Justice Bernabe: DAP ‘a constitutional conundrum’

In her separate opinion on the Disbursement Acceleration Program, Associate Justice Estela Perlas-Bernabe said a "constitutional conundrum" happens when the President is allowed to approve wholesale withdrawal of unobligated funds without any discernable explanation or clarification whether the funds would be used for realignment or for fiscal deficit.

 

"No policy or program of government can be adopted as an avenue to wrest control of the power of the purse from Congress, for to do so would amount to a violation of the provisions on appropriation and augmentation as well as an aberration of the faithful execution clause engraved and enshrined in our Constirution," Bernabe said.

 

In a decision announced Tuesday, the Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional the following portions of the Aquino administration's DAP:

 

- the withdrawal of unobligated allotments from the implementing agencies, and the declaration of the withdrawn unobligated allotments and unreleased appropriations as savings prior to the end of the fiscal year and without complying with the statutory definition of savings contained in the General Appropriations Act;

 

- the cross-border transfers of the savings of the executive to augment the appropriations of other offices outside the executive; and

 

- the funding of projects, activities and programs that were not covered by any appropriation in the GAA.

Justice Estela M. Perlas-Bernabe


—NB/JDS, GMA News