SC rejected Abad offer to use ‘pooled savings’
MANILA, Philippines–The Supreme Court earlier this year rejected Budget Secretary Florencio Abad’s offer of “pooled savings” to augment the judiciary’s capital outlay for 2013 just after Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno withdrew a request to transfer P100 million from the justice department’s budget to the judiciary.
President Aquino has repeatedly likened Sereno’s request to cross-border transfer of funds under the nullified Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP).
Reacting to Aquino’s attacks, the Supreme Court on Thursday released documents showing the rejection and other details of its fiscal decisions between 2012 and this year, letting the papers speak for themselves in the face of the President’s assertions that the Supreme Court itself had committed the very act it declared unconstitutional in striking down the DAP on July 1.
The documents also appeared to show that the Supreme Court made no cross-border fund transfers, as Aquino’s advisers have told him.
Funds for the Manila Hall of Justice were culled from the Supreme Court’s savings, the documents showed, while the requested transfer of funds between the judiciary and the Department of Justice was covered under a 2000 memorandum and the DOJ’s Justice System Infrastructure Program (Jusip), under which all construction of halls of justice fall.
In several speeches over the past two weeks, Aquino warned the Supreme Court of a “clash” between the executive and the judiciary over the high tribunal’s decision against the DAP, insisting that the program had been carried out in good faith and within the bounds of the law.
The Supreme Court has been largely silent amid the President’s repeated challenges in public, except to say it will deal with the issues when it resolves Malacañang’s motion for reconsideration.
Abad’s offer declined
The full-court resolution dated Jan. 21 showed that the justices opted to decline Abad’s offer to provide additional funding for the judiciary’s capital outlay.
The same resolution upheld Sereno’s Dec. 23, 2013, decision to withdraw a request for the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) to transfer P100 million under the DOJ-Jusip earmarked for the construction of the Manila Hall of Justice to the judiciary for the construction of the Malabon Hall of Justice.
“The court confirms the withdrawal of the request subject of the March 5, 2013, resolution and declines the offer contained in the Jan. 10, 2014, letter of Secretary Florencio Abad to avail [itself] of a portion of the pooled savings,” said the resolution signed by Supreme Court Clerk of Court Enriqueta Vidal.
Withdrawn request
The withdrawn March 5, 2013, resolution was a request for the DBM to transfer the funds “subject to budgeting policies and procedures,” upon recommendation of the Manila Hall of Justice Committee.
At the time, the court was looking for a way to fund the immediate construction of a new hall of justice for Malabon City, whose hall of justice was damaged by Tropical Storm “Ondoy” in 2009.
A P100-million budget for the Manila courthouse was already available from Congress under the 2012 DOJ-Jusip budget.
At the same time, the Supreme Court allocated P1.865 billion for the construction of the Manila Hall of Justice out of its savings, along with earmarked funds of P266.95 million for the Cebu Court of Appeals building and P251.27 million for the Cagayan de Oro Court of Appeals building, according to the full-court resolution dated July 17, 2012.
Already late
The court noted that it was “no longer feasible” at the time for a funding request for the Malabon Hall of Justice under the DOJ-Jusip, the program under which the “construction of Halls of Justices (HOJ) is lodged,” as the justice department’s 2013 budget was already at the final stage of deliberations in the Senate.
The court suggested that the DOJ’s funds for the Manila courthouse be used instead for the Malabon courthouse.
“Since Congress has released the P100-million Manila Hall of Justice budget to the FY 2012 DOJ-Jusip, then the court may opt to inform [the] DOJ that the said P100-million Manila Hall of Justice budget may be used as an initial budget for the construction of a new Malabon Hall of Justice,” the Supreme Court said in its March 5, 2013, resolution.
The DBM, however, failed to act on the request, until the validity of the appropriation under the national budget lapsed at the end of 2013. The budget department also denied the Supreme Court’s request to extend the validity of the P100-million appropriation for another year.
Abad’s offer
It was at that point that Abad, through a letter dated Jan. 10, 2014, “informed the court of the availability of a portion of the pooled savings to augment the judiciary’s capital outlay in the fiscal year of 2013 budget and asked what the court would like to do with the pooled savings that have been processed for release to the judiciary pursuant to the March 5, 2013, resolution.”
A week later, Associate Justice Presbitero Velasco Jr., chair of the Halls of Justice Coordinating Committee, sent the Supreme Court a memo recommending that Sereno’s withdrawal of the fund transfer request be affirmed and Abad’s offer be declined.
The Supreme Court adopted Velasco’s recommendations.
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