Supreme Court reverses self,
declares pork unconstitutional

FOR THE first time in the Philippines’ history of jurisprudence, the Supreme Court en banc reversed three separate rulings that it had itself issued in 1994, 2001, and 2012: It voted on Tuesday, Nov. 19, to declare as unconstitutional the use of pork barrel for the pet projects of senators and congressmen.

The three prior rulings of the high court had invariably upheld the role and power of Congress over the use, allocation, and disbursement of pork or the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF).

Voting 14-0-1, the high tribunal partially granted the petitions filed by defeated senatorial candidates Greco Antonious Beda B. Belgica and Samson S. Alcantara and a certain Pedrito M. Nepomuceno.

Only Associate Justice Presbitero J. Velasco Jr. abstained from voting because his son, Lord Allan Jay Velasco, is the incumbent congressman of Marinduque province.

The decision penned by Associate Justice Estela M. Perlas-Bernabe declared all past and present legal provisions on pork as unconstitutional. These include the entire PDAF provision in the 2013 General Appropriations Act (GAA) or the national budget, and all other provisions of past and present congressional pork-barrel laws that pertain to PDAF, CDF (Countrywide Development Fund), or congressional insertions.

Pork was initially called CDF in the early 1990s before it was renamed Congressional Initiative Allocations (CIA), and finally, PDAF in the early 2000s. (See related stories here and here.)

The high court declared that congressional pork barrel laws, which have authorized legislators to intervene, assume, or participate in project identification, modification, and revision, fund release and/or fund realignment are “unrelated to the power of congressional oversight.”

The court likewise deemed past and present congressional pork barrel laws to be unconstitutional because these “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 also considered as “acts of grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of discretion,” were also considered as unconstitutional.

District and party-list representatives were allocated at least P70 million each a year, and the 24 senators, P200 million each a year, under the PDAF system.

In addition, the high tribunal nullified 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 Presidential Decree No. 1869, as amended by P.D. No. 1993.

Both phrases failed the sufficient standard test, which violated the principle that legislative power cannot be delegated, according to the high court.

The ruling comes in the wake of a plunder complaint filed before the Office of the Ombudsman against incumbent and former lawmakers, government officials, and detained businesswoman Janet Lim-Napoles. The filing of the case was prompted by a series of news reports, as well as special audit of the Commission on Audit (COA) on pork barrel spending from 2006 to 2009, that revealed irregularities in the use of PDAF.

The ruling also declared as permanent a court temporary injunction on the use of PDAF dated September 10, 2013. This means that the disbursement or release of the remaining PDAF funds allocated for 2013 and all previous years will no longer be allowed.

All prosecutorial bodies of the government were also ordered by the court to investigate and prosecute all government officials and private individuals who may be involved in the irregular, improper, and unlawful use of PDAF.

Yet still, the high tribunal denied the petitioners’s request for the Executive Secretary and/or the Department of Budget and Management to provide the public and COA complete lists and detailed reports on the use of PDAF, citing that these are already publicly available, subject to the custodian’s regulations.