AKAP in 2025 budget questioned before SC

MANILA, Philippines — Several groups and persons filed a petition yesterday, asking the Supreme Court (SC) to declare as unconstitutional the 2025 national budget, among others due to the allocation of funds for the Ayuda para sa Kapos ang Kita Program or AKAP, which they claimed “effectively constitute pork barrel.” 

In a case for certiorari, 1Sambayan, Sanlakas and the individual petitioners noted that AKAP received an allocation of P26.159 billion, even though it was not included in the National Expenditure Program, and was initially deleted in the Senate-proposed budget bill.

They also asked the SC to declare as unconstitutional the provisions of the 2025 General Appropriations Act (GAA), which gave a lower budget for the education sector as well as zero subsidy for the Philippine Health Insurance Corp.

Among the petitioners are 1Sambayan representative and former Supreme Court senior associate justice Antonio Carpio, Sanlakas representative Marie Marguerite Lopez, Advocates for National Interest, former ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales, Cielo Magno, Dante Gatmaytan and Ma. Dominga Padilla.

Respondents are the Senate, House of Representatives, Office of the Executive Secretary, Department of Budget and Management, Department of Finance and Department of Public Works and Highways. 

The petitioners are seeking a temporary restraining order, a writ of preliminary injunction and other injunctive remedies to bar the national government from implementing provisions of the GAA relating to AKAP.

The petition noted that after the AKAP fund allocation was reinstated by the bicameral conference committee, Senate finance committee chairperson Sen. Grace Poe admitted that congressmen and senators would get to participate in the program, even revealing that they would have shares of roughly P21 billion and P5 billion, respectively.

This was corroborated by officials of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), who “freely admitted” that congressmen and senators can participate in the implementation of AKAP by identifying, endorsing and referring the individual beneficiaries.

“From the foregoing, AKAP, as it is crafted under the 2025 GAA, has the badges of a congressional pork barrel,” the petition read.

Citing Belgica vs. Ochoa, the petitioners said the high tribunal defined pork barrel as a kind of lump sum, discretionary fund wherein legislators are able to control the fund’s utilization.

They also emphasized that lawmakers participate in the implementation of AKAP by identifying, endorsing and referring the specific individual beneficiaries who meet the qualifications of having an “income that does not exceed the statutory minimum wage” and being “severely affected by the rising inflation.”

It said that even though the national government vowed to come up with guidelines on the conditional implementation of AKAP, with added safeguards to ensure the efficient use of public funds, the absence of safeguards in the GAA 2025 is tantamount to Congress “practically assigning to the Executive and Judicial branches of government such task of legislating the prohibition against the unconstitutional misuse of the funds.”

The Commission on Elections has exempted the distribution of AKAP and several other aid programs from the election spending ban. But the guidelines stress that candidates are barred from identifying the beneficiaries and taking any part in the aid distribution.