A COURT challenge to the 2025 budget has been filed, with the Supreme Court (SC) asked to rule on the spending plan’s legality by the Marcos administration’s first Executive Secretary.
Former Secretary Victor D. Rodriguez, who is running for the Senate, filed the petition on Monday, alleging before the tribunal that the 2025 General Appropriations Act (GAA), is “illegal” and “criminal.” He named President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. and Congress as respondents.
“It’s a challenge to the constitutionality of the illegal, unlawful, immoral, and unconstitutional 2025 budget… about the Bicameral Conference Committee report containing 28 line items in blank consisting of more or less 13 pages,” Mr. Rodriguez told reporters in a video conference on Tuesday.
“You don’t pass an unenrolled bill blank,” he said, claiming that the 2025 GAA “violated Article VI, Section 27 of the 1987 Constitution of the Philippines when the members of the Bicameral Conference Committee signed and submitted a Report on the 2025 General Appropriations Bill with blanks.”
Asked to comment, Solicitor General Menardo I. Guevarra, who represents the government in legal proceedings, told reporters via Viber: “We shall comment on the petition if directed by the Supreme Court to do so. In the meantime the validity, regularity, and constitutionality of the 2025 GAA is legally presumed.”
The blank line items contained in the budget pertain to projects of the Department of Agriculture, such as irrigation and farm-to-market roads, according to a copy of the budget’s bicameral conference committee report obtained by BusinessWorld.
The petition further claims that the GAA violates the Universal Health Care Act (UHCA) by allocating “not a single centavo” to the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth).
Legislators have justified the zero subsidy for PhilHealth, citing the health insurer’s P600 billion or so in reserve funds.
“Instead of allocating said excess funds to decrease the amount of member’s contributions and to increase the program’s benefits in accordance with Section 1 of the UHCA, which would have alleviated the latter’s burden of paying premiums to PhilHealth, said excess funds would now be utilized for the operating budget of PhilHealth, thereby deviating from the law’s goals,” according to the petition.
The petition also claims that the 2025 GAA violated Article VI, Section 25(1) of the 1987 Constitution when members of Congress re-aligned the proposed appropriations per the 2025 National Expenditure Program (NEP), which had the effect of increasing the allocation for Congress.
“While the realignment process adopted by the Respondent House of Representatives and Senate maintained the 2025 NEP total proposed budget in the amount of P6.352 trillion, the allotments for some line agencies were modified by the Respondents to accommodate a steep increase in the appropriations for Congress,” it added.
It noted that Mr. Marcos had failed to veto the budget appropriations for Congress.
“The President merely vetoed minute line items in the aforesaid bill specifically proposed programs and projects of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) amounting to P26.065 billion and Unprogrammed Appropriations amounting to P168.24 billion,” it said.
The petition also alleged the 2025 GAA violated Article XIV, Section 5(5) of the Constitution by not giving education top priority for funding.
Republic Act 12116 reclassified funding for the Philippine Military Academy, the Philippine National Policy Academy and the National Defense College of the Philippines as education funds. These bodies had previously been part of the defense budget, it added.
Funding for the Local Government Academy, Philippine Public Safety College, Philippine Science High School System, and Science Education Institute were also previously classified in other non-education budgets but were included as education items in the 2025 budget.
“In effect, the 2025 GAA was carefully crafted to superficially adhere to the mandate of the 1987 Constitution that ‘The State shall assign the highest budgetary priority to education and ensure that teaching will attract and retain its rightful share of the best available talents through adequate remuneration and other means of job satisfaction and fulfillment,”’ it said.
Stripping out the reclassified education items, the DPWH has the top budget allocation in the 2025 budget with P1.034 trillion.
Mr. Marcos signed into law the 2025 GAA on Dec. 30 but vetoed P194 billion worth of line items that he said were inconsistent with his government’s priorities.
Former President Rodrigo R. Duterte first called attention to the blank items in the Budget in mid-January. — Chloe Mari A. Hufana