THE Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of the Land Transportation Office’s use of the P341 million in unspent funds for the procurement of driver’s license cards with 5-year validity in 2016 to supplement the funds for the same purpose under the 2017 national budget.
The SC issued the ruling after rejecting the petition filed by former ACTS-OFW Rep. Aniceto Bertiz III seeking to scrap the P836 million project the LTO inked with Dermalog for the procurement of driver’s license cards.
In his plea, Bertiz asked the SC to declare unconstitutional the LTO’s application of the remaining balance in the funds for the project to procure driver’s licenses under the General Appropriations Act for 2016 to the 2017 GAA.
While the SC was hearing his petition, Bertiz asked the justices to issue a temporary restraining order enjoining the LTO, the Department of Transportation and Dermalag from proceeding with the 2017 project.
Bertiz also argued that Article 6, Section 29 (1) of the 1987 Constitution provides that “no money shall be paid out of the Treasury “except in pursuance of an appropriation made by law.”
However, in a 14-page ruling promulgated on October 11, 2022 but only made public on March 22, 2023, the SC ruled that Section 65 of the 2016 GAA authorized the use of appropriations in 2016 for 2017.
Section 65 states that “Appropriations authorized in this Act for Maintenance and Other Operating Expenses and Capital Outlays shall be available for release and obligation for the purpose specified, and under the same special provisions applicable thereto, for a period extending to one fiscal year after the end of the year in which such items were appropriated.”
The SC ruling, penned by Associate Justice Rodil Zalameda, said the LTO was “acting well within the bounds of law when it supplemented the appropriation for its 2017 DLC project with the balance of its 2016 appropriation for the same purpose.”
“With the foregoing clarification, we dismiss the case for petitioner’s failure to show that the LTO committed grave abuse of discretion,” the tribunal added.
Though the SC held that the LTO erred when it referred to the General Fund as the funding source for the 2017 driver’s license card project, it did not find such error “grievous” as to constitute grave abuse of discretion.
