271059/271347/E-02472/E-04036 Dissenting Opinion: Justice Antonio T. Kho, Jr. — Official PDF

Dissenting' Opinion 6 G.R.Nos.271059,271347 E-02472 & E-04036 contingencies to sixty-one29 in 2023 and fifty-one30 in 2024. In 2024, PHP 200.029 billion was reportedly released under SAGIP, with substantial amounts going to public works and flood-control projects.31 Unfortunately, the mechanism for unprogrammed appropriation had thus ceased to be a narrow reserve for exceptional contingencies and had become a parallel channel for regular spending. In this dissent, I will show why unprogrammed appropriations are unconstitutional per se. Unprogrammed appropriations are unconstitutional because they lea,ve , the national budget incomplete at enactment by Congress. I disagree with the conclusion of the majority that unprogrammed appropriations are not unconstitutional per se. Their present design permits Congress to enact an unfinished expenditure program and thereafter unconstitutionally allows the Executive to complete decisive allocations after the General Appropriations Act has become law. The ordinary budget process exposes spending choices to committee hearings, agency explanations, legislative debate, bicameral voting, presidential review, and public examination. Unprogrammed appropriations weaken that process when the decisive allocation occurs only during execution. A legislator may know the size of the pool but not the precise project, location, beneficiary, amount, or implementation period that will ultimately receive it. Accountability is likewise divided. Congress may say it authorized only a ceiling; the Executive may say it merely implemented the law. Yet if the achia] selection was made during execution, neither branch bears responsibility in the constitutionally contemplated fonn. Constitutional checks work only when responsibility can be identified. Congress must answer for appropriations enacted; the President must answer for their execution. A system blending appropriation and execution obscures where policy was actually made. Audit is also impaired when the statute states only a general amount and broad purpose. The Commission on Audit performs more effective review when the appropriation identifies the project, amount, agency, and objective. Later administrative issuances may disclose what the Executive has decided, but reporting is not authorization. Publication of a Special Allotment Release Order does not supply the prior public deliberation that the Constitution reqmres. 29 Republic Act No. 11936, Fiscal Year 2023 GAA, Vol. 1-B, pp. 742-750. 30 Republic Act No. 11975, Fiscal Year.2024 GAA, pp. 4319-4327. 31 Ponencia, p. 70.