Officials May Face Criminal, Administrative Raps Over 2024, 2025 Budgets – De Lima

House Senior Deputy Minority Leader and Mamamayang Liberal (ML) party-list Rep. Leila de Lima said on Wednesday, Oct. 21, officials behind the 2024 and 2025 national budgets may face criminal and administrative cases after the Supreme Court (SC) struck down as unconstitutional the increases on unprogrammed funds in the two spending plans.

According to De Lima, the SC ruling stated that the doctrine of operative fact only applies to irreversible programs wherein beneficiaries acted in good faith based on the presumed validity of the funding.

Such doctrine, she pointed out, “will not shield from liability the authors, proponents, or implementors of schemes related to unprogrammed appropriations, if they acted on bad faith.”

“Let it be clear: ‘operative fact’ is not a get-out-of-jail-free card,” she stressed.

The doctrine of operative fact recognizes the existence of the law or executive act prior to the determination of its unconstitutionality that produces consequences that cannot always be erased, ignored or disregarded. In short, it nullifies the law or executive act but sustains its effects. It provides an exception to the general rule that a void or unconstitutional law produces no effect.

The SC has declared as unconstitutional the Congress’ increase of P449.5-billion in the 2024 national budget and its hike of P17.99-billion in the Department of Public Works and Highways’ Special Road Fund in 2025, as they exceeded the recommended budget cap of President Marcos.

The SC also declared safeguards to the 2026 budget’s unprogrammed appropriations, which must in no case contain lump-sum allocations, distinguished programmed from unprogrammed spending, and that its Special Provisions 1(a) and (b), and Chapter XLIII were unconstitutional. 

De Lima praised the SC ruling as a “significant win” in the fight for transparency and accountability in the use of public funds, although she lamented how it stopped short of abolishing unprogrammed funds entirely.

She still thanked the high court for “setting clear constitutional limits” on unprogrammed funds, which she said is meant to be “a standby, not a slush fund.”

“The Court has put it back in its proper place,” she said.

Unprogrammed appropriations are standby funding that the government can only access only when revenue collections exceed targets or when loans are secured.

De Lima said unprogrammed funds had been growing “out of control” and has been used by lawmakers as a “holding area for pork” where they parked funds for their pet projects.

The SC ruling, however, “closed that backdoor,” she noted.

In its ruling, the high tribunal said unprogrammed funds are not unconstitutional by themselves but must firmly adhere to fiscal safeguards to avoid the budget leading into vague mechanisms such as the ghost flood control projects and pork barrels.

Based on the ruling, budgets cannot include lump sums and that new or additional government revenues should generally fund programmed expenditures, unless there are clear and convincing reasons to include them under unprogrammed appropriations.

“The power of the purse is entrusted to Congress by the people, and it must be wielded to serve the best interests of the people. We will keep fighting until our budget truly reflects that,” De Lima said.

Opposition lawmakers in the House of Representatives also welcomed the SC ruling, with one progressive legislator proposing a new and better way of holding officials more accountable.

House Deputy Minority Leader Antonio Tinio of ACT Teachers party-list suggested that independent constitutional bodies like the Office of the Ombudsman and the Commission on Audit establish a system that will penalize with certainty the authors of such budget anomalies.

“I think the ombudsman and COA (Commission on Audit) should conduct a thorough study on how they will be able to hold these ‘authors, proponents and implementors’ criminally liable for violating the 1987 Constitution and our laws. If the party is indeed over, then it’s time to settle accounts,” he emphasized.

Tinio singled out the President as the highest government official who fits the description of the chief “implementor,” while the rest of his concerned Cabinet members – the underlings – can be deemed as accomplices.

Independent Rep. Toby Tiangco of Navotas said the SC ruling only “reinforces” even further his repeated calls for “transparency and accountability” in the budget process, particularly in the allocation and use of public funds.

He said the tribunal’s findings concerning insufficient documentation of bicameral budget changes, broad spending discretion and the need for fiscal safeguards underscore the very concerns he has repeatedly raised in Congress.

VP Duterte: Marcos, Congress liable

Vice President Sara Duterte said Marcos and Congress should answer for approving the three budget laws that were declared as unconstitutional by the SC.

“The President is liable for approving the budget that was in violation of the National Expenditure Program. He must answer why he signed those budgets,” said Duterte.

She thanked the high court for strengthening the Constitution and upholding the law, based on its decision.

Duterte said the SC decision proved that her warning in 2024 was correct, that the bicameral conference committee was not doing its job.