A must for SC: Explain PDAF ruling

I read with keen interest Randy Peralta’s letter where he urged the Supreme Court to explain its previous decisions upholding the constitutionality of the pork barrel system, in light of its latest ruling striking down the same as unconstitutional (Opinion, 12/5/13).

LAMP v Secretary of Budget and Management (GR No. 164987, April 24, 2012) was specially alluded to. That case was a petition filed by the Lawyers Against Monopoly and Poverty (LAMP), a group of lawyers (including myself) who banded together with the mission to dismantle all forms of political, economic or social monopoly in the country, assailing the constitutionality of the pork barrel system, particularly the implementation of the provision on the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) in the General Appropriations Act (GAA) of 2004. The petitioners’ main argument was that the prevailing practice for individual members of Congress to propose, select and identify projects to be funded by their pork barrel allocations ran afoul of the principle of separation of powers because they in effect intrude into an exclusive executive function, i.e., the execution and implementation of laws. The Supreme Court rejected this argument by holding that the authority granted to members of Congress to propose and select projects “was already upheld in Philconsa” that remains a “valid case law” which the Court “sees no need to review or reverse (as) standing pronouncements in the said case.” For this reason, inter alia, the petition of LAMP was dismissed by a unanimous vote of the Supreme Court.

The Philconsa v Enriquez case (GR No. 113105, Aug. 19, 1994) likewise alluded to in Peralta’s letter, sought to declare unconstitutional and void the Countrywide Development Fund (CDF) provision in the GAA of 1994. The petitioners in that case argued that the power given to members of Congress to propose and identify the projects and activities to be funded by the CDF was an encroachment by the legislative on executive power since the power is in implementation of a law. (This is the selfsame position of the petitioners in LAMP.) The Supreme Court dismissed this argument with a curt pronouncement that “the proposals and identifications made by the Members of Congress are merely recommendatory.” For this reason, inter alia, the Philconsa petition was dismissed by a unanimous vote of the Supreme Court.

With its latest ruling in the petitions filed by Grecor Belgica et al., the Supreme Court now sings a different tune, as it were, by striking down, also by a unanimous vote, the PDAF as unconstitutional, thereby executing a perfect about-face by slaying its previous pronouncement in the LAMP and Philconsa ruling that upheld the authority of members of Congress to propose and select projects to be funded with pork barrel money. (Curiously, the ponente in the latest ruling is Justice

Estela Bernabe who had voted to uphold the PDAF’s constitutionality in the LAMP case.)

Verily, with its latest ruling in Belgica et al., the Supreme Court voids all legal provisions of past and present congressional pork barrel laws, such as the PDAF and CDF articles in the GAA, for being violative of the principle of separation of powers (the very same argument of the petitioners in LAMP) as they “authorized legislators… to intervene,

assume or participate in any of the various post-enactment identification, modification and revision of project identification,” (as well as) “conferred personal lump sum allocations to legislators from which they were able to fund specific projects which they themselves determine.”

In the same ruling, the Supreme Court struck down the pork barrel system for being violative of the constitutional principle of the non-delegability of executive power, because it allows lawmakers to fund specific projects that they determine by themselves. (It is precisely this practice that the petitioners in LAMP assailed as constitutionally impermissible.)

So, after all, the Philconsa ruling upholding the authority of the members of Congress to propose and select projects for funding from the pork barrel, which was reiterated in LAMP, does not remain a “valid case law” and “a standing pronouncement that needs no further review or reversal”?

Yes, indeed, I applaud and welcome the latest jurisprudence that finally shut down the pork barrel system as unconstitutional and void, thereby vindicating the petitioners in the Philconsa and LAMP cases. Still, as I see it, given the widely divergent rulings on the same issue, as herein analyzed, the Supreme Court has a lot of explaining to do.

Bartolome C. Fernandez Jr. is a former commissioner of the Commission on Audit.