VICE President Sara Duterte has asked the the Supreme Court (SC) to junk the petitions questioning the legality of the P125 million confidential funds transferred to the Office of the Vice President on December 2022.
The consolidated comment was filed last May 10 by lawyer Estelito Mendoza, the Vice President’s legal counsel.
Mendoza told the High Court that none of the petitions before the SC neither have “justiciable controversy” nor a legally demandable and enforceable right to be heard by the magistrates.
“The allegations of the petitions do not show actual controversy involving rights which are legally demandable and enforceable as required by the Constitution.The petitioners simply made a blanket allegation that they are taxpayers or concerned citizens but without the constitutional requirement of justiciability,” the 19-page consolidated comment said.
“The petitions are mere apprehension and speculation about contingent funds or confidential funds, which does not constitute a justiciable controversy,” it stressed;.
Among the petitioners in the case are the groups of lawyers led by former Elections chairman Christian Monsod, former vice president spokesperson Barry Gutierrez and retired SC senior associate justice Antonio Carpio and Howard Calleja, ACT Teachers party-list, and the Makabayan bloc of lawmakers in the House of Representatives.
Duterte told the High Court that the petitions supposedly failed to reflect any actual case of controversy, pointing out that it did not show that the petitioners sustained hardship or any adverse injury when the P125 confidential funds was transferred from the contingency fund of President Marcos Jr.
She likewise said that even if the SC is vested with judicial power, “the Court’s power is not unbridled authority to just review any claim of constitutional violation or grave abuse of discretion… it is important to state that courts do not sit to adjudicate mere academic questions to satisfy scholarly interest therein, however intellectually solid the problem may be.”
“Indeed, the mandate of the Honorable Court does not include the duty to answer all of life’s questions. No question, no matter how compelling or interesting, can be answered by this Court if it cannot be shown that there is an actual or antagonistic assertion of rights by one party against the other in a controversy wherein judicial intervention is unavoidable,” she said.
To recall, the petitioners had questioned the legality of the transfer, and likewise asked the SC to direct Duterte to return the P125 million to the National Treasury.
The petitions were anchored on two constitutional grounds, namely, that the release by the Office of the President of the P125 million to Duterte has no legal basis because there was no congressional appropriation for confidential funds in the 2022 OVP budget and that the Executive branch is not authorized to pass its own budget outside of what is contained in the annual appropriations law.
They said the transfer violated Section 1, Article VI of the Constitution, which declares that the power of the purse is vested in Congress.
They also argued that the provisions in the appropriation laws on discretionary funds and lump sums must be subjected to strict interpretation, given that they are exceptions to the power of Congress as regards to appropriations.
The second ground is that the request, receipt, and use by the OVP of the said funds without congressional authorization violated Section 29 (1), Article VI of the Constitution which states that no money shall be paid out of the Treasury except in pursuance of an appropriation made by law.
Likewise, the petitioners dismissed as having no basis the claim of the respondents that the grant and release of the confidential funds to the OVP was a valid exercise of augmentation and realignment of funds.
The criticisms generated by the controversy led to Congress removing the P650 million confidential funds requested by the OVP (P500 million) and the Department od Education (150 million) in the 2024 national budget. Duterte is the concurrent secretary of the DepEd.
