Held
Yes, the appropriation law is unconstitutional under Article VI, Section 25 of the 1987 Constitution and as held in Abante v. Budget, G.R. No. 208566 (2013) and Belgica v. Secretary, G.R. No. 210503 (2019).
Explanation
The Constitution mandates that Congress may not increase appropriations recommended by the President and that appropriations must be specific and limited to particular items. The President has the power of item veto over the General Appropriations Act (GAA), which requires that appropriations be clearly defined so that the President can exercise this power effectively. The Constitution also prohibits the transfer of appropriations except under limited circumstances and requires that discretionary funds be disbursed only for public purposes with proper vouchers and guidelines.
The Supreme Court in Abante v. Budget held that lump-sum appropriations that allow legislators post-enactment discretion to identify projects and beneficiaries effectively create a "budget within a budget." This practice circumvents the President's power of item veto and violates the separation of powers by allowing legislators to exercise executive functions in budget execution. The Court found such laws unconstitutional because they fail to specify particular appropriations and allow further determination of amounts and purposes after enactment.
In Belgica v. Secretary, the Court reaffirmed that appropriation laws granting legislators post-enactment discretion over projects and funds violate the Constitution. The Court declared unconstitutional all laws and practices that permit legislators to intervene in budget execution stages such as project identification and fund release, as these encroach on the Executive's authority and breach the principle of non-delegability of legislative power.
Application to the facts
In this case, the appropriation law grants individual legislators the discretion, after enactment, to determine how much funds go to specific flood control projects and beneficiaries. This means the law does not specify particular appropriations at the time of enactment, but leaves these decisions to legislators post-enactment. This is precisely the kind of lump-sum, post-enactment legislative identification budgeting system condemned by the Supreme Court in Abante and Belgica.
The fact that disbursements were made pursuant to this law, and that contracts were awarded to contractors linked to legislators who received kickbacks, further illustrates the dangers of such a system: lack of transparency, accountability, and the potential for corruption. The law's provisions violate the constitutional requirement that appropriations be specific and subject to the President's item veto, and unlawfully delegate legislative power to individual legislators in budget execution.
- a constitutional provision is among the sources and controls over any conflicting statute
"The Congress may not increase the appropriations recommended by the President for the operation of the Government as specified in the budget. ... No provision or enactment shall be embraced in the general appropriations bill unless it relates specifically to some particular appropriation therein. Any such provision or enactment shall be limited in its operation to the appropriation to which it relates. ... No law shall be passed authorizing any transfer of appropriations; however, the President, the President of the Senate, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and…
"No money shall be paid out of the Treasury except in pursuance of an appropriation made by law."
"The legislative power shall be vested in the Congress of the Philippines which shall consist of a Senate and a House of Representatives, except to the extent reserved to the people by the provision on initiative and referendum."
Laws retrieved
Everything retrieval surfaced, not only what the answer relied on. Read the ones it quotes.
- Section 25, The 1987 Constitution of the Republic of the Philippines
- Section 29, The 1987 Constitution of the Republic of the Philippines
- Section 1, The 1987 Constitution of the Republic of the Philippines
"Billion only appears as a collective allocation limit since the said amount would be further divided among individual legislators who would then receive personal lump-sum allocations and could, after the GAA is passed, effectively appropriate PDAF funds based on their own discretion. As these intermediate appropriations are made by legislators only after the GAA is passed and hence, outside of the law, it necessarily means that the actual items of PDAF appropriation would not have been written into the General Appropriations Bill and thus effectuated without veto consideration. This kind of lump-sum/post-enactme…
"In view of the constitutional violations discussed in this Decision, the Court hereby declares as UNCONSTITUTIONAL: (a) the entire 2013 Priority Development Assistance Fund [(PDAF)] Article; (b) all legal provisions of past and present Congressional Pork Barrel Laws, such as the previous PDAF and [Countrywide Development Fund (CDF)] Articles and the various Congressional Insertions, which authorize/d legislators - whether individually or collectively organized into committees - to intervene, assume or participate in any of the various post-enactment stages of the budget execution, such as but not limited to the…
Billion only appears as a collective allocation limit since the said amount would be further divided among individual legislators who would then receive personal lump-sum allocations and could, after the GAA is passed, effectively appropriate PDAF funds based on their own discretion. As these intermediate appropriations are made by legislators only after the GAA is passed and hence, outside of the law, it necessarily means that the actual items of PDAF appropriation would not have been written into the General Appropriations Bill and thus effectuated without veto consideration. This kind of lump-sum/post-enactment legislative identification budgeting system fosters the creation of a budget within a budget which subverts the prescribed procedure of presentment and consequently impairs the President's power of item veto. ... Hence, in view of the reasons above-stated, the Court finds the 2013 PDAF Article, as well as all Congressional Pork Barrel Laws of similar operation, to be unconstitutional. (Abante v. Budget, G.R. No. 208566)
In view of the constitutional violations discussed in this Decision, the Court hereby declares as UNCONSTITUTIONAL: (a) the entire 2013 Priority Development Assistance Fund [(PDAF)] Article; (b) all legal provisions of past and present Congressional Pork Barrel Laws, such as the previous PDAF and [Countrywide Development Fund (CDF)] Articles and the various Congressional Insertions, which authorize/d legislators - whether individually or collectively organized into committees - to intervene, assume or participate in any of the various post-enactment stages of the budget execution, such as but not limited to the areas of project identification, modification and revision of project identification, fund release and/or fund realignment, unrelated to the power of congressional oversight; (c) all legal provisions of past and present Congressional Pork Barrel Laws, such as the previous PDAF and CDF Articles and the various Congressional Insertions, which confer/red personal, lump-sum allocations to legislators from which they are able to fund specific projects which they themselves determine; (d) all informal practices of similar import and effect, which the Court similarly deems to be acts of grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction; and (e) the phrases (1) "and for such other purposes as may be hereafter directed by the President" under Section 8 of Presidential Decree No. 910 and (2) "to finance the priority infrastructure development projects" under Section 12 of Presidential Decree No. 1869, as amended by Presidential Decree No. 1993, for both failing the sufficient standard test in violation of the principle of non-delegability of legislative power. (Belgica v. Secretary, G.R. No. 210503)
Cases retrieved
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