ANOTHER petition has been filed with the Supreme Court (SC) questioning the constitutionality of the P125 million contingency fund transferred in December 2022 from the Office of the President (OP) to the Office of the Vice President (OVP) to be used as confidential funds of Vice President Sara Duterte.
The Makabayan bloc also asked the High Court to order Duterte to return the amount to the National Treasury.
The petitioners include incumbent Makabayan lawmakers, and former party list representatives Neri Colmenares, Carlos Isagani Zarate, Ferdinand Gaite and Eufemia Cullamat.
Named respondents aside from Duterte were Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin, Budget Secretary Aminah Pangandaman and Commission on Audit chairperson Gamaliel Cordoba.
The petition for certiorari was anchored on two constitutional grounds, namely the release by the OP of the P125 million has no legal basis because there was no congressional appropriation for confidential funds of the OVP in the 2022 General Appropriations Act (GAA), and the Executive branch is not authorized to pass its own budget outside of the appropriations law.
Petitioners said the transfer violated Section 1, Article VI of the Constitution, which declares that the legislative power is vested in Congress, not the executive branch.
“While it is true that the Chief Executive has some discretion and flexibility in the budget execution stage, this power must only be exercised within the bounds set by the Constitution and the appropriate laws, including the pertinent General Appropriations Act,” they said.
“Any release of confidential funds to an agency or instrumentality that does not comply with the letter and spirit of the relevant provisions of the Appropriations Act amounts to an overexertion of presidential powers during the budget execution phase,” they also argued.
The second ground is that the request, receipt, and use by the OVP of the said funds without congressional authorization also 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.”
“In other words, no confidential funds must be released to or disbursed by any agency or instrumentality which is not given entitlement to it by the General Appropriations law,” the petitioners said.
“Therefore, since the 2022 GAA did not authorize any amount of confidential expenses for the Vice President, the President cannot approve the release of confidential funds to her, and the former cannot disburse as confidential funds any amount released to her,” they stressed.
Likewise, the petitioners dismissed as having no basis the claim of the respondents that the grant and release of confidential funds to the OVP was a valid exercise of augmentation and realignment of funds.
“The P125 million is not a valid augmentation given that it was Contingent Fund, and not savings, that was used for the OVP’s confidential fund. Again, Section 25 (5) of the Constitution sets the limitation on the power to augment that only applies to savings, and considering the nature of the Contingent Fund – which is the standby fund for purposes yet unforeseen at the time of the enactment of the GAAs – there can never be an instance that savings could be realized from it,” the petitioners explained.
They said that any expenses or obligation that Duterte authorized or incurred in violation of the 2022 GAA – which authorizes no amount for any confidential expenses for her office – should be voided.
“Every payment made for confidential expenses shall be illegal, and every public official and private person receiving such payment shall be solidarily liable for the full restitution of the amount. Any insistence that the P125 million was spent for payment of informants, or rental of safe houses, for instance, renders the responsible officers vulnerable to these liabilities,” they added.
Lastly, they asked the SC to declare the said funds “fully auditable” and therefore subject to rigorous auditing by COA for any signs of corruption and irregularities.
The latest petition brings to three the number of such pleas challenging the constitutionality of the confidential funds before the High Court.
The first was lodged by a group led by noted constitutionalist and former Comelec chairperson Christian Monsod and lawyer Barry Gutierrez wherein they asked the High Court to declare the transfer of P125 million in CIF funds to Duterte’s office as unconstitutional.
They also asked the High Court to order Duterte’s office to return the amount to the National Treasury.
A second group of petitioners led by retired SC Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio and lawyer Howard Calleja also asked the High Court to declare the said funds unconstitutional.
The criticisms generated by the controversial fund have prompted Congress to remove the OVP’s request for P500 million in such funding as well as another P150 million for the Department of Education, which Duterte also heads, in the 2024 national budget.
