Albay 2nd district Rep. Joey Salceda (Facebook)

Albay 2nd district Rep. Joey Salceda expressed confidence that the Supreme Court (SC) would decide in Congress' favor in the event that the 2024 national budget's validity gets challenged.

This, after Salceda's province-mate, Albay 1st district Rep. Edcel Lagman said Tuesday morning, Jan. 2 that the 2024 General Appropriations Act (GAA) ought to be challenged before the SC after Congress allegedly went over Malacañang's budget proposal spelled out in the National Expenditure Program (NEP).

"Ultimately, once a case is filed in the [SC] the court will decide on the matter. I expect it to decide as it has always done so: with the maximum liberality and presumption of regularity granted to Congress in the exercise of its exclusive powers," Salceda said in a statement later that evening.

Salceda, chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means, said it's only normal for laws to be questioned before the High Court. And this includes this year's P5.768-trillion GAA, which is the biggest ever in the country’s history.

Lagman, an independent minority member of the House of Representatives, had claimed that the GAA "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 [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-recommended NEP is prohibited by the 1987 Constitution, says Lagman, who is the Liberal Party (LP) president.

But Salceda, a member of the majority bloc, shared a detail that would essentially spare the 2024 spending plan of infirmity--if the SC accepts or agrees with such detail.

"We took the effort, during budget deliberations, to seek guidance from both the executive through the DBM (Department of Budget and Management) and the records of the Constitutional Commission...In response to my query, on Dec. 14, 2023, the [DBM] wrote to my office clarifying, essentially, that the unprogrammed appropriations are not part of the fiscal program," he said.

READ THIS:

https://mb.com.ph/2024/1/2/lagman-says-2024-budget-constitutionally-infirm-points-to-excess-unprogrammed-funds

"As such, only the programmed appropriations are subject to the Article VI, Section 25 (1) of the Constitution, or the prohibition against increasing appropriations recommended by the President. In short, the DBM said Congress can increase the unprogrammed appropriations as proposed," added Salceda.

The ways and Means panel chief noted that the particular Constitutional provision was simply meant to ensure that Congress won't overstep the fiscal deficit programmed by the President.

"The very conditions placed on the unprogrammed qppropriations are designed in such a manner that no additional deficit will be incurred,"

Salceda said Article VII, Section 22 of the Charter also specifies that the President shall submit a Budget of Expenditures and Sources of Financing (BESF) as the basis for the budget.

"Taken in this light, the Constitutional limit to increases in programmed appropriations make sense as it applies to the BESF. When in excess of the BESF, there is no limitation imposed on Congress, and its power of the purse, long respected by the [SC] is supreme," he said.

"No less than Rep. Lagman’s partymate, Former Senate President Franklin Drilon, defended the increase in unprogrammed appropriations as constitutional," he added.