THE other day, the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional certain provisions of the 2024 and 2025 General Appropriations Act (GAA) due to the following reasons: a) 2024 GAA: due to a P449.5-billion congressional increase in unprogrammed appropriations, which illegally inflated the president’s total recommended appropriations; and b) 2025 GAA: due to a P17.99-billion congressional increase in the Special Road Fund, which also exceeded the president’s recommended budget cap.
Instantaneously, social media flooded with posts mostly from the government’s critics, who were not only cursing and accusing the administration of corruption, but also demanding accountability.
Among them was former chairman of the Presidential Anti-Corruption Commission Greco Belgica, who stated that if Vice President Sara Duterte has been impeached because of the P612-million confidential funds, then President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Congress should be held more liable for the almost P500-billion unprogrammed appropriations, which the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional.
“Managot ang dapat managot!,” the critics are demanding. It was as if they were pretty sure corruption had been committed. Suddenly, they became legal experts again and went on a rampage.
An appointee of former president Rodrigo Duterte posted in his social media account, asking who should be held responsible. Of course, supporters of the former president were quick to point to President Marcos.
I simply retorted that research is free and with almost everyone now having access to smartphones, searching the internet should be easy.
So, I then posted what I found on the internet, and it states that: “When a law is declared unconstitutional, no single person or branch is ‘punished’ or held personally liable; instead, the legal system treats the law as void from the beginning, and responsibility shifts to the government to stop enforcing it.”
And since the critics could not come up with a ready answer, they have to shift to the art of quibbling, and bash me for other reasons. They even took an extra effort to search who I voted for in the 2022 elections. One even stated my research was a product of ChatGPT. A typical DDS mentality. Gaslighting.
So, what’s the problem with me voting for a particular candidate in 2022? What’s the issue if my research came from Google? Does that negate the answer I have given them?
Fortunately, there are some legitimate legal experts who have come up with their own discourse on the matter which I hope but doubt will enlighten the DDS universe.
In his social media post, lawyer Carlo Ybañez, the famed rock star lawyer, issued a sharp rebuttal to Belgica’s post.
According to Ybañez, while the Supreme Court declared the P449.5 billion in unprogrammed appropriations unconstitutional, the high court did not say the funds were stolen. The ruling did state there was corruption.
Ybañez explained that the Supreme Court ruling states that the Constitution restrains Congress from providing additional funds beyond the total appropriations recommended by the president, including limitations on programmed and unprogrammed appropriations.
Ybañez stressed that “it must be made clear that declaring the budget unconstitutional is not synonymous to declaring corruption has been committed.”
Unconstitutional appropriation, Ybañez explained, only means that the constitutional requirement was not followed in the enactment of the budget law.
More importantly, he added, the Supreme Court did not say that P449.5 billion was pocketed.
Ybañez further said that in its ruling, the Supreme Court has applied the “doctrine of operative fact,” which means that the funds already spent remain valid and irreversible as long as government programs are done in good faith.
Again, a product of the Google search engine and sourced it for free. “The doctrine of operative fact in Philippine jurisprudence is a legal principle that recognizes the validity of a statute, executive act or policy prior to its being declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.”
Ybañez said that Belgica’s comparison of the Supreme Court ruling to Sara Duterte’s case are poles apart in the vice president’s case, there are actual documentary and testimonial evidence. No basis for comparison.
This is not the first time the Supreme Court has declared a law or part of the law to be unconstitutional. In case the DDS have forgotten, the Supreme Court also struck parts of Republic Act 11479, or the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020, as being overbroad and violating freedom of expression (by treating protests and mass actions as terrorism under certain broad intent clauses), as well as a provision allowing the Anti-Terrorism Council to designate individuals as terrorists based on foreign or United Nations requests without proper due process safeguards.
And that particular provision is violative of our human rights as provided for in the Constitution. Why did they then not call for Duterte’s accountability? Where was their legal expertise then?
