271059/271347/E-02472/E-04036 Concurring and Dissenting Opinion: Justice Maria Filomena D. Singh — Official PDF

' Conchrring and Dissenting Opinion 32 G.R. Nos. 271347, 278353, E-02472 & E-04036 Court can enforce the constitutional limits on the power of the purse without rewriting the internal rules through which Congress exercises that power. Congress cannot increase the total amount of appropriations of Special Accounts in the General Fund, create new PAPs, nor reclassify P APs between Programmed and Unprogrammed Appropriations The power of the President to determine the budget ceiling; reflecting the constitutional design for fiscal discipline, also limits congressional action on the amount of appropriations for Special. Accounts in the General Fund (SAGFs). The ponencia details the nature of SAGFs and the process for the disbursement and release of appropriations lillder these Special Accounts. I concur that these form part of the total appropriations recommended by the President and should therefore be counted towards determining the budget ceiling. The level of fiscal prudence adopted by the Executive Department, through the President's budget proposal, as discussed, is broad enough to consider these special accounts based on projected collections, revenues, and expenditures. The presumption is that the President's economic managers, in setting the levels of appropriations for the SAGFs, took the entire financial posture of the government in consideration and detennined the best way , forward to achieve ,the administration's socio-.economic agenda. The treatment of SAGFs must also conform with the scope of the special laws governing these funds as detailed in the ponencia. These laws limit the pl.hrpose of these funds for specific programs or activities. Therefore, the prohibition applies that Congress may not also increase the appropriations for SAGFs that would breach the budget ceiling. Further, consistent with this Presidential prerogative to determine the budgetary ceiling, the transfer of P APs from programmed appropriations to UAs, and vice versa, is similarly constitutionally offensive. The NEP is a statement of presidentiai priority, as well as the Executive Department's strategy for fiscal prudence and economic management, t~cing into consideration not just financial standing, but also socio, economic and . political factors-whether domestic or foreign., th1~s th~ act. of transfer between