Ilocos Norte Representative Rodolfo Fariñas. https://www.congress.gov.ph/
Members of the House of Representatives on Monday decided they did not want a confrontation with the justices of the Supreme Court but they would not mind one with Budget Secretary Florencio Abad Jr.
The lawmakers decided to return control to the high court of over P2 billion in the 2012 national budget that was the court’s share in the P101-billion Miscellaneous Personnel Benefits Fund (MPBF) under the Office of the President.
In next year’s proposed P1.8 trillion national budget, the Department of Budget and Management had suggested that the monies for the salaries of unfilled government positions should revert to the MPBF which is under the control of the President.
This caused dissension in the ranks of the Supreme Court and lower courts as well as other government agencies that rely on the unused funds for other expenses in their respective offices.
Deputy Majority Leader and Ilocos Norte Representative Rodolfo Fariñas said that House leaders would meet this week to abolish the MPBF and allow the SC, Congress and other constitutional bodies to regain control of their budgets on condition that they are spent for the purpose that they were intended.
Fariñas told the Philippine Daily Inquirer the decision was reached to diffuse the rising tension between Malacañang and the Supreme Court, which claimed that the MPBF was a breach of its fiscal autonomy.
House Majority Leader and Mandaluyong Representative Neptali Gonzales II confirmed that Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. had agreed to make the necessary amendments to the 2012 national budget that was approved by the House a few weeks ago and return the funds under the MPBF to the institutions from which they were taken.
“The funds will be subject to the special provision that they should be used solely for filling unfilled positions in their offices or it would revert back to the national coffers at the end of the year,” said Gonzales in a text message.
Win-win solution
Gonzales said that this had always been the stand of Belmonte even though it was Minority Leader and Albay Representative Edcel Lagman who had “publicly verbalized” the win-win solution.
The MPBF was the brainchild of Abad who wanted to end the practice of some government institutions like the Supreme Court seeking higher allocations for their staffing requirements only to hire a few employees and divert the rest of the budget to other purposes such as bonuses and office renovations.
If Malacañang had insisted on the MPBF, the high court was expected to shoot it down because it went against Section 3, Article VIII, of the Constitution which provides that “the judiciary shall enjoy fiscal autonomy, and appropriations for the judiciary may not be reduced by the legislature below the amount appropriated for the previous year, and, after approval, shall be automatically and regularly released.”
The justices of the high court, however, had been threatened with impeachment should they declare the MPBF unconstitutional.
Black protest to continue
Meanwhile, court employees opposing the P2-billion budget cut in the judiciary budget yesterday threatened to take their protest to the streets if the government continued to ignore their call.
But Jojo Guerrero, president of the Supreme Court Employees Association (SCEA), assured the public that court personnel would not resort to a work stoppage, at least for now.
“While we’re trying to avoid it, we may be forced to carry out street protests just to make sure the Constitution is respected,” said Guerrero in a news briefing at the Court of Appeals.
“We are prepared to bring our demands to Malacañang, the Congress and to the DBM,” he said.
All about respect
Wearing black shirts and armbands, members of the Judicial Employees Association (Judea) from the Supreme Court, Court of Appeals, Court of Tax Appeals, Sandiganbayan and lower courts in Metro Manila marked the second week of their Black Monday protest.
“We will not stop our protest until the government respects the fiscal autonomy of the judiciary and releases our budget automatically,” said Mau Aguilar, president of Judea and the Sandiganbayan Employees Association.
“Our demand is clear. We just want the government to adhere to the Constitution,” he said.
From its proposed budget of over P20 billion, Congress has approved a P15.7-billion allocation for the judiciary for 2012.
The DBM said that over P2 billion of the amount would be placed in the MPBF.
Aguilar lamented that the “tuwid na daan” (straight path) that the Aquino administration promised to take “is full of potholes.”
“That straight path is also muddy and divided because of the government’s decision to impose budget cuts in the sectors of education, health and the judiciary,” he said.
Guerrero said Malacañang and the DBM should take the blame if work in some courts was disrupted because of the scant budget that the judiciary had been receiving.
“With the way government officials are holding our budget hostage, they should blame themselves if there would be a work stoppage in some courts,” he said.