutionality as they violate the exclusive original jurisdiction of the House of Representatives on appropriation measures,” he said.

Senators Miriam Defensor-Santiago, Ralph Recto, Joseph Victor Ejercito, Alan Peter and Pia Cayetano, Ramon Revilla Jr., Lito Lapid and Antonio Trillanes IV have also realigned their pork barrel funds.

Defending his colleagues’ realignments, Sen. Francis Escudero, finance committee chairman, said the SC decision does not prohibit lawmakers from realigning funds while the proposed national budget is pending in Congress.

What the decision bans is post-budget enactment intervention from members of Congress, he said.

But Macalintal said allowing lawmakers “to realign or re-assign their PDAF funds to whatever or whomsoever they desire is to circumvent the SC ruling that lawmakers should not be accorded ‘post-enactment authority’ in the areas of ‘project identification, fund release, or fund realignment’.”

The senators’ decision to realign their pork barrel “is a ‘post enactment’ action that is related to fund release and/or fund realignment which, following the SC ruling, is not related to their congressional oversight function but an intervention and/or assumption of duties ‘that probably belong to the sphere of budget execution’,” he added.

Macalintal said in the particular case of Estrada, his realignment of his P200 million to local governments also contravenes the SC pronouncement that “national officers” like senators and members of the House of Representatives cannot be allowed “to substitute their judgments in utilizing public funds for local development.”

“Finally, to allow our legislators to circumvent the SC ruling by mere ‘re-insertion’ of their PDAF during a bicameral conference is to revert to the evil sought to be prevented by the SC decision, that of ultimately or once again allowing the PDAF ‘to become personal funds under the effective control of legislators and given unto them on the sole account of their office’,” he said. – With Jess Diaz