SC to hear case vs budget insertion in Baguio sessions
BAGUIO CITY—The Supreme Court has scheduled oral arguments on a case pertaining to unprogrammed funds and special accounts inserted in the 2024, 2025 and 2026 national budgets during its summer sessions here in April.
The case is relevant to the prosecution of officials tied to the multibillion-peso fraud involving government infrastructure projects.
The arguments would be heard by the court sitting en banc at 9:30 a.m. on April 7 and April 21 at its summer courthouse here, according to the Office of the Court spokesperson in an advisory on Wednesday.
The court will hear from lawyers of the late Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman, former lawmaker and now Basilan Gov. Mujiv Hataman, and former Camarines Sur Rep. and now Naga City Vice Mayor Gabriel Bordado Jr., who questioned the 2023 bicameral conference committee’s decision to increase the national expenditure program by about P450 billion which was carried into the 2024 General Appropriations Act (GAA) that Congress approved.
Their petition argued that Congress is restricted from passing a budget law that exceeds the “ceiling of the appropriations proposed by the President in the national expenditure program,” and this limitation must cover both programmed and unprogrammed allotments.
The “insertion” of P449.5-billion had not been vetoed by President Marcos when he signed the 2024 GAA into law so the former minority lawmakers asked the high court to “cleanse the GAA of a fatal defect.”
Their lawsuit has been consolidated with a second petition in 2024 filed by former Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III and former Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez, who alleged constitutional infirmities in the 2024 spending law due to the inclusion of P449.5 billion.
