Lagman: 2024 budget has P449.5-B in 'excess' unprogrammed funds

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The P5.768 trillion national budget signed into law by President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. violated the constitution because it included P449.5 billion unprogrammed funds over what was proposed by the Chief Executive, opposition leader Edcel Lagman said Tuesday.

Lagman, the president of the Liberal Party, argued that Congress could not increase the President’s initial proposed unprogrammed fund amounting to P281.9 billion, in the same vein that Congress could not exceed the President’s proposed new or programmed appropriations as provided under Section 25.1, Article 6 of the Constitution.

“This year’s General Appropriations Act (GAA) which took effect on January 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 NEP. The President’s utter failure to veto (delete) the excess items aggravates the constitutional defect,” Lagman said.

“Consequently, a constitutional challenge before the Supreme Court 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.”

GMA News Online has sought comment from Malacañang, Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri, Speaker Martin Romualdez and the chairmen of the Senate and House committees involved in the budget, Sen. Juan Edgardo Angara, and Ako Bicol Rep. Zaldy Co.

Their comments will be published as soon as they are available.

Lagman said that the prohibition on Congress increasing the appropriations recommended by the President covers both the programmed appropriations, which have available budget sources, and the unprogrammed appropriations, which have only contingent budget sources limited to:

• release of new loan proceeds for foreign-assisted projects.
• revenue collections from new tax laws, and
• increase in non-tax revenue collections over target.

“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. It is well settled that when the Constitution does not distinguish, we must not distinguish,” Lagman said.

“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.”

Lagman added that the longstanding interpretation that only the programmed appropriations cannot be increased by Congress had resulted in unprogrammed appropriations being annually increased to accommodate even partisan and pet projects.

“These [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,” Lagman said.

“The unprogrammed appropriations have become the sanctuary of partisan and pet projects where funding and releases for implementation would even antedate programmed appropriations.” — DVM/NB, GMA Integrated News

This article Lagman: 2024 budget has P449.5-B in ‘excess’ unprogrammed funds was originally published in GMA News Online.