271059/271347/E-02472/E-04036 Concurring Opinion: Chief Justice Alexander G. Gesmundo — Official PDF

Concurring Opinion 15 G.R. Nos. 271059, 271347, E-02472, and E-04036 However, I wish to emphasize that although other branches and agencies play a part in the budget process, there is no question that Congress .rema.ins supreme when .it comes to exercising t}Je power of the purse, i.e., deciding how the budget will be spent, which P APs to fund and by how much. 52 An examination of our Constitution's architecture makes this clear. Article VI, Section 29(1) of the 1987 Constitution provides that "[n]o money shall be paid out of the Treasury except in pursuance of an appropriation made by law."53 As explained by one author, the language, "appropriation made by law," imposes the powerful requirement that public spending be governed by the rule of law.54 The presence of a law authorizing the withdrawal of public funds ensures that the people will have notice of the government's spending decisions. It also prevents the appropriation of funds based solely on political discretion, the use of which would be less amenable to the scrutiny of the people.55 • More importantly, Congress's exercise of its power of the purse comes with the concomitant responsibility of being the guardian of the purse.56 The Court categorically declared in Araullo that: Congress acts as the guardian of the public treasury in faithful discharge of its power of the purse whenever it deliberates and acts on the bllldget ·proposal submitted by the Executive: Its power of the purse is touted as the very foundation of its institutional strength and underpins "'all other legislative decisions and regulating the balance of influence between the legislative and executive branches of government." Such enormous power encompasses the capacity to generate money for the Government, to appropriate public funds, and to spend the money. Pertirietitly, when it exercises its power of the purse, Congress wields control by specifying the PAPs for which public money should be spent. It is the President who proposes the budget but it is Congress that has the final say on matters of appropriations. For this purpose, appropriation involves two governing principles, namely: (I) "a Prinqiple of the Public Fisc, asserting that all monies received from whatever source by any part of the government are public funds;" and (2) "a Principle of . : • ' ',, ' ' 52 Araullo v. Aquino JJJ, 737 Phil. 457, 547-548 (2014) [Per J. Bersamin, En Banc]. In faCt, one author even argues that the framers ofthe·United States Constitution, (which eventually became the basis for the Philippine Constitution's separation of powers principle see chrome- extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglc/efindmkaj/https://law.nus.edu.sglsj/s/wp- content/upload,lsitesl I 4/2024/071763-1976-I 8-mal-dec-28/.pdj), intended Congress to "predominate" as the first among equal branches of government when they vested Congress with the power of the purse. See Abner J. Mikva, Congres,: The Purse, the Purpose, and the Power, 21 GA. L. REv. l, 2 --3 (1986). 3J CONST., art. VJ, sec. 29(] ). • • • • " J. Gregory Sidak, The President's Pawer of the Purse, 1989 DUKE L.J. 1162, 1167 (November 1989). " M • 56 Id. at 1166. fo