The National Expenditure Program (NEP), which is the basis of the General Appropriations Bill (GAB), is not cast in stone. 

Consequently, the Congress, more specifically the House of Representatives where appropriation measures originate, can amend, modify, delete, realign, reduce, increase, and reallocate items of expenditure in the NEP as long as the ceiling of the total expenditure budget proposed by the President for the entire government is not exceeded. 

The reallocation of confidential and intelligence funds from one department or agency to another is merely a transfer of allocation from one office to another which does not result in exceeding the total ceiling proposed in the NEP.  

In other words, it is a process of subtraction and addition of allocations which does not breach the ceiling. 

The contention of former Supreme Court Justice Adolf Azcuna that the projected reallocation of confidential and intelligence funds violates the Constitution is not correct because the realignment is within the totality of the expenditure program proposed by the President.

EDCEL C. LAGMAN