Albay 1st district Rep. Edcel Lagman (Screenshot from Facebook)

Independent minority solon Albay 1st district Rep. Edcel Lagman says that the recently enacted P5.768-trillion national budget for 2024 is constitutionally infirm and therefore must be challenged at the Supreme Court (SC).

"A constitutional challenge before the [SC] is in order to cleanse the GAA of a fatal defect and give guidance to the Congress and the President in the future budget seasons," Lagman said in a statement Tuesday, Jan. 2.

The GAA stands for General Appropriations Act, or national budget. The 2024 iteration of the budget was signed by President Marcos on Dec. 20, 2023.

Lagman said the 2024 GAA, which took effect on Monday, Jan. 1 "suffers a constitutional infirmity insofar as the bicameral conference committee inserted P449.5 billion in excess of the unprogrammed appropriations of P281.9 billion recommended by the President in the national budget or the National Expenditure Program (NEP)".

The annual NEP, which is perused by members of Congress (House of Representative and Senate), is the precursor of the GAA. The bicam panel is composed of select solons from the House and Senate.

Going over the Palace-recommded NEP is a big no-no according to the Constitution, says Lagman.

"The prohibition on the Congress from increasing the appropriations recommended by the President covers both the programmed appropriations, which have available budget sources, and the unprogrammed appropriations," noted the veteran solon.

"The 2024 NEP recommended a total of P5.768 trillion for programmed appropriations and P289.1 billion for unprogrammed appropriations, the total of both cannot be breached by the Congress," he added.

Lagman, president of the Liberal Party (LP), further claims that the President’s failure to veto the excess items before signing the budget measure "aggravates the constitutional defect".

"It is well settled that when the Constitution does not distinguish, we must not distinguish. Verily, since the Constitution does not distinguish between the programmed appropriations and the unprogrammed appropriations with respect to the congressional ban, the ceiling of both cannot be exceeded by the Congress," he explained.

He says that through the years, the "errant interpretation" is that only the totality of the programmed appropriations cannot be increased by the Congress.

"So much so," continued Lagman, "That it is the unprogrammed appropriations which have been invariably increased annually to accommodate even partisan and pet projects which are subsequently funded and released during the fiscal year under the suspicious, or even spurious, claim that contingent funding has been realized."

"What is worse is the scheme of transferring funded projects to the unprogrammed appropriations in order to accommodate pet projects which are then assured of funding," the Bicolano said.

He further said that unprogrammed appropriations "have become the sanctuary of partisan and pet projects where funding and releases for implementation would even antedate programmed appropriations".