By ROUCHELLE R. DINGLASAN
GMA News
GMA News
The Supreme Court will decide by November whether the controversial Priority Development Assistance Fund, commonly known as pork barrel, is legal or not.
During the second session of the oral arguments regarding PDAF’s constitutionality on Thursday, Associate Justice Antonio Carpio disclosed that the High Court will decide on the case by November “to give Congress time to adjust” on the Court’s decision.
The House of Representatives is currently on a session break. It is scheduled to reconvene next week to pass the budget (General Appropriations Act of 2014) on third reading.
The oral arguments lasted for about five hours.
Likewise, Carpio ordered Solicitor General Francis Jardeleza to submit a Memorandum within seven days or before October 17 without extension.
On Thursday, Jardeleza asked the court to lift the temporary restraining order it imposed earlier on the release of funds. He reasoned that the scholars and indigent patients that were subsidized through PDAF funds were the ones suffering from the High Tribunal’s earlier decision.
Meanwhile, Carpio suggested that the President’s Social Fund, dubbed the President’s pork, can be tapped for indigent patients and augment scholarship programs.
However, the Solicitor General seemed lukewarm to the idea. In an ambush interview after the oral arguments, Jardeleza explained: “Well, ‘yung PSF hindi kasi pang scholarship na panglahatan. Ang scholarship doon ay limitado sa mga anak ng namatay na sundalo. Titignan naming kung pwede ‘yun.”
Last Tuesday, it was the turn of the petitioners—losing senatorial candidates Samson Alcantara and Greco Belgica—to explain that the use of discretionary funds violates the principle of the separation of powers between the legislative and executive branches of government.
Aside from PDAF, the Supreme Court was asked to resolve the constitutionality of the Disbursement Acceleration Program, a discretionary fund amounting to P50 million to P100 million which were released to several senators last year after the conviction of former Chief Justice Renato Corona.
The pork barrel has been in the spotlight recently after an alleged scam funneling billions from lawmakers’ funds into bogus NGOs surfaced. The supposed mastermind of the scam, businesswoman Janet Lim-Napoles, is currently detained on the charge of serious illegal detention.
Several rallies have been staged to abolish the pork barrel and other lump sum appropriations. — BM, GMA News
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Ex-CJ Puno defends Carpio over PDAF
ABS-CBNnews.com
MANILA – Former Chief Justice Reynato Puno on Thursday came to the defense of his former colleague, Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, for the latter’s statements that the priority development assistance funds (PDAF) is unconstitutional.
Speaking to ANC’s Headstart, Puno said it is normal for SC magistrates to ask different questions during the oral arguments in the High Court. He said that after the oral arguments, justices will still pore over the memoranda submitted to the Court and discuss its merits.
“Those questions – we cannot say that that is the conclusive position of one justice,” he said.
Carpio has come under fire after he said during Tuesday’s oral arguments that the PDAF in the 2013 General Appropriations Act “is facially unconstitutional” even without a Commission on Audit (COA) report.
“You do not need a COA report,” he repeatedly said during the hearing. “The 2013 provision on PDAF is riddled with unconstitutionality.”
He added that the pork barrel system in the 2013 GAA violates the Constitution because it allows the President and Congress to share powers.
Carpio said under the 2013 GAA, Cabinet secretaries and congressional committees are allowed to realign funds, and projects are identified by legislators themselves.
“That power (to realign funds) cannot be delegated (to the Cabinet). This power to realign is unconstitutional,” he said.
“When the Constitution says all appropriations shall emanate from the House, it has to be acting as a body, it cannot be one legislator or a committee,” Carpio said. “A legislator or a House Committee is not Congress.”
He believes PDAF has been institutionalized even if it is illegal.
For his part, Puno refused to say if PDAF is unconstitutional since the SC is already deliberating on the matter. However, he supported his earlier statement that pork barrel is evil.
“Nakita naman natin yan as a practice. The pork barrel system practice ay talagang hindi maganda. Wala namang makakapagduda na napakalaking salapi ang nawala diyan sa pork barrel system as we are practicing it. Tama naman po na hindi maganda ang sistema na yan at yang pananaw ay pananaw din ng maraming kababayan natin,” he said.
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