- Office of Minority Leader Edcel C. Lagman
- 0916-6406737 / 0918-9120137
- Official Website: http://www.edcellagman.com.ph
- 30 December 2010
LAGMAN: CONGRESS NO COURAGE
TO OVERRIDE PRESIDENT’S VETO
While there is wisdom and legality to override the President’s veto of some budgetary provisions in the 2011 General Appropriations Act (GAA), any such attempt will be an exercise in futility since both the House of Representatives and the Senate do not have the will, courage and numbers to reject the President’s disapproval.
The emasculation of the Congress by the President is imprinted in the GAA which is a virtual replica of the President’s annual budget proposal upon the bidding of the President for Congress to adopt his National Expenditure Program (NEP) virtually intact and untouched.
There are sufficient legal and policy justifications to override the President’s veto with respect to the following:
1) The veto of the use of savings from the Conditional Cash Transfer Program (CCT) to augment the appropriations for “basic education, maternal health and immunization” on the ground that it is a congressional intrusion on the constitutional power of the President to augment any item in the appropriations of the executive department is grossly misplaced.
Under Section 25 (5) of Article VI of the Constitution the power of the President to augment any items in the GAA for executive offices from savings in other items of the executive branch is operationalized by authority of law.
The subject provision in the 1987 Constitution reads in full: “No law shall be passed authorizing any transfer of appropriations; however, the President, the President of the Senate, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and the heads of Constitutional Commissions may, by law, be authorized to augment any item in the general appropriations law for their respective offices from savings in other items of their respective appropriations.”
Consequently, Special Provision No. 3 under the appropriations of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) mandating the augmentation of the appropriations for “basic education, maternal health and immunization” from savings in the CCT as determined by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) and DSWD is completely legal and consistent with the Constitution.
It is Congress which has the mandate under the Constitution to authorize the President to augment appropriations of executive offices from savings within the executive department, and such congressional mandate includes the power to direct to what agencies the savings should be realigned.
Moreover, the augmentation of the appropriations for education and health are germane to the CCT because the Departments of Education (DepEd) and Health (DOH) are allied departments with the DSWD in the implementation of the CCT.
2) The veto of the requirement for legislative consultation in the release and implementation of lump sum appropriations is likewise a misconstruction of the Executive’s authority to implement the GAA.
The congressional power of appropriation does not end in the enactment of the GAA.
It extends to the implementation of the budget law as the oversight function is inherent to Congress, while the power of the President to implement the budget is not absolute.
The legislative oversight function is particularly critical with respect to lump appropriations in order to delimit the discretion of the Executive because the implementation of lump sums is fraught with possibilities of abuse and misuse.
3) The rejection of legislative authorization for borrowings in excess of a debt ceiling of 55% of the latest Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is another instance of an undue attachment by the President to executive prerogatives at the expense of shared fiscal discipline and in derogation of the principle of check and balance enshrined in the Constitution.
Runaway borrowings will have to be contained because debt service is inflated and the delivery of social services imperiled.