(Updated 3:22 p.m.) The Supreme Court on Tuesday declared as unconstitutional the controversial Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF), or more commonly known as the pork barrel.
SC spokesperson Theodore Te said the high court voted 14-0-1 against the PDAF, the multimillion peso discretionary fund received by lawmakers every year.
Associate Justice Presbitero Velasco Jr. abstained from the voting because his son is an incumbent congressman. The decision was penned by Associate Justice Estela Perlas-Bernabe, an appointee of President Benigno Aquino III.
Petitioners have challenged the constitutionality of the PDAF before the high court following reports of its widespread and systematic misuse by some members of Congress in cahoots with private individuals.
Three incumbent senators and several former members of the House of Representatives have been named respondents in a plunder complaint filed with the Office of the Ombudsman in connection with the alleged P10-billion pork barrel scam.
The scam, allegedly masterminded by businesswoman Janet Lim-Napoles, involved the funneling of pork barrel funds to bogus non-government organizations. Public outrage over the anomaly has resulted in the largest protest gathering under the three-year-old Aquino administration.
SC decision
In a briefing, Te, quoting the decision, said the high court declared the PDAF Article in 2013 General Approriations Act and all similar provisions on the pork barrel system as illegal because it “allowed legislators to wield, in varying gradiations, non-oversight, post-enactment authority in vital areas of budget executions (thus violating) the principle of separation of powers.”
The SC said the pork barrel system creates a system of budgeting in which items are not “textualized into appropriations bill.” It also said this “flouts the prescribed power of presentment and in the process denies the President the power to veto items."
Apart from the "entire 2013 PDAF Article," also declared unconstitutional were all legal provisions contained in previous and current "pork barrel" laws, including those on the PDAF and its predecessor, the Community Development Fund, as well as various "congressional insertions."
According to the SC, these insertions authorized lawmakers, individually or through committees, to intervene, assume or participate in any of the various post-enactment stages of the budget execution, such as project identification, modification and revision of project identification, fund release, and/or fund realignment.
Also declared unconstitutional were:
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;
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 discretion; and
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 PD 1869, as amended by PD 1993, for both failing the sufficient standard test in violation of the principle of non-delegability of legislative power.
Request denied
Meanwhile, the high court denied the petitioners' request that Executive Secretary Pacquito Ochoa and the Department of Budget and Management provide the public and the Commission on Audit complete lists and schedules or detailed reports related to the availment and utilization of the controversial funds.
The court also denied the petitioners' request that the contested funds be included in budgetary deliberations of Congress.
"The Court hereby directs all prosecutorial organs of government to, within the bounds of reasonable dispatch, investigate and accordonfly prosecute all government officials and/or private individuals for possible criminal offenses related to the irregular, improper and/or unlawful disbursement/utilization of all funds under the Pork Barrel System," the SC said.
The court said the decision was immediately executory but prospective in effect.
Senators can get up to P200 million each in PDAF every year, while members of the House of Representatives are entitled to P70 million each.
A senior official said Malacañang will not issue a comment for now, saying it would like to read the ruling first.
"Hihintayin po ng ating Tanggapan ng Pangulo ang desisyon na yan para pag-aralan kung ano ang implikasyon," Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) head Herminio Coloma Jr. said during a press conference.
Oral arguments
During the oral arguments at the high court last month, Solicitor General Francis Jardeleza, in defense of the PDAF, asked the court to lift the temporary restraining order it imposed on the release of the funds.
He reasoned that the scholars and indigent patients that were subsidized through PDAF funds were the ones suffering from the TRO.
But Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio suggested that the President’s Social Fund, the discretionary fund of the President, can instead be tapped for indigent patients and augment scholarship programs. — with Kimbrely Jane Tan/KBK/RSJ, GMA News
Supreme Court declares PDAF unconstitutional | News | GMA News Online
- - - Updated - - -
unsa ni daun nani or naay lain ipuli sa PDAF...no comment pa raba ang malacanang....
Supreme Court declares PDAF unconstitutional
Originally Posted by Kristiano
Reply With Quote
Posting Permissions
