THE Supreme Court (SC) directed the Palace and Congress to answer the petition filed by the Philippine Constitution Association (Philconsa) and several others seeking to scrap several provisions in the 2015 General Appropriations Act (GAA) that resurrected the illegal pork-barrel fund through lump-sum appropriations.
The order was issued on Tuesday during the Court’s regular en banc session attended by eight associate justices. Associate Justice Arturo Brion presided over the deliberations.
Aside from the Palace and Congress, also ordered to comment within 10 days on the petition was the Commission on Audit (COA).
Only eight justices of the SC participated in the en banc sessions since seven of the justices were on leave, including the four most senior justices namely, Chief Justice Maria Lourdes P. Aranal-Sereno, Justices Antonio T. Carpio, Presbitero J. Velasco Jr. and Teresita J. Leonardo-de Castro.
The Court did not act on the prayer of Philconsa to issue a temporary restraining order enjoining the Executive branch from further implementing Sections 65, 70 and 73 of the 2015 GAA and special provisions for special purpose funds.
The petitioners are led by Philconsa President and Leyte First District Rep. Ferdinand Martin Romualdez.
Romualdez was joined by former Sen. Francisco Tatad, former Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno, former National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales and Catholic Archbishops Ramon Arguelles, Fernando Capalla and Romulo de la Cruz in filing the petition.
They also asked the Court to order the COA to issue notice of disallowance to all disbursements and releases from the assailed GAA provisions.
The petitioners also said show-cause order should be issued against Congress and Budget Secretary Florencio B. Abad for “flagrant disobedience, resistance and disregard of the decisions of the Supreme Court in the [Priority Development Assistance Fund and Disbursement Acceleration Program cases].”
Section 65 of the GAA provides for lump-sum appropriations, while Section 70 defines savings as portions or balances of any unreleased appropriations in the GAA that were not obligated. Section 73, on the other hand, contains rules in the realignment of allotment classes and reprioritization of items of appropriations.
Philconsa asked the HighCourt to declare all three provisions as unconstitutional.
Petitioners said that an examination of the 2015 budget showed “scandalous and unconscionable freight” of lump-sum appropriations amounting to P424,144,763,000 “cleverly embedded” in nine strategic departments and two agencies of the executive department, which the group said were “highly vulnerable to the whirligig of transactional, rent-seeking and patronage politics.”
“This case is the golden and historic occasion for the Supreme Court to establish an impregnable wall to block the genre of conscienceless politicians and politics to politicize, pollute and desecrate the Constitution in the preparation and implementation of the GAA,” read the petition.
The name of respondents were Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa Jr., Abad, Congress and the COA.
4 comments
Baka may timatago kaya hindi agad ito matugunan…hmmm smells fishy
Glad we have petitioners like them, has determination to fight and bravely ask the scandalous issues from the palace.
May this issue devour before 2016 election.
Palace must be responsible to this case, hindi titigil ang ating mga petitioners hanggat hindi ito nabibigyan ng hustisya. just be transparent enough to the people atleast